Are ‘traditional’ Drawing approaches merely an antidote to the digital world, or are original and authentic drawn responses more important than ever?

This paper will discuss the relevance of Drawing and Drawing education today, through examining our complex relationship to notions of originality and authenticity, in the context of the volume and velocity by which we experience digital imagery in contemporary western culture. We increasingly record and communicate our lived experience through multiple digital means, disseminated with speed and ease through the global and virtual networks we participate in daily. It seems important to extend the critique introduced by Altermodernism (2009), of how artists operate within the numerous realities of this globalised culture, to look specifically at our relationship to images and image making, in order to contexualise and understand the currency of Drawing today. In a 2010 ICA debate , Mark Lecky suggests that Artists no longer need to generate new and original imagery. Instead they can ‘be led to’ visualise and communicate their ideas through appropriating from multiple sources at the touch of a button, attributed to his somewhat perverse notion of ‘letting culture use you as an instrument’. Characteristics of the ‘traditional’ drawing process, prioritise an original and autographic response to the world through time spent in focused, uninterrupted and unmediated concentration. Do these values seek to simply provide a creative antidote to the cognitive and behavioral conditioning of the multi- faceted contemporary world which Lecky refers to? Or, on the contrary, is Drawing central to an idea that the Artists’ role in generating original imagery is now more important than ever, within the increasing stream of appropriated and homogenised imagery we experience digitally? Crucial to the discussion in this paper will be the extension of ideas presented by Margarita Gluzberg in Digital Draw (2016), in which she suggests the need for a re-evaluation of the way we discuss and define terms such as ‘traditional’ and ‘contemporary’, ‘digital and analogue’ in our understanding of the complexity, plurality and fluidity of drawing practice today. Paper presented at The Association of Art Historians 2017 Annual Conference & Book Fair, Loughborough University 6-8 April, 201

‘Lancashire accents, Lancashire goods and Lancashire girls’: Localism and the image of the cotton industry in the interwar period

The production of cotton in Lancashire formed an important part of Lancastrian identity, given the dominance of the industry in that area of the North. However, the decline of the industry during the early twentieth century, particularly during the inter-war period, saw the need to promote the industry to the nation. This article will examine how the image of the cotton industry was projected to a wider audience and, in so doing, sought to challenge long-held assumptions of the North. This will include highlighting the role of civic pride, pageantry, and the election of Cotton Queens, which ultimately showed how the sense of place and pride in the cotton industry was a central facet of living through industrial decline

Community, Class, and Identity: An Analysis of The Harle Syke Strike, 1915

This article analyses the Harle Syke strike, 1915. Although the incident was understood to be significant by contemporary observers, the strike has been overlooked when examining tensions between trade unionism, class, and local autonomy in Lancashire at the time of the Great War. Using a combination of cotton industry records and newspaper archives, the article examines the relationship between Harle Syke and the rest of Lancashire, with specific focus on the local rivalry between the village and its closest neighbour, Burnley. It provides a narrative of the strike, as well as analysis of the dynamics of the relationship between trade unionism and the village. It also examines local community input into industry, local protectionism, and responses to county-wide standardisation and centralisation

Cotton and the Community: Exploring Changing Concepts of Identity and Community on Lancashire’s Cotton Frontier, c.1890-1950

This thesis explores the evolution of identity and community within north east Lancashire during a period when the area gained regional and national prominence through its involvement in the cotton industry. It examines how the overarching shared culture of the area could evolve under altering economic conditions, and how expressions of identity fluctuated through the cotton industry’s peak and decline. In effect, it explores how local populations could shape and be shaped by the cotton industry. By focusing on a compact area with diverse settlements, this thesis contributes to the wider understanding of what it was to live in an area dominated by a single industry. The complex legacy that the cotton industry’s decline has had is explored through a range of settlement types, from large town to small village. A key focus is therefore on the role of the locality in ordinary life. By utilizing a case study approach to highlight how conceptions of community and identity varied, this thesis draws together empirical sources with the voices of the people involved, bridging the gap between academic and local histories. It shifts the focus of many previous studies from economic and technical aspects of the cotton industry to one on the communities it dominated. It gives context to the role of the mill within people’s lives, allowing for the distinctive story of certain sites to be studied within the context of the wider region. The thesis considers how a dynamic industry generated a confidence amongst operatives, and how this manifested itself through the area’s development, both in terms of urbanisation and a blossoming of social and leisure opportunities. It then contrasts these developments with how in a declining industry, the very same people reacted in the face of social upheaval, as settlements actively tried to banish the image of ‘cotton towns’