I had been very excited and positive about the opportunity to involve multiple people’s perspectives in my work with Moyse’s Hall, and the museum carefully collected used coffee tokens. These proved my work had enticed new visitors to the Museum to see my work and the Museum’s other exhibits, and that my work and the Widow’s Coffee House story had been noticed by a new public. While the coffee pot was installed, I saw many visitors reading its label before posing for photos with it. It was impossible to know how many coffee shops actually gave out tokens to visitors, as the collaboration lasted 7 days, and the shops kept no records.
If I had the chance to re-run the collaboration, I would have been braver and used more publicity. With hindsight, the space available for me to use in the Museum was not large enough for the pieces I made, while the space available in the Great Churchyard was much bigger and visible to many visitors. I should have put more work there.
The grassy area available for my work has bodies buried close beneath its surface. I was forbidden to fix anything to the ground. Anything I put there had to be large and heavy enough to stay put! This meant, with constraints of time and resources I had only made one piece for it, but also had an unexpected outcome for the work.
After the coffee pot had been in place for a couple of days, it vanished. I hunted high and low, but could not find it in the Abbey Gardens, so I reported it lost to the police station nearby (the police said they had been admiring it!) The same day it was found, by the Anglia In Bloom judging party, twisted and scuffed, but intact. Because of the few days left for the installation, I mended it fast, and put it back in place. I could not get hold of the special paint I’d used, or dry plaster fast enough, so silver wire had to do.
I also made a hasty video of it.
This episode really enriched these pieces of work. The Coffee Pot was the victim of some modern day rookery! Its site is still perceived in different ways, like the Widow’s Coffee Shop, and the Rookes women themselves. It is one of the town’s best residential addresses and a site of historical importance for the establishment, and the highlight location for the town’s annual entry to Anglia in Bloom (yes, the Abbey Gardens still won its Anglia In Bloom 2014 Gold award!)
But the site is also a thoroughfare. It is where drunken partygoers take a short cut to a major housing estate, and fool around disreputably. It is also a short cut to the town’s magistrates court and police station, used by criminals awaiting sentence, or answering bail, as well as their victims on their way to give evidence.
Like the women who were tarnished by their association with a coffee house, the installation I made to celebrate them was affected by being on the site of the coffee house today. So I feel it did tap into the layers of narrative I hoped to reach.
