The Intercom Trust, Heritage project presents;
Painting in the Picture
A hands-on, free, workshop for, lesbian, gay, bisexual
and transgender communities, their families and friends.
Saturday 29 September ExeterSaturday 20 October Taunton
10 A.M. – 4 P.M.
Everyday across the SW Peninsula people are working to conserve and celebrate the stories, places and events of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people that shaped our communities.
The intercom trust can advise groups, organisations and individuals on identifying, protecting and promoting cultural lgbt heritage.
The fact that so little has been conserved is testament to the invisibility of an otherwise rich, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender heritage.
LGBT Heritage brings unparalleled passion and dedication to finding solutions, to discovering and conservation of our ‘uncloseted rarities’. Cultural LGBT Heritage resources will inspire current and future generations.
So don’t miss out!
Visit our website at: http://www.intercomtrust.org.uk
Sarah Stephenson
Heritage Project coordinator
The Intercom Trust
Phone (01392) 678743
sarah@intercomtrust.org.uk
Thursday, 20 September 2007
Thursday, 6 September 2007
Archive: LGB/T Web pages
Ok! so there you are, you have spent years getting a web site together. What happens if it all goes, or you make changes?
Information is lost.
For lesbian, gay, bi and trans people the web is first point of contact. It offers news advice, guidance, dating, volunteer opportunities, forums, so on and so on, BUT has it always?
When was the first gay web site, the first lesbian web site. When did you first launch your web site and how much has it changed?
It is time to think about archiving web sites.
I know there are hundreds, thousands even, of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender web sites here and across the world.
Who is recording and archiving them all?
Try out this site and see just what a nightmare web site archiving is!
OK so how on earth do we archive a web site.
This is the sort of thing that archivist's across the country are having nightmares about.
Two options Print it off, page by page on good quality paper, using good quality ink...........................................or................................................but what about links?
Putting it on a CD ROM or a DVD.
There is a problem with Cd's and DVDs. technology is changing so fast and in so many directions.
Consider when computers where simple machines/basic games consoles, computers would not have been able to read the information on a CD or DVD.
The floppy disk drive has become a recordable medium which is now becoming increasingly hard to open and read.
So what does that leave us with ?
Print the whole lot
There is nothing wrong with putting your wed sites pages on a disc, such as CD or DVD, however do try to print off the most important pages and you wont go far wrong.
You may like to think about archiving on a national archive site. Let me know if you should find a UK based web archive.
Happy archiving!
Wednesday, 5 September 2007
Archiving Photographs lesbian, gay, bisexul and trangender
Archiving and caring for your photographs.
How many photo's have you got in a box under the bed? have you ever thought that they might be of interest to someone who is researching a subject, culture, people or event?
No! well now is the time.
So what might you have?
There is the general photograph and negative.
Polaroids
Slides
And that old dusty black and white from before the digital age.
All of these photos are worth conceiving. Over time they will show a significant heritage both for you and your family and for wider communities.
So what do we do to help them last the tests of time?
Photographs, negatives and slides all want to be kept in cool dark places with good ventilation.
Is the attic or the cellar a good place?
No not really. If it is the best you can do then just keep them from the walls and areas where damp could reach them.
A room that doesn't get to hot or cold away from walls which can become damp etc.
Always always whenever you are doing anything in the line of archiving, WASH YOUR HANDS!
Avoid wherever possible using anything other than soft pencils on your photos.
Avoid at all times photo albums that have sticky surfaces.
Try to avoid cellotape, staples, paper clips or rubber bands.
If you are going to use a photograph try if you can to photocopy it. It preserves the original and allows you to make mistakes which will not damage the originals.
Enjoy your pix and let me know what you have in a shoe box. Photo's of gay prides maybe, first girlfriend or picture of a women's room?
Friday, 31 August 2007
Archives of paper based material: Lesbian and Gay memoribilia
Well Archivists here's a basic how too and how not too.
I will look at different types of material over the coming five days.
Today it is Paper!
First Rule of acrhiving paper based material:
Check there condition.
Keep them out of the light, heat or extreme cold.
Keep in acid free folders.
Do not attempt to repair damages. ( seek the advice of an experienced archivist).
Paper based archives;
Do keep everything you have ever written, diaries, poems, letters you never sent, letters people have sent you. Flyer's, posters, organisational documents all of it.
Even think about keeping that napkin you scribbled on!
Now once you have all this paper based information don't go touching it all over with sticky hands. WASH THEM.
Oh! and when you are looking at letters you have DON'T throw the envelope away. it is dated and will hold a record of where it was sent and too who and when (most important). Unfold any letters you have and keep them flat. If you are really keen that they last then pop them into acid free folders.
