White Sheds

Also at London Art Fair: Joash Woodrow Allotment Trees and White Sheds Oil on board, circa 1980 - 85

Glorious Shed at London Art Fair

Anyone who's taken a river trip along the Spree in Berlin will have seen the wonderful range of sheds along the river bank, structures whose spirit is reflected in the work of Berlin based artist Gabriel Dubois that Edel Assanti has brought to London Art Fair. (Thanks to Andrew Davies for the link.)

200 year old cabin on the move

Painted Sheds

For the last few years on his travels, Shedman has been building a compendium of artworks that include sheds. It adds a flavour to his gallery visits.

Last year, Shedman & son visited Berlin for his son's 18th birthday.

Here's a brief review of some of the pictures featuring sheds in the Gemäldegalerie and the Alte Nationalgalerie.

The Dutch Proverbs by Pieter Brueghal the Elder How many sheds?



Wiederaufbau des Muiderdeiches by Jan Asselijn

Abraham Bloemaert (1564-1651) obviously liked his sheds. There's a landscape in the Gemäldegalerie by Bloemaert featuring St Tobias and an angel with a fine shed in the background. But this picture in the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Parable of the Wheat and the Tares (1624), predates The Wire by several centuries and shows a couple out of it on a corner, although the main interest is surely that fine shed tree house.

And finally Caspar David Friedrich with a Cabin covered in snow.

If you chance upon other images of sheds in pictures online or in galleries please send Shedman a link. And don't forget that Shedman is still compiling the anthology of shed poems - so send your favourites through for inclusion.

RadioShed? Shedman at Daventry Arts Festival 17-21 July

Daventry is a place of roads and crossings: the A5 and A45, Watford Gap and the M45/M1 junction. For Shedman growing up in the Midlands it was somewhere below Coventry, geographically and alphabetically; a place viewed distantly from a rainy car window, but with the curious magic and mystery of those giant transmission masts. On departure Daventry symbolised the wide world, pumping radio signals far and wide. On return, Daventry marked the first outpost of home. Shedman has a long attachment to Daventry, so he's delighted to have been invited to be part of the very first Daventry Arts Festival.

Daventry calling...

Daventry was the original wireless community, globally connected. It's the home of BBC World Service. It was also the site of the first successful experiment with Radio Direction Finding (RDF) or, as the Americans called it, Radio Detection and Ranging, now better known as radar.

Shedman is looking forward to doing some of his own direction finding during his stay in Daventry, conducting one of his inimitable shedquests and exploring not just Daventry itself but also the surrounding area - Wolfhampcote, Nethercote, Newnham, Braunston, Ashby St. Ledgers, Welton, Weedon, Long Buckby, Muscott, the Catesbys and the Everdons. He's looking forward to exploring lots of Littles, Nethers and Uppers.

During his sojourn in Daventry Shedman will be based in his shed at the entrance to New Street Recreation Ground. If you're in the area come on down and and check in at the radio shack. Swap stories with Shedman about your sheds and have a go at writing a poem or a story.


All pictures courtesy of the fascinating website G8GMU 

Indigenous peoples have a word for it...

Shedman will be returning to the States later this month to Dana Point, near San Diego in southern California. He hopes to visit Mission San Capistrano.

According to the Kumeyaay Information Village website, San Diego County has more Native American Indian Reservations than any other county in the US.

Wikipedia points out that in this region, 'the pre-contact Acjachemen built cone-shaped huts made of willow branches covered with brush or mats made of tule leaves. Known as Kiichas (or wikiups), the temporary shelters were utilized for sleeping or as refuge in cases of inclement weather. When a dwelling reached the end of its practical life it was simply burned, and a replacement erected in its place in about a day's time.'

So Wikipedia is Shedpedia!

Photo of Kumeyaay house at the museum in Francisco Zarco, Mexico from Kenneth Brantingan

Previously on the South Bank...

Yesterday's post sent me hunting for other South Bank sheds. In 2007, another group of artistic sheds appeared, overseen by Antony Gormley's figures during 'Blind Light', his first major London exhibition (appropriately sponsored by Eversheds LLP).

