The Goat
Affordable places for artists and circumnavigation an'all
Sorry, sorry, sorry.
Illness and deadline = delinquence.
I’ve been bad at writing on here and I apologise. This week amongst all the gloom and blackness I’ll write about something nice: I’ll tell you about where I work.
For 12 years now, I have rented a small office space at East Street Arts. I moved back to Yorkshire, and to Leeds, in 2011. At first I worked from home, but I like company up to a point. I also like to have a door I can close on that company. After a few months in Leeds I went to an event in an empty office and listened to David Peace and some other folk talk about murder and literature, I think. Somehow I had heard of this organization that provides affordable spaces for artists, and at the event I met Jon, one of the directors and asked him if he’d consider housing a writer. (Most artists they supported at that point were visual artists.) Obviously I’d chosen the right occasion — a literary one — and he said yes. At first I had an office in another empty office building. East Street Arts does lots of things and is a mightily impressive organisation, but the two that are relevant here are that it provides studio spaces in buildings it owns in Leeds: Patrick Studios, Barkston House and Union 105. But it also temporarily takes over empty offices and buildings and turns them into temporary spaces for artists. Financially this is advantageous for the owner because ESA is a charity and I think they get a free ride on corporation tax or something. Here’s a BBC piece on the concept.
I wasn’t massively sold on working on the third floor of Oak house along with a small engineering company; it was pretty soulless. So when a studio became available at Patrick Studios, YES PLEASE. It was the smallest studio in the building, which has several dozen of all sizes, because it houses all sorts of artists. My first studio was in the west wing and on my floor was a sound and visual artist, a painter and illustrator, and some maker-installer types.
I was very happy there and at first kept it minimalist:
But that didn’t last.
Then of course I began the Era of the Desk Treadmill.
I wrote about how I built my treadmill desk here, back in the days of the Guardian’s much-missed running blog.
I loved my little studio space, and I loved being able to go downstairs to the communal kitchen and hang out with sculptors, painters, glass-makers, textile artists. Food, with brain food. But my space was right next to the A64 so a couple of years ago I moved to this one, which is bigger and quieter. Now I’m next door to a textile artist, and above me are two sound artists, but otherwise this wing is really quiet (except for the smack-heads who wander past below my window once a day, yelling). East Street Arts offers me the chance of enough privacy but the ability to be sociable when I want. It’s perfect.
Anyway last night we celebrated 30 years of East Street Arts with a party. There were drinks and decks and samosas and old friends who have worked here or had spaces here. It was both lovely to see them and shocking to realise how long I’ve been here. In the time I’ve been here, ESA has bought Convention House next door, and had not one but two versions of the fabulous Art Hostel, which takes the affordable space concept and applies it to tourism. Pay a reasonable cost and stay in an artist-designed room. Such as the Woolly Ewe by Jesse Wright, a room that honours Leeds heavy woollen background.
With upside-down sheep:
Or the Ocean Galaxy by Mandy Barker, where footballs make up the planets.
Tempted? Book here. And call in for a cuppa with me if you do book. (Note: all bunk-rooms are mixed-sex. I wouldn’t like that but you may be OK with it.)
Animal hero of the week : The Goat
I haven’t been running much as I’ve been ill so I’ve tried to make up for that by walking to and from my studio. I always find it hard to find podcasts that I like, I find so many of them mannered and arch and just trying to be too clever. But currently I’m loving The Rest is History. I didn’t expect to: two posh blokes talking about history wouldn’t normally float my boat. But then I didn’t expect to find myself marching down Chapeltown Road in the rain laughing out loud and looking quite weird because I’ve just heard Tom Holland pretending to be young Napoleon with a truly atrocious Corsican accent. Anyway the first episode that began my Rest is History phase was on Captain James Cook. And thank goodness, both Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook do a serviceable Yorkshire accent. I learned a lot, such as the importance of iron nails, and that Cook’s men shot far too many islanders. And I learned about The Goat.
The Goat was first put to sea on the Dolphin, and travelled around the world with Captain Wallis. This was The Goat in Tahiti in 1767:
In a very few minutes an active bold spirited youth ascended the ship … and many of his companions followed his example. As one of them was standing near the gangway a goat belonging to the ship, gave him a butt upon the breech, which greatly alarmed him : looking round to discover his enemy, he observed the goat standing on its haunches ready for another assault … the poor fellow instantly jumped overboard … and … all the rest soon followed.
On his return, Captain Wallis gave The Goat to Captain James Cook, apparently — according to the podcast — so the crew could have milk in their tea, and the Goat completed her second circumnavigation on the Endeavour. She duly supplied milk for the full three years of the voyage, presumably with the sexual assistance of other goats. (Cook sometimes gave a breeding pair as a gift to people he encountered, but he never gave away The Goat).
When the Endeavour returned safely to Plymouth, The Goat became famous. She was probably more appreciated than Cook and the crew. She was not famous enough that history has recorded her name, though. She was admitted as a pensioner to Greenwich Hospital, a place usually for ill and retired sailors. Which, I suppose, she was. She died in 1772, and Samuel Johnson wrote an indifferent poem about her:
In fame scarce second to the nurse of Jove,
This Goat, who twice the world had traversed round,
Deserving both her master’s care and love,
Ease and perpetual pasture now has found.
No illustrations or paintings remain of The Goat and probably there weren’t any to begin with. Too many great awks and tasmin devils and peculiar fish to capture first. Here’s another goat instead.