If you have a heap of newspaper cuttings. Best thing you can do is photocopy them on too acid free paper. News papers will be a disaster after a short period of time. Cheap paper will not last long.
Local newsletters, women's centre newsletters, gay and lesbian locally produced lewsletters are all well worth preserving.
If you are holding paper together, use brass paper clips, they are better than Staples.
First Rule of acrhiving paper based material:
Check there condition.
Keep them out of the light, heat or extreme cold.
Keep in acid free folders.
Do not attempt to repair damages. ( seek the advice of an experienced archivist).
Paper based archives;
Do keep everything you have ever written, diaries, poems, letters you never sent, letters people have sent you. Flyer's, posters, organisational documents all of it.
Even think about keeping that napkin you scribbled on!
Now once you have all this paper based information don't go touching it all over with sticky hands. WASH THEM.
Oh! and when you are looking at letters you have DON'T throw the envelope away. it is dated and will hold a record of where it was sent and too who and when (most important). Unfold any letters you have and keep them flat. If you are really keen that they last then pop them into acid free folders.
If you have a heap of newspaper cuttings. Best thing you can do is photocopy them on too acid free paper. News papers will be a disaster after a short period of time. Cheap paper will not last long.
Local newsletters, women's centre newsletters, gay and lesbian locally produced lewsletters are all well worth preserving.
If you are holding paper together, use brass paper clips, they are better than Staples.
Wednesday, 29 August 2007
Don we now are Gay Apparel
Rainbow bags, badges. laces, tops and dresses. I have seen them all today walking down the high street in Exeter.
Have you ever felt like going up to the person you see with a rainbow t'shirt on and asking.....do you know the heritage of those colours.....do you have any idea what the importance of those six colours are? No!
Back to the Rainbow.
The original gay-pride flag was hand-dyed by Baker. It flew in the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade on June 25, 1978. (However, it was by no means the first time that spectrum or rainbow colors had been associated with gay and lesbian peoples.) The flag consisted of eight stripes; Baker assigned specific meaning to each of the colours as follows:
hot pink - sexuality
red - life
orange - healing
yellow - sunlight
green - nature
turquoise - magic
blue - serenity
violet - spirit
Today many LGBT individuals and supporters of gay rights often put rainbow flags in the front of their yards and/or front doors, or use rainbow bumper stickers on their vehicles to use as an outward symbol of their homosexuality or support.
I have friends who live at 'Rainbows end', friends with rainbow flags flying off the top of their house, friends with rainbow tatoos and others who blow their rainbow laced whistle once a year in support of pride days.
We have so much more to say about the rainbow flag.
Civil partnership leaflets with rainbow flags in registra's offices.
On the windows of hotels and bed and breakfasts.
Replaced weekly on age concern windows (who is the person who removes them every week?)
In flourist windows
On the spine of books.
Rainbow luggage straps, rainbow hair slides, rainbow teedy bears, rainbow phone covers, rainbow jewellery, rainbow pens and paper..................
This symbol has travelled across the world, it has been a method of knowing a place or person is likely to be accepting and safe.
It is also a fashion item.
Our gay apparel.
Have you ever felt like going up to the person you see with a rainbow t'shirt on and asking.....do you know the heritage of those colours.....do you have any idea what the importance of those six colours are? No!
Back to the Rainbow.
The original gay-pride flag was hand-dyed by Baker. It flew in the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade on June 25, 1978. (However, it was by no means the first time that spectrum or rainbow colors had been associated with gay and lesbian peoples.) The flag consisted of eight stripes; Baker assigned specific meaning to each of the colours as follows:
hot pink - sexuality
red - life
orange - healing
yellow - sunlight
green - nature
turquoise - magic
blue - serenity
violet - spirit
Today many LGBT individuals and supporters of gay rights often put rainbow flags in the front of their yards and/or front doors, or use rainbow bumper stickers on their vehicles to use as an outward symbol of their homosexuality or support.
I have friends who live at 'Rainbows end', friends with rainbow flags flying off the top of their house, friends with rainbow tatoos and others who blow their rainbow laced whistle once a year in support of pride days.
We have so much more to say about the rainbow flag.
Civil partnership leaflets with rainbow flags in registra's offices.
On the windows of hotels and bed and breakfasts.
Replaced weekly on age concern windows (who is the person who removes them every week?)
In flourist windows
On the spine of books.
Rainbow luggage straps, rainbow hair slides, rainbow teedy bears, rainbow phone covers, rainbow jewellery, rainbow pens and paper..................
This symbol has travelled across the world, it has been a method of knowing a place or person is likely to be accepting and safe.
It is also a fashion item.
Our gay apparel.
Lesbian people; History
According to Julienne Bourge, the historian from Gaul (as written in Monique Wittig's Book Lesbian Peoples), " the lesbian peoples who began our history - if this history had a beginning - were gathering fruit from trees, hunting, raising their infants together and moving in small groups all over the earth, which at the time was a garden. they were called the amazons and they created harmony on earth.