 

Described as an 'alternative allotment for the South Bank'.

Beach huts on the South Bank

Shedman feels as though every time he goes to the South Bank someone has put up a shed - and not just for builders. Until September 4 you can enjoy a promenade of pleasure past a variety of artistically decorated pavilions.

The Navajo for shed

You may have thought 'hogan' was a not very nice word for someone from the Netherlands or else the name of a gigantic wrestler. However, a hogan is also 'a North American Indian (esp. Navajo) building usually made of logs and earth, and traditionally built with the door facing east.' (Thank you OED online.)

Shedman saw an example in the flesh - well, wood - on a recent visit to the Heard Museum in Phoenix Arizona.

'This hogan is referred to as a female hogan because it simulates the roundness of the female body of Mother Earth. While most Navajo families do not reside in hogans today, their modern homes almost always include a hogan near the main house. Hogans are used for ceremonies that are still practised by Navajo people including the Kinaaald, a coming of age ceremony for young Navajo woman. Other family members spend quiet time in the hogan as a way to reconnect themselves with Navajo teachings and to remind themselves from where they have come.'    Interpretation panel at the Heard Museum, Phoenix.

Wikipedia tells Shedman that:
The hogan is considered sacred to those who practice the Navajo religion. The religious song "The Blessingway" describes the first hogan as being built by Coyote with help from beavers to be a house for First Man, First Woman, and Talking God. The Beaver People gave Coyote logs and instructions on how to build the first hogan, now known as a "forked stick" or "male" hogan, which resembles a pyramid with five triangular faces. Earth may fill the spaces between the framework logs, hiding the five faceted shape and creating thick, winter-protective walls. The "forked stick" or "male" Hogan contains a vestibule in the front and was used only for sacred or private ceremonies.

Navajo hogan

The "circular" or "female" Hogan , the family home for the Navajo people, is much larger and does not contain a vestibule. In it, the children play, the women cook, weave, talk, and entertain and men tell jokes and stories. Navajos made their hogans in this fashion until the 1900s, when they started to make them in hexagonal and octagonal shapes. The change in shape may have been due to the arrival of the railroad. A supply of wooden cross-ties, which could be laid horizontally to form walls of a larger, taller home, allowed the retention of the "female" hogan shape but with more interior room. The doorways of the hogans always face east.


Many cultural taboos are associated with the hogan and its use. Should a death occur in the structure, the body is either buried in the hogan with the entry sealed to warn others away, or the deceased is extracted through a hole knocked in the north side of the structure and it is abandoned and often burned. A hogan may also become taboo for further use if lightning strikes near the structure or a bear rubs against it. Wood from such structures is never reused for any other purpose by a Navajo.

Navajo hogan - inside

Today, while some older hogans are still used as dwellings and others are maintained for ceremonial purposes, new hogans are rarely intended as family dwellings.

Traditional structured hogan is also considered a pioneer energy efficient home. Using packed mud against the entire wood structure, the home was kept cooled by natural air ventilation and water sprinkled on the dirt ground inside. During the winter, the fireplace kept the inside warm for a long period of time and into the night.

On the Shedge, Mount Etna, Sicily

Shedman is just back from a wonderful holiday in Sicily. Italy may not be that well noted for its sheds but on Mount Etna they certainly come into their own. The landscape is pretty fast changing and the Italians seem to have realised that temporary wooden structures make a whole lot more sense than any attempt to build permanent brick or stone buildings that can be swept away or buried beneath the next lava flow. It gave Shedman pause for thought about the whole idea of the 'shedge' - that curious zone on the edge of everything frequently occupied by sheds. It might be the edge of the world or the hedge bordering the garden, but the shedge is archetypal shed territory.

A History of the World in 100 Sheds: No 3 Edison's Black Maria

In 1893 a small shed was built to film the first Edison movies. It was designed by W. K. L. Dickson, the unsung genius behind many of Edison's inventions and patents. The shed was painted black inside and out and became known as 'The Black Maria' as it resembled the police vehicle of the same name.

