Hwyl ei wneud, wrth gwrs, i'w cymryd yn ymweld yma. Yn ymwyaf, mae'n Mark Hallott, ysgolodau ymlaen. Mae'n ddysgu'r ddweud i gael Martin Posterd ac i'n gwybod i'r cymryd yn Rhenolf yn Nôrthgat, yn Trawythin yn Cornwall. Mae'n gwybod i'r cymryd yn Rhenolf yn ymweld i'r cymryd yn Rhenolf yn Nôrthgat ac mae'n Rhenolf yn ymdur i gael, ac mae'n gwybod i'r cymryd ymweld i'r cymryd ymweld i'r cymryd yn yng Nghymru 18th ac yn ystod yn ddod yn ystod yn yr ysgolion bydd yn ymdgolion gynnig Rhennol. Yn ymddych chi'n meddwl, rydych chi'n meddwl i mi, rydyn ni'n gwybod i'n meddwl ar y cyfodol o ddiddordeb yn ymddangos cyllid, a'r ffordd o Rhennol, iddo benderfynu'n meddwl i ymddangos Ar gael dwy'r ystafel i'r Rhennol sy'n gweithio arferwadnau gwahanol mewn gwahol i'r reddydd. Wrth i'r rhino ac yn yw'r hwn, ac yn gallu ddweud i gyfigol yr adnodau cyllidig. Gan rhaid i gael yr Adnod Rhennol, rhaid i'r cyfle i ddwy'r cyffredinol yn ei wneud o'r adnod Rhennol, ac i'r adnod Rhennol yn ei wneud o'r adnod Rhennol i'r adnod Rhennol, called Reynolds and Celebrity, or the Creation of Celebrity, at Tate Britain a number of years ago. That's when we really first got to know each other and it was a great privilege to work with Martin on that project. Since, of course, we've been working together here at the Men and Mellons Centre, we got to know each other very well. Through really a conversation that we had a few years ago, the idea emerged of a project on the display and the collection of art in the British Country House. Martin's been working and leading on that project for the last few years. This particular talk comes out of the research that he's done in that project. What they've done for the Country House project is to look at a whole range of individual houses and to take them as case studies for exploring this whole question of the ways in which art was displayed in the Country House and the ways in which collections were developed in those same environments. It's already generating some really exciting material, new information, new research. The last two weeks we've heard from Peter Kerber and then last week from Chris Ridgway from Castle Houd about these topics in relation to those two other houses. But today we're focusing on Trewithan in Cornwall. It may not be a place that you know so much about, but I'm sure after the next 45 minutes when you've been listening to Martin, you'll know a lot more, not only about the collection there, but about some really fascinating works by Reynolds and Northcote that are part of that collection. So we'll have the talk, I think, might assess for about 45-50 minutes. Then we'll have a chance for some questions after that and discussion after that. Please feel free and encouraged to ask questions and to get a discussion going. That's always what we'd like to have here. Then after that we'll have a chance to carry on our conversations next door in the anti-room over a glass of wine. So can I ask you all to welcome Martin to give this talk on Reynolds and Northcote? Thank you very much Mark for your kind and generous words. It's a pleasure to be here and to be speaking to you this evening about something that certainly involves me. As Mark said, I've worked on Reynolds for quite a long time, but I can say hand on heart that what I'm talking to you about tonight, I didn't know before I'd been to Trewithan and I discovered things that I didn't know about Reynolds and certainly didn't know about Northcote in such detail. So this research, as Mark said, relates to this project, a collection display in the British Country House, and it's a project taking place over three years, a series of case studies, and one of them is a house in Cornwall called Trewithan, which I had never been to until about 18 months ago, and I was very agreeably surprised with the house and the collection. As part of our research project, we've kind of bored down into different aspects of collections, and Trewithan, it was particularly enjoyable because we were starting virtually from scratch. The first thing that we did, that I did with a couple of other people, is Gianni Arco and Emily Burns, was to cattle over the collection. There was no cattle whatsoever, and it was through getting to know the pictures individually. Another colleague of mine, Rodolfo Rodriguez, wrote a building history, thank you very much, and we also have looked at various aspects, and we're going to talk tonight about little thingy bit of work. I'm going to talk about concentrate, this is Trewithan, some of you may have been there, most people tend