Harmony was easy as their world was gentle and good to live in. Work, suffering, death did not yet exist in the garden. They loved one another, it is said it was a Golden Age.
One day an amazon thought of building a place to return to or everyone to live in. This was a good enough idea and the start of cities.
some amazons carried on walking and traveling, enjoying the diversity of places they wandered through. they did not want to settle. They said that an established amazon was no longer free. Others constructed larger and larger cities without defensive ramparts.
" in the beginning of this new state of things all went well. Wanderers stopped from time to time in large and small cities to greet amazons who lived there. They brought news. They served as a connection between cities as much as they could."
Slowly the city amazons changed and didn't want to leave the cities. They stopped taking part in violent physical activity.
The wanderers became less welcome. They city dwellers became less interested in other city news they had their own problems. Retreating behind their walls they were struck by wonder at the physiological processes, childbearing. they stopped calling themselves amazons and called themselves Mothers. They developed a 'new' culture in which they became fascinated by myths and germination and earth and trees. Mothers began to make representations of themselves in mud and stone or on flat surfaces with pigments and colour.
This brought about the procession of pregnant goddesses that history has know.
representations of the mothers were fascinating to the people and they made many many more.
Although the amazons at times became pregnant they did not want to go along with the mothers. At that time they were banned from the cities. At that time the most contemptuous term used to describe someone in the cities was amazon. They were considered those who did not have children.
The amazons began their wars.
The mothers became goddesses who demanded sacrifice.
Confined to the cities mothers were no longer free, complete individuals. They merged into a collective with collective ideas and aspirations.
The unhappy situation between amazons and mothers ended The Golden Age.
The Silver Age that followed had its happy times. Mothers threw great celebrations on festive occasion.
The amazons banned from the mothers cities built cities of their own.
The garden on earth became less fruitful and the mothers developed ways of turning over the soil and planting crops. The experimented with soil and discovered some soil was good from food, other soil good for baking into pots. The saw that plants could have beneficial effects on health and well being. They discovered that some plants could be spun and learned to make different items with this thread. They perfected the raising of silk worms, they chose hair and wool instead of animal skins for clothes. They decorated their homes with carpets and blankets and tapestries. The mothers domesticated animals for food and milk after watching ants milking greenfly in order to collect their nectar.
The amazons during The Silver Age passed through great areas, they also built empires. Being huntresses and riders they kept their weapons and became the violent ones. They did not plant or domesticate cattle, they domesticated mares instead. Forging was important to them for weapons, fabricating bricks from clay for their preposses. They mainly used animal skins and leather for clothing and decorating their homes. They carried on making music and invented numerous instruments. they ate their food raw and slept when they wanted in the open or under tents.
The amazons were good at attack, they developed many weapons, bow and arrow, spear, double axe, shield. They made instruments from leather and wood to fire stones at the walls of their enemy.
During The Silver Age language changed. The amazons who had been a link between mother cities stopped and language became modified. The mothers called this new language 'the slow language'. The amazons uninterested in modification kept their old language of letters and numbers. When communication between the mothers and the amazons started again, it was hard work for both to understand each other.
During the following ages, mother who had not the skill of warfare and less exercised lost on a large scale. The amazons scattered all over and fighting till the death rather than being enslaved by the mothers died out.
" after their total disappearance there is nothing more to add except for the final defeat and enslavement of the mothers which led to the last and chaotic period before The Glorious Age. The courage of the rebels who never bore with much patience the name 'woman' has survived.
Monique Wittig and Sande Zeig: Lesbian people Materials for a dictionary
Harmony was easy as their world was gentle and good to live in. Work, suffering, death did not yet exist in the garden. They loved one another, it is said it was a Golden Age.
One day an amazon thought of building a place to return to or everyone to live in. This was a good enough idea and the start of cities.
some amazons carried on walking and traveling, enjoying the diversity of places they wandered through. they did not want to settle. They said that an established amazon was no longer free. Others constructed larger and larger cities without defensive ramparts.
" in the beginning of this new state of things all went well. Wanderers stopped from time to time in large and small cities to greet amazons who lived there. They brought news. They served as a connection between cities as much as they could."
Slowly the city amazons changed and didn't want to leave the cities. They stopped taking part in violent physical activity.
The wanderers became less welcome. They city dwellers became less interested in other city news they had their own problems. Retreating behind their walls they were struck by wonder at the physiological processes, childbearing. they stopped calling themselves amazons and called themselves Mothers. They developed a 'new' culture in which they became fascinated by myths and germination and earth and trees. Mothers began to make representations of themselves in mud and stone or on flat surfaces with pigments and colour.