The shed revolved on a base to follow the sun and featured sliding roof panels to provide continuous overhead sunlight to illuminate the actors.  It became the world's first film studio in which Dickson was the world’s first film director. 

The original has long since burned down, but a reproduction of the structure is located at the Edison National Historic Site (a museum with a preserved laboratory facility) in West Orange, New Jersey.

Edison’s credo:
Be courageous; try everything until something works; and dedicate yourself to your passion, trusting that 'what you are will show in what you do'.

Behind Edison's achievement lies the remarkable figure of Eadweard Muybridge, the brilliant but eccentric photographer who developed a system of analysing movement in a series of still images. Muybridge's innovative camera shed at Palo Alto, California will feature in a future article in this series

A History of the World in 100 Sheds No 2: Porthcurno Cable Hut

Porthcurno is the location of one of the most beautiful bays in Cornwall and home to the Porthcurno Telegraph Museum.

Although Porthcurno may not be the oldest subterranean cable landing point in the world, it could well be the site with the most connections. At least twenty-one old cables and pieces of abandoned shore ends lie beneath the sands. Fourteen of them once worked simultaneously at one time. The cable hut at the rear of the beach still connects these cables and a modern artwork near the museum presents the eerie sounds of the long defunct communication channels. The hut at Porthcurno has been chosen as it represents all those telegraphic sheds around the world that once played such a part in global communications. If anyone knows of any older please get in touch.

Another hut high on the cliffs above Portcurno was where the transatlantic cable connected to the Cornwall-Brest-Nova Scotia came ashore. The old black hut outlived its usefulness as a cable house and took on a new lease of life as a summer holiday chalet. The National Trust then acquired this stretch of coastline and the hut was demolished. There were cries of protest from local fishermen who had used it to aid navigation. A small white stone pyramid (which is visible in the wide shot of the bay) was then erected to solve the problem.

1870 the Falmouth-Gibralter Cable Company laid the Gibralter-Lisbon cable into Porthcurno - or PK as it became known to telegraph operators around the world. The company started a small school in the valley for the operators. That developed into the Cable and Wireless College and more recently into a museum.

Cable telegraphy was very simple. Messages were sent by hand on a key. At the other end the signals were picked up by the 'mirror galvanometer'. This reflected a flickering spot of light onto a screen next to the corresponding letter at speeds of around twelve words per minute. The 'reader' watched the spot and called out the words one by one, which were written down by the 'writer' in copperplate handwriting. There was no mechanical record. A word missed was missed for ever.

In 1928 The Imperial Wireless and Cable Conference was held in London to resolve conflict between rival cable and wireless operators. Cable & Wireless was the name of the new group of operating companies, which still exists.

In 1970 the last telegraph circuit was closed.

Cable subterfuge...
Zawn is the Cornish word for a narrow gully or cleft in the rocks leading down to the sea.
Zawn Reeth (or Red Zawn) near Land's End has historic significance as the site of the first submarine cable laid in Cornish waters. In October 1869 a small hut was erected at the top of the Zawn and a gang of men struggled to haul a heavy cable up the slope from the steamer Fusilier.   aim was to lay the first operational The 1869 Telegraph Act had set a date by which all private telegraph companies were to be bought out by the government of the day who wanted to create a unified national network. The owners of The Scilly Island Telegraph Company foresaw rich pickings but they had to have a fully operational cable link between the mainland and the islands. However, when the Fusilier arrived at St Mary in Scilly the following year, the cable turned out to be too short to reach the shore. So the Captain simply broke off the cable end and steered into port as though it was still connected.


...and wireless espionage
The success of Marconi's radio transmission across the Atlantic from the Poldhu Wireless Station sent shivers down the spines of the great submarine cable companies. The simplest way of finding out what Marconi was up to was to eavesdrop on his signals. The Eastern Telegraph Company erected a tall wooden mast near Minack and the aerial wire led into a small wooden shed housing the receiving equipment.