Journal Entries
Miss Georgiana Houghton
Posted Feb 6, 2003
On October 15th 1999 my mother died very suddenly which escalated a number of events which were not meant to happen so soon.
One major event was the decision to sell the family house, which was, by then, unoccupied.
My brother and I struggled through 4 generations worth of stuff to sort it into stuff for the tip/bin, stuff for the charity shops, stuff for car boot sales and stuff to keep. The goal posts have been moved several times since then.
Amongst the 'stuff to keep' was a suitcase full of books (oldest being 18thC) and a paper (homemade) portfolio containing some paintings I recognised from childhood. They caught my imagination then and I remember asking about them but no one gave me an explanation of what they were or why they were there. They were probably put away with haste as was everything the 'adults' had no words to explain to young minds. Just as my great-aunts were said to be suffering from a 'bad leg' and died from the same when I know now they died of cancer. Important to know when you think about it - especially breast cancer in the family for a female descendant.
I digress - I took the paintings home and was troubled about them for a while. In fact there was so much 'bad luck' in my house for the next few months that I blamed it on the paintings - our two beautiful kittens both died violent deaths and other horrible things happened which detracted from anything good at the time. I consulted a white witch who gave good advice to avert the bad luck. She also took in the paintings and pronounced that she could get nothing from them in terms of good or evil, which was reassuring.
So I addressed the situation and set off to research what I had via whatever means available.
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Latest reply: Feb 6, 2003
Sunday
Posted Feb 2, 2003
It's cold and I feel the usual depression surrounding the fact.
Stayed in bed until after 11 for no reason at all. Feeling guilty at the fact that someone has shoved the Parish Newsletter through the letterbox while I've been wallowing in my pit and made the dogs bark - well, they do that anyway whatever comes through the door.
Phone 1572 tells me that ex-husband and father of sprog has phoned this morning. Doubly depressed now.
Who on Earth would want to be middle-aged, a single Mum, totally devoid of inspiration regarding job, lunch etc. in England when it's snowing?
Flattened.
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Latest reply: Feb 2, 2003
Researcher 213714
Posted Jan 3, 2003
Well that's me.
I've joined this vast enterprise in the hope that someone else, immediate family members excluded, has an interest in the subject which has been occupying my spare time for months.
It all began with an inheritance last year. I came across an abstract painting which I had last seen as a small child (close on 50 years ago). It spooked me at first but, on doing a bit of research, I began to understand it and was hooked on the project of finding out as much as possible.
Sadly, I became disillusioned by the BBCi website on antiques. I posted two messages there asking the experts if they knew an approximate value of the painting. Not a dicky bird in reply!
Don't want to go into too much detail now - have enough to write a thesis - but a brief description follows:
The painting is by the Victorian spiritualist and medium Miss Georgiana Houghton also styled as The Sacred Symbolist. It's an example of automatic painting executed by Archangels through the medium. It's a gouache and a little smaller than A4 size.
In 1871 Miss Houghton's work was exhibited in London. There were 155 paintings, all catalogued and annotated. Mine is there in the catalogue. Some of the paintings later went to Australia for an exhibition there but I don't think mine was one of them. There are 35 of these paintings still in Melbourne in the church of the Victorian Spiritualists Union.
The maths is easy - I figure that if I were to try and account for the other paintings at that exhibition then I would have to track down 119 of them. Where are they now? Well I guess some of them have been destroyed by now but surely not all of them.
I'd be glad to share what I know if someone else has information about any of the other paintings.
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Latest reply: Jan 3, 2003
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Researcher U213714
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