I spent the day yesterday talking to people, which was extremely helpful. My morning started off with talking to Rachel, my mentor from the creative skills boot camp. We discussed a lot, partly my MA work and partly my work situation. The talk of globemaking came up a lot. I showed her my doodle map, which she liked. Rachel gave me the contact details for Andy Millard, who has spent over 25 years at sea veterans outreach support in Portsmouth. I have emailed Andy to arange a meeting. He is also involved in the Royal Maritime Hotel, once a hostel for land leave sailors who had nowhere to go. There is a possibility of using this as a venue for my final work.
In the afternoon, I met with Alex Counsell from Portsmouth University CCIXI; again, we had an interesting conversation. Ultimately, I can not access the facilities as a non-Portsmouth student. Alex had some very good advice for analogue exhibition design, and pointed me in the direction of an organisation called Play Office, where there may be the potential to collaborate. He also reiterated what Ben had said in the Webinar a couple of days ago, about designing with tools that you are confident and comfortable with. The telling of the story is more important than special effects. So true!
In the evening, I had a tutorial with Ben, which was helpful in me looking at the design aspect of superstitions of the sea. We spoke about tattoos and maps, and my thoughts again returned to making a globe. We also had a look at my research question and decided a rewrite would be a good idea.
Following this, I had a good chat with Briony in the peer chat, which pulled everything together.
Maps and Monsters
BLAEWs world atlas 1645, contains some creatures of questionable origin
A lot of old maps have depictions of sea monsters, these illustrations date back to the time of global exploration and a curiosity of the unknown. The mapping of the world was started at a time when superstitions on the sea would have been paramount. Sailing into the unknown was dangerous with no guarantee of a safe return. Very early examples of globes and maps do not show the Americas, e.g. Waldseemuler, and Behaim, but they do have imagery of superstitious creatures.
Sea Distance Calculator | BednBlue ✅
The Totally Jinxed Map of Global Superstitions – Atlas Obscura
I have been thinking more about the design involved in superstitions at sea, and the imagery on tattoo and maps. The symbolism associated with tattoos is interesting and I have decided to continue with the map. I aim to combine the symbolism of the tattoos, with a map or globe. I have plotted the distance of 5000 miles from Portsmouth on the map above. It was good to discover my swift (the tattoo associated with traveling 5000 miles) was not far off the 5000 miles mark.
Pondering nautical tattoos got me thinking about my great uncle Jim (James Arthur). Jim died in the 80’s when I was quite small. My lasting memory of Jim is an anchor tattoo on his forearm, this tattoo had been from his days in both the Royal and merchant Navy. The tattoo was blue and quite ugly and I didn’t like the look of it as a small child. Searching through the photos I couldn’t find any pictures of his arms, yet the blurred blue tattoo image is engrained in my mind.