Boroughbridge High School

On Monday 22nd September Patrick Wildgust, Curator of Shandy Hall and Lucy Shortis who works as an assistant to Tom Phillips, went to Boroughbridge School to meet the Year 12 and 13 students involved in this project, and to talk to them about the exhibition. Lucy bought some slides of Tom Phillips studio to show the environment and the processes by which works in the exhibition had been made. Boroughbridge High School produced some more interesting pages, including Poppy Hanson's elegant work above. These are now on display in the exhibition alongside the work from other schools. A second group of pages from Boroughbridge High will be added here at the blog next week.



Michelle Towler


















Jessica Holby
















Anon


















Joanne Abbot

















Angela Walker

















Jenny Harland

Easingwold School

More pages arrived from Easingwold School on Friday evening. It seemed that a few of the students had looked very closely at A Humument and were working with motifs seen in the book. Other approaches were in evidence too. Christopher Palmer's ship is sailing right out of the page, and although its sails could suggest open books, there is no isolated text at all. Jess Luck and Chris Price each presented two, quite different pages. Francesca Inchboard's jigsaw page (above) is original and accomplished.




Sarah Fleming
















Chris Price

















Christopher Palmer

















Jess Luck

















Abbi Burnett

















Jess Luck

















Sarah Burgin

















Chris Price

















Abbi Pulleyn

















Amy Charlton

Fulford School

The next pages arrived from Fulford School. These were remarkably diverse. Several pages were close in style to Tom Phillips's early Humument treatments, there were others with a very good illustrative quality, some abstract painting and some sharp graphics. We did like the worm coming out the skull in this work by Harriet Amesbury which appeared to be influenced by Mexican Day of the Dead iconography.
Please tell us the missing names.

Mat Dawson


















J. Holmes

















Emily Denison
















Rosie O


















Anon

















Jonny Craven

















Amber Kay

















Becky Reid

















Lizzie C


















Will E
















Jess Murray

















Natalie Clarke

















Anon

Upton Hall School

Last Wednesday we were excited to receive the first packet of student pages, from Upton Hall School in Birkenhead. This was a groundbreaking moment in the history of A Humument as a new medium was introduced. All nine pupils had taken a needle and thread to their pages and embroidered them, one approach that Tom Phillips has yet to try. Quite a few of the pages took a romantic theme, not out of keeping with the text that appears on page 62, and there was also imaginative use of textural components making some pages three dimensional. Ruth Sherlock worked with the theme of the Library at Elsinore in her Hamlet page and Catherine Almond was thinking about Les Miserables in her page about flowers. Laura Heatlie's Paris page was an elegant composition and Rachel O Donnell's page about woodland at night, atmospheric. Siobhan Dunn's More Matter stood out, managing to achieve two different three dimensional spaces within one flat page!
All of the work was named except Hunting Scenes above, please leave a comment to tell us who you are.


Francesca Sciamarella

















Lynsey Hulbrook

















Catherine Almond

















Laura Heatlie

















Hilary Sparkhall

















Rachel O Donnell

















Ruth Sherlock


















Siobhan Dunn

A Humument page 47

Another recently completed page to inspire pupils at Easingwold School (York), Fulford School (York), Boroughbridge High and Upton Hall School (Birkenhead) who are currently working on their own interpretations of p.62. We hope you will post us comments to let us know how you are getting on.
Page 47 with its repeated stave motif, takes the theme of music and relates to some of the imaginary scores that Tom Phillips has made using collage, painting and pastel. The top section is a collage, the tiny pieces come from illustrated periodicals such as The Boys Own Paper, these illustrations being engravings rather than photographs.

A Humument page 131

Another clue about Erne here in the marbled page.

A Humument page 196: St Erne

Here is the new version of page 196. Little is known of St Erne. A quick browse on Google tells us he lends his name to a healthcare centre in Inglewood, California. Perhaps a sharp eyed reader could tell us something about his particular association with Shandy Hall.

New Humument Pages: page 12

As well as Page 62 Tom Phillips has completed five brand new versions of Pages 12, 47, 131 and 196 from A Humument to be shown at Shandy Hall. This one will be made into a print at Coriander Studios using epson scanning and then silkscreens. Tom Phillips works closely with Brad and Don Faine at Coriander who have been making prints for him for many years. You will be able to see the print at the exhibition.
In this image Tom Phillips refers to his We Are The People project. An enormous collection of postcards organised into categories which illustrate all walks of life in Britain in the early part of the 20th century. A sampling of We Are The People has been shown at Shandy Hall and was a major exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in 2004.
This interpretation of Page 12 seems also to hint at Phillips translation and illustrations to Dante's Inferno.

Page 62 part 9

Page 62 is completed with a new section masked by fine vertical stripes and two bands across the page coloured brown, a finishing stroke that somehow draws together all the components of the composition.
Pupils at Easingwold School (York), Fulford School (York), Boroughbridge High and Upton Hall School (Birkenhead) are now working on their own interpretations of p.62. Some of these (if selected) can be viewed on 21 Sept when the exhibition opens. Comments by pupils on the process are welcome.