to go because the gardens are very well known, it's between St Austel and Trewiro. The house is open to the public on odd afternoons per week, but I would say that it's to most people, even most art historians, it's not terribly well known. I'm going to concentrate upon, we're looking there down into the dining room, but I'm going to look at a group of five pictures, some of which are in the dining room, and some of which are elsewhere in the panel room, and I'm going to concentrate on these pictures. It's a group of five 18th century pictures in the collection. Am I going to tell the story really about how I researched them, what I learnt, and the things that I found, some of which quite surprised me. Now, they comprise from left to right, top to bottom, portraits of the cleric, Zachariah Mudge, his wife Kitty, at the top there, by Reynolds, they're both by Reynolds, and on the bottom row, we've got James Northcott's copy of Reynolds's portrait of Dr John Mudge, his portrait of the philosopher James Ferguson, and his own self-portrait. Now, the only one of these pictures that I knew, or at least knew something about was Zachariah Mudge, I knew of the Reynolds portrait of John Mudge at the bottom, but I didn't know about this particular copy. Now, as I say, to this day, all these portraits remain virtually unknown beyond true within, and those are acquainted with the house. They haven't been subjected to any significant research in the modern period, and the object of my research, which I sort of self-confessed empirical fashion, was to shine a light on them, investigate the context for their creation and how they're related to patronage. And the lasting impact they had on the careers of Reynolds and Northcott, I hadn't anticipated that, just how long into their lives and careers the impact of this relationship and the Mudge family was going to take me. The first thing that I would say is that while the portraits feature prominently in displays at true within today, in the dining room and the panel room, it was only in the early decades of the 20th century that they found their way to true within. They passed through the Mudge family to Zachariah Mudge's descendant, Jenny Rosdew Mudge, who in 1845 married the Reverend William Charles Raffles Flint, and he was the nephew of Sir Stamford Raffles, the founder of Singapore. They then passed to their son, the venerable Stamford Raffles Flint, whose daughter in 1910 married the heir to true within, George Horace Johnston. And the pictures are now installed at true within and descended through the family to the present owner, Michael Gawlsworthy, who's the owner of true within, and he has been incredibly hospitable and helpful to us in our research, and we couldn't have done it without him. Now, this line of descent from the mudges of Plymouth to Michael Gawlsworthy of true within is worth recalling because it doesn't simply, it's not an exercise in tracing provenance, but because it serves to remind us that collections can change hands and locations over surprisingly short periods of time. It also underlines the point that at true within, as with so many other country houses, what appears on the surface to be a homogenous collection of portraits conceals quite varied display and ownership histories, and that the individuals whose images are displayed on the same walls today may have been strangers in their own lifetimes. The mudge and associated portraits seem perfectly at home now in the bucolic environs of true within Cornwall. However, they were conceived in a distinctly metropolitan environment 50 miles away in the bustling city of Plymouth and further afield in London. Well, so that's to introduce the main characters and we'll be coming back to all these portraits this evening. So let's turn to the artist responsible for these portraits. Now, the relationship between Joshua Reynolds and his pupil James Northcott's well-chartered through the biography of Reynolds, which Northcott wrote in the early 19th century, Northcott's own memoir published posthumously towards the end of the 19th century and his conversations, his rather notorious conversations with the writer William Hazlett and we'll be coming back to those towards the end of the talk. Collectively, these publications provided detailed and often colourful picture of Northcott's close association with Reynolds, notably during the time that he lived and worked alongside him as his pupil and studio assistant in London during the early to mid 1770s. Study of the present portraits provides a window onto the world