{"id":1101,"date":"2012-11-07T00:42:57","date_gmt":"2012-11-06T23:42:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?p=1101"},"modified":"2012-11-07T09:22:28","modified_gmt":"2012-11-07T08:22:28","slug":"the-colony-the-librarian-the-blogger-and-the-tweeter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?p=1101","title":{"rendered":"Colonies, Librarians, Bloggers and Tweeters"},"content":{"rendered":"

This evening I attended a fascinating talk given by our local history society on a local colony of artists<\/a> who lived in Cranbrook, Kent, England in the 19th Century. \u00a0Their art can now fetch well over \u00a3100,000 a piece. \u00a0Below is one of the typical paintings – that could number an estimated 1,500 – though only 300 have been catalogued by the local historian giving the talk.<\/p>\n

What was interesting is that so little is known about the colony locally – and that many paintings were bought by industrial entrepreneurs from the Midlands and North of England. \u00a0It is only because of the interest of a few local folk that some of the pieces have found their way back to the local museum and local collections.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Naughty Boy by George Bernard O’Neill<\/span><\/p>\n

The reason I was there was that local history society recently asked me to design a simple, low-cost website\u00a0for them. \u00a0The chairman, secretary and other committee members are now adding content to the site – and it was from a discussion with the archivist did it suddenly hit me how differently people think about putting information onto the web.<\/p>\n

The archivist is an ex-librarian. \u00a0For her, everything can be classified and should be put into order as part of a logical taxonomy. \u00a0Already the categories on the site are developing into several layers. \u00a0She reflected on the fact that, perhaps there were now too many layers for some categories. \u00a0It reminded me of my early days of (IDMS) database programming (before relational databases), when you had to put data into classes and categories. \u00a0I had a simple rule then that more than three layers was too many. \u00a0It still somehow holds true today.<\/p>\n

On describing this blog (where the categories are simply a relational tag that you clump ideas together with), she became nervous. \u00a0The way that her librarian-mind worked was that each book, each chapter, each page, each idea had, somehow to be classified in a single tree. \u00a0The idea that each idea, or article could be classified by several different classes – and that you leave it up to the search engine to work out how to get you there was a difficult one for her to feel good about.<\/p>\n

It was a similar lack of familiarity or unease that I have, perhaps, with those who Tweet. \u00a0Sure, I tweet a bit. \u00a0Occasionally. \u00a0Once every so often. \u00a0When I am feeling I have a gap, or when I have a slot at the conference when I want to broadcast something interesting. \u00a0But I am by no means a regular member of the Twitterati. \u00a0Tweeting somehow gets in the way of the flow of life. \u00a0You become an observer or a journalist rather than living in the moment. \u00a0I respect those who tweet regularly – but, for me, it is too high a frequency to engage in all the time. \u00a0I suppose others will leave an historically-interesting pheromone path of phrases and words for others to analyse in the future. \u00a0Like writing a daily journal. \u00a0But that life is not for me. \u00a0I prefer blogging one a week (or once every six weeks when I am busy – as has been the case recently).<\/p>\n

And so it is was with the Victorian artists in the Cranbrook colony. \u00a0They left no diaries. \u00a0No documentation of their progress. \u00a0They lived and worked and played and painted in the moment – by all accounts to make a living first and then to enjoy life. \u00a0Some were richer than others – but all of them exhibited at the Royal Academy year-after-year and were successful in their own ways. \u00a0Yet now, 150 years on, we know very little about them.<\/p>\n

At the end of the talk, someone reflected that the mid 19th century countryside existence in rural Kent perhaps harked-back to the pre-industrial, less smoky, less satanic mills existence of England that had been lost in the North to the industrial revolution – which is why so many of the paintings went North. \u00a0Who knows. \u00a0There are no tweets, no blogs, no journals or otherwise to confirm or deny such theories.<\/p>\n

Just the paintings themselves – which hold a fascinating set of visual cascading stories, moral values and pure artistry that are contained in the outputs from this unique colony of artists that lived so close to where I now live. \u00a0Art for Art sake, Money for Godsake. \u00a010cc (now on a brilliant tour of the UK) said it all. \u00a0It was the same then as it is now!<\/p>\n