This brought about the procession of pregnant goddesses that history has know.
representations of the mothers were fascinating to the people and they made many many more.
Although the amazons at times became pregnant they did not want to go along with the mothers. At that time they were banned from the cities. At that time the most contemptuous term used to describe someone in the cities was amazon. They were considered those who did not have children.
The amazons began their wars.
The mothers became goddesses who demanded sacrifice.
Confined to the cities mothers were no longer free, complete individuals. They merged into a collective with collective ideas and aspirations.
The unhappy situation between amazons and mothers ended The Golden Age.
The Silver Age that followed had its happy times. Mothers threw great celebrations on festive occasion.
The amazons banned from the mothers cities built cities of their own.
The garden on earth became less fruitful and the mothers developed ways of turning over the soil and planting crops. The experimented with soil and discovered some soil was good from food, other soil good for baking into pots. The saw that plants could have beneficial effects on health and well being. They discovered that some plants could be spun and learned to make different items with this thread. They perfected the raising of silk worms, they chose hair and wool instead of animal skins for clothes. They decorated their homes with carpets and blankets and tapestries. The mothers domesticated animals for food and milk after watching ants milking greenfly in order to collect their nectar.
The amazons during The Silver Age passed through great areas, they also built empires. Being huntresses and riders they kept their weapons and became the violent ones. They did not plant or domesticate cattle, they domesticated mares instead. Forging was important to them for weapons, fabricating bricks from clay for their preposses. They mainly used animal skins and leather for clothing and decorating their homes. They carried on making music and invented numerous instruments. they ate their food raw and slept when they wanted in the open or under tents.
The amazons were good at attack, they developed many weapons, bow and arrow, spear, double axe, shield. They made instruments from leather and wood to fire stones at the walls of their enemy.
During The Silver Age language changed. The amazons who had been a link between mother cities stopped and language became modified. The mothers called this new language 'the slow language'. The amazons uninterested in modification kept their old language of letters and numbers. When communication between the mothers and the amazons started again, it was hard work for both to understand each other.
During the following ages, mother who had not the skill of warfare and less exercised lost on a large scale. The amazons scattered all over and fighting till the death rather than being enslaved by the mothers died out.
" after their total disappearance there is nothing more to add except for the final defeat and enslavement of the mothers which led to the last and chaotic period before The Glorious Age. The courage of the rebels who never bore with much patience the name 'woman' has survived.
Monique Wittig and Sande Zeig: Lesbian people Materials for a dictionary
Friday, 24 August 2007
Lesbians unite and bake!
Food and company.
Dyke's across the county are rustling up a slap up meal for two.
Not Me!!
We lesbians are great cooks and better still we love to eat the last slice of lustful chocolate brownie with that special woman who spent two hours baking it for us.
I'm such a good cook that my children now aged 7 and 12 have appreciation wrapped up.
" Mum that was lovely, nice and well cooked" Yes! well cooked, not burnt!
I have been so busy with work and friends and family and pets I never gave myself time to slow down when it came to the cooker, so everything was cooked in a hurry.
Well things are changing.
I can make (without burning) a wonderful pair of pink wobbly jellies, topped with beautiful red cherries!!
One great local expert of lesbian cooking, now living in sunny India, I still remember, made lovely ginger biscuits shaped like living goddesses.
Food can be so sensuous! We simply can not leave it to the straights. It is up to us to carry the banner of good cooking and share this joy with other lesbians locally.
Return to the kitchen, create wonderful tastes and smells. Then invite your lesbian friends to enjoy a great meal. Or feed your girlfriend and just see how grateful she is.... :-)
Whatever you do this bank holiday, enjoy good company and good food.
Dyke's across the county are rustling up a slap up meal for two.
Not Me!!
We lesbians are great cooks and better still we love to eat the last slice of lustful chocolate brownie with that special woman who spent two hours baking it for us.
I'm such a good cook that my children now aged 7 and 12 have appreciation wrapped up.
" Mum that was lovely, nice and well cooked" Yes! well cooked, not burnt!
I have been so busy with work and friends and family and pets I never gave myself time to slow down when it came to the cooker, so everything was cooked in a hurry.
Well things are changing.
I can make (without burning) a wonderful pair of pink wobbly jellies, topped with beautiful red cherries!!
One great local expert of lesbian cooking, now living in sunny India, I still remember, made lovely ginger biscuits shaped like living goddesses.
Food can be so sensuous! We simply can not leave it to the straights. It is up to us to carry the banner of good cooking and share this joy with other lesbians locally.
Return to the kitchen, create wonderful tastes and smells. Then invite your lesbian friends to enjoy a great meal. Or feed your girlfriend and just see how grateful she is.... :-)
Whatever you do this bank holiday, enjoy good company and good food.
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