down in the wet room

   It's been strangely exhausting, spending every day in a museum. (Well, every day except last Sunday, when I took a bus to New York to visit the Morbid Anatomy library in Brooklyn, having met its curator at various events in London and Dresden. Its a small world.)

    On Monday I met the curator Anna Dhody, a forensic anthropologist of some reknown. She introduced me to the bone room and the wet room, with which I was immediately entranced. Better yet, she lent me her lab coat, which was embroidered with the words 'Mutter Museum' in red, and I was childishly excited - even more than when I first arrived and couldn't stop grinning!

    Thus began a long week - arriving an hour before the museum opened in order to do some drawing in the body of the museum, before either going behind the scenes into the wet room or up the stairs to the library. This was much eased by the move from the hostel (20 blocks away) to a one-room apartment just ten minutes walk from the museum. Not only am I closer - and much less distracted, the business district being less crowded with bars, cafes, bookshops and galleries than the old city! - but I can spend the evenings writing up my notes or touching up my drawings in the quiet and solitude of this 'room of one's own'. 

    Over the course of the week, despite the many fascinating books that I was browsing through, the lure of the wet room began to take precedence. I the end I was, while in the library, jotting notes and, where relevant, isbn numbers for future reference - or looking up books in the Wellcome library catalogue so I could look them up when back in the UK - as I realised that I was not getting any serious writing done in my eagerness to carry on drawing.

    This divided attention between writing and drawing is not as distracting as it sounds: often while in the library I would come across a reference which made me look anew at some object or specimen in the museum, with my practice in mind. Equally, while in the process of sketching or modelling I would get ideas about how to structure my paper, or what additional research or reading would be beneficial. One part of the brain processes while the other is occupied in some activity, and everything feeds in to the overall 'big picture'. 

    This week I was lucky enough to see some of the historic medical books from the libraries collection - laid out for the benefit of one of the visiting trustees, and my good luck to be there! Wonderful to see, smell and even touch these rare examples of medical incunabula - one of three copies of Vesalius's De Humani Corporis Fabrica that the library owns, as well as a tome by Morgagni -De Sedibus et Causis Morborum - inscribed and donated in 1761 to John Morgan, one of the founders of the library - indeed instrumental in setting up the first medical school in America. I have heard, on this trip, many Americans eulogise the wealth of history we are surrounded by in the UK, and how young their nation is, but this just isn't the case: and furthermore, they are much more interested and inspired by their historical artifacts, something which I feel we may rather take for granted. 

   I was also this week taken to lunch by the director, Dr Robert Hicks - a fascinating man with a number of interests and a great deal of enthusiasm for many things. He has introduced me to some little-noticed artifacts in the museum's collection, such as one of Pierre Curie's original piezoelectical machines, which was apparently on display for some 80 years before anyone thought to run a geiger counter over it (it has now been de-radiated!) and shown me a number of books from his personal collection - a Mark Dion, a graphic novel about the life of Marie Curie - and given me a copy of the Mutter Museum book. He seems not to be concerned that my research proposal has changed from when I first applied. Everyone here has, in fact, been so supportive and helpful that I worry about not living up to the terms of my residency.

    Well - tomorrow I forgo the museum to visit the enormous Philadelphia Museum of Art, which is hosting a Chagall exhibition as well as housing Duchamps' original large glass, among other wonders - and then just three more short days in the museum.

images of some of the work I have made during this residency can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/deepgreenart/sets/72157626883758858/with/5821462927/