Funny about the word colony. \u00a0It is what they called the far-flung corners of the British Empire. \u00a0As well as being the collective noun for a load of bees! \u00a0There you go! \u00a0The bees don’t tweet either. \u00a0They buzz. \u00a0A bit less now we are going into winter. \u00a0Makes you think!<\/p>\n

Picture from Wikipedia:\u00a0http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cranbrook_Colony<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This evening I attended a fascinating talk given by our local history society on a local colony of artists who lived in Cranbrook, Kent, England in the 19th Century. \u00a0Their art can now fetch well over \u00a3100,000 a piece. \u00a0Below is one of the typical paintings – that could number an estimated 1,500 – though … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Colonies, Librarians, Bloggers and Tweeters”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[69,26,83,52,36,1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DQGK-hL","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":495,"url":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?p=495","url_meta":{"origin":1101,"position":0},"title":"On AV, Bees, the Delphi Method and Other Voting Systems","author":"Lorne Mitchell","date":"03\/05\/2011","format":false,"excerpt":"For those who know me well, they will know I keep bees. Last week I caught the first swarm of the year in a tree in the local town - which was very satisfying. I also have another blog at http:\/\/beelore.com In one of my posts on that blog last\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Ideas"","block_context":{"text":"Big Ideas","link":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?cat=42"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lornemitchell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/Honeybee-Democracy.gif?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1145,"url":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?p=1145","url_meta":{"origin":1101,"position":1},"title":"Beehives and Business Colonies","author":"Lorne Mitchell","date":"05\/12\/2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I took part of the afternoon off yesterday to sort out a friend's beehive. \u00a0He had started keeping bees earlier this year, having been given a new hive by his parents for his birthday. \u00a0After two inspections he called for help for me to take them away. \u00a0The bees had\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Beelore"","block_context":{"text":"Beelore","link":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?cat=99"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lornemitchell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Business-Colony-302.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":589,"url":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?p=589","url_meta":{"origin":1101,"position":2},"title":"Central Banks & Local Currencies","author":"Lorne Mitchell","date":"11\/08\/2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Living in Kent in the UK, I have always been fascinated by local currencies and hop tokens. These were issued by local farmers to the hop pickers who came down from London - and could only be spent in the local village or on local beer (provided by the farmer!).\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Ideas"","block_context":{"text":"Big Ideas","link":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?cat=42"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1675,"url":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?p=1675","url_meta":{"origin":1101,"position":3},"title":"Experiencing Flow and Being in the Zone","author":"Lorne Mitchell","date":"12\/11\/2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The older I become, the clearer I become about one thing. Life is all about flow. \u00a0And the current modern madness that we see in society is mainly due to us being \"out of the flow\" and not \"in the zone\". What do I mean? Last week,\u00a0a friend asked me\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Ideas"","block_context":{"text":"Big Ideas","link":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?cat=42"},"img":{"alt_text":"AdobeStock_58963799 450x600","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lornemitchell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/AdobeStock_58963799-450x600-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1270,"url":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?p=1270","url_meta":{"origin":1101,"position":4},"title":"Holiness or Wholeness?","author":"Lorne Mitchell","date":"06\/06\/2013","format":false,"excerpt":"I got into a discussion with a friend yesterday about religion. \u00a0You know the sort. \u00a0It became a discussion about basic beliefs and ideas about what had happened in the past with facts that neither of us could prove. \u00a0I capitulated, not wanting to tread on ground that was sacred\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Architecture"","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?cat=35"},"img":{"alt_text":"holiness-title-slide","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lornemitchell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/holiness-title-slide-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":190,"url":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?p=190","url_meta":{"origin":1101,"position":5},"title":"The “S” Factor","author":"Lorne Mitchell","date":"11\/09\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Here is the \"warm-up\" speech I gave at the Next Gen Roadshow in Edinburgh earlier this week. 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