oPenn Bogswattle

By popular request we are now able to release the recipe for Hermione Spriggs' oPenn Bogswattle Brew...

For every gallon of water, mix in 1.5kg of granulated sugar (dissolved first in some of the water heated in a pan), then add the juice and zest of four lemons, a dollop or so of Yorkshire Honey, and one ounce of powdered ginger. Add one quarter of an ounce of fresh bakers yeast.

This all goes into a clean plastic pressure vessel to keep the fizz in.

Leave it it in a warm place, and its ready in two or three days.

Bottle, adding a drop or two of pine oil per bottle! Best not to use glass bottles, as the ginger beer can become explosive!

Serve with Pensylvanian Blueberries and After Eights...

Still captured from Cassidy McKenna's 'Deep'

Shanon Simpson-Pike - 'Skin and Bones'

Rachel Antill - 'Last Surrender'

Felix Charteris - 'Sleeping with the Queen'

Fran Piddlesden's photography

Detail of 'Solar Mapping' by Suzi Tibbetts

Bird Skeleton found in one of the beautiful old fire places that had ben boarded up for decades.

Enlarged photograph found in one of the No. 24 Chronicle diaries written in 1934

Matthew Graham & Rosanna Hildyard - 'Sleepers'

Charlotte Long 'Unresolved'

Its all over...

We had a fantastic day on saturday, with over 350 visitors through the door, travelling from various locations including Scarborough, Pickering, even High Wycombe! Such visitors included the Penns, the Rowntrees and many now-men who had once known Penn as their home. Stories were shared, ginger beer was drunk and there was a general atmosphere of intrique and nostalgia.

Thanks to all who showed their support by attending or helping out.

Pictures to follow!

12.5 hours 'til opening

Well, we're nearly set and ready to open... looking forward to seeing it all put together, and sharing it with the public....

3 days to go

The team came in in full force on sunday and worked tremendously hard, powered by custard creams, to get the house in a better shape. Our meeting went so well that our to do list actually increased as ideas flowed...! Another couple of days of graft and we'll be open to the public. Hoping to see a good number - we are offering free, home brewed ginger beer to entice the public in...! Due to stewarding problems we can only open for 1 full day, but i will also be offering booked tours the week following... email me on opennhouseyork@googlemail.co.uk...

The 2 week plan...

Well, as curator, i have spent the past week working away in Penn House putting ideas into reality while my student team have a well deserved half term holiday. Tomorrow however i have convinced them to end it one day early and come get involved! It'll be strange to share the house with some real people - only the images of the past and a very grumpy cat (now named Scratch - you can guess why) have been with me in this very hot house during the past few days.

The more time i've spent in Penn the more i feel i understand the house. There is a definite sense of the rooms once having been very much occupied, and that many boys, families and even soldiers, have come and gone. I have also found that this exhibition deserves a lot more time. In just a week i have been inspired for so many new works and projects - and i am only sad that i haven't time to execute them all. Penn is such a fantastic house and deserves to be put to good use. I'm sure i sound like a stuck record, but it would make a fantastic arts centre. I only wish i had the ability and experience to get funding and carry out the transformation required.

But what i can do in the next week is show just a small amount of what can be achieved and what the house can inspire. I know the students will feel the same tomorrow...

1930s Penn House Boys - Authors of 'Chronicle 24'

In the paper already!

http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/localnews/Former-Rowntree-home-will-open.6326879.jp

The Body

WE ARE ALL MEMBERS OF THE SAME BODY. That is the motto Penn House once belonged to. Now the severed limb of Bootham School stands alone as its own body. An entity of art. The theme behind the oPenn House exhibition is of the house being like a body, an idea that is common in African Tribes, and one we have adopted. As you enter and move around the beautiful space, the parts and organs will be represented by the themes of art within each room. Some may be obvious, some a little less so, but art is all about interpretation - there is no right or wrong answer.

Update

We had a great meeting today, and really cracked on with our ideas about the exhibition/event. We want to present to you the house... as it is, as it was and what it stands to mean.
Tomorrow we are allowing a photographer into our home - who will use the location for a shoot - utilising the character filled basement. The empty cellars will be filled with models: a taster for what is to come. I wonder how the house will feel about the impending invasion...? More to follow on the results...

Stories of Penn

I've just been able to chat to a few old scholars, who lived in Penn House during their youth: fascinating stories of midnight escapes, scaling the wall, or climbing out the window; regaining consciousness after a football accident when Penn was a sickbay; a gas leak caused by the head of art pinning a poster up into on of the 2 gas pipe systems; smashed windows and raucous firework parties... so many boys and families have both lived or worked in the house. Many have told me of the cold and damp; a lack of heating and York's rain seeping through the walls....
Penn contains an extraordinary amount of history and, as it is now, these memories and feelings seep out into the empty rooms, settling into the old carpet, the cracks and the abandoned wardrobes.

First Impressions....

Its a lot emptier than I imagined it would be . The rooms are stripped of bunk beds and cupboards, so the only things left to show it used to be a boarding house is the blue/yellow paint, old notices and old printed curtains covering up the cracked window pane . Under the floorboards diaries were hidden by schoolboys reporting tricks and teases they played in their school masters . And even today some of my classmates remember sleeping there and playing pranks on Mr. Rankin . The times change but the memories are still the same .

Welcome to the oPenn House Blog

oPenn House (please forgive us the pun- it was just far too tempting) is a youth led exhibition in one of Yorks finest houses.

This blog will act as a record of our progress and a chance to preview work in advance of the one-day-only exhibition of Bootham art, to be held in Penn House on 12th June 2010

More to follow...!