I do realise there’s been a bit of a gap in postings lately, mainly because behind the scenes remarkable progress has been taking place! Look out for updates over the next couple of days...

Lets begin with my follow up meeting with Colin Johnston on the 25^th February at Bath Record office-A very exciting and influential day! His usual through, reliable and efficient self Colin had managed to source archives in relation to all the ideas discussed and noted in my previous visit and had a whole body of archive sources ready for me to consult.

Whilst written sources included coroner’s reports, court records, settlement examinations, pauper apprenticeships and admission records for Bath general hospital (built in 1742 to serve the pauper population) and utilzing the spa waters to ‘cure’ patients. Visual sources included architectural drawings, maps and illustrations depicting and often caricaturing Baths spa culture. 

Other sources included will’s, diaries; letters and Bath chronicle newspaper extracts advertising somewhat peculiar public entertainments and medicinal pills to the public.

As you can imagine going through these sources with Colin and selecting aspects to both photocopy and photograph was a fairly lengthy but hugely influential task.  This means I am already in a position to start thinking about which archives would suit certain artists based on their interests/practice and the range of subjects ‘Out Of The Archive’ has the potential to engage with.