in which that relationship was fostered, the pivotal role of the mudge family in shaping the fortunes and friendships of Reynolds and Northcott and the impact it had upon Northcott's later career as an artist, a writer and a commentator and crucially on his posthumous reputation. So let's start with the earliest in the group of paintings under discussion, it's Reynolds' portrait of Zachariah Mudge. Now, as a young man, Mudge, who came from a Presbyterian family, attended Exeter Grammar School. Having trained subsequently as a nonconformist minister, he found employment in a school run by Joshua Reynolds as grandfather in Exeter, where he formed also a friendship with Reynolds' father, Samuel Reynolds. Under the influence of Samuel Reynolds, Mudge became a priest in the Anglican Church. In 1732, he was appointed vicar of St Andrew's Plymouth, which was among the most lucrative parishes in Devon. Four years later, he was also appointed prebandry of Exeter Cathedral, where he established a reputation through his published sermons. Locally, he was a well-known figure. By the time Reynolds got to know him during his youth, Zachariah Mudge was a man of considerable influence and power. Reynolds regarded him as a mentor and kept in touch with him when he moved to London in 1740 to pursue his career as a painter. Some years later, in the summer of 1762, when Reynolds himself had established a reputation as the leading portraitist in a metropolis, he visited Plymouth with his friend Samuel Johnson, who, by that time, had assumed the role of Reynolds as mentor in adulthood. It was in the course of this memorable visit that Mudge gained the enduring respect and friendship of Samuel Johnson. It was while in Plymouth, Reynolds and Johnson stayed with Zachariah Mudge's son, John Mudge, Dr John Mudge. They also paid a visit to the vicarage of St Andrew's, and it was there, in the vicarage, that Zachariah Mudge's wife scolded Johnson for demanding another cup of tea after he'd already had 17 cups of tea. When we visited Truith in last summer, we were pleased to inspect Zachariah Mudge's portrait in the dining room, but I was, I could say, I was as delighted to discover from Michael Gawlsworthy in a passing conversation that the teapot from which Johnson had imbibed so liberally had found its way to Truith in, along with the Mudge portraits, and it was still in full working order. Michael very sweetly brought it out on a tray with a cup, and that's my record of me drinking out of the teapot at Truith in. Now, although Zachariah Mudge was resident in Plymouth, both he and his son John regularly visited London, and Reynolds recorded the name Mr Mudge in his pocketbook on several occasions during the early 1760s. You can see it just down there towards the bottom. Although we're not quite sure at times which Mudge he was referring to, they just say Mr Mudge and that's open to question, but from entries in John Mudge's diary, we know that his mother and his father were in London from April to June 1766, and the following March, as he said in his diary, my father's picture was received from London. The slight delay in receiving the picture may, I think, be accounted for by the production of the mezzatint after it by James Watson, this very handsome mezzatint, and Watson very regularly produced engravings of some of Reynolds's more prestigious portraits and images. The print is undated and it was commissioned, I think, probably by Reynolds as a mark of respect as well as his desire to promote Mudge's reputation on the national stage. So he sort of swam as a very kind of Johnsonian kind of figure. Well, Zachariah Mudge was then in his late 60s, and his portrait forms a marked contrast to that of his much younger wife, which now hangs as a pendant in the dining room at Trwyddon. Now the image of Mudge's young wife, unlike her philosopher husband, is intimate and domestic, underlined by the subject's slightly shy expression and reserved demeanour, together with the presence on the table of the book and the workbasket. This is Mudge appears to have lived very much in her husband's shadow, as nothing is known of her personal history and a portrait by Reynolds has gone hitherto unremarked. Zachariah Mudge was married twice. His first wife, who had vexed Johnson during the tea ceremony at the vicarage at Plymouth, was the mother of five of Mudge's children, of the five Mudge's children. The date of her death is unknown, but it was sometime before 1764 when Mudge apparently married his second wife, Elizabeth, or Kitty, he was shown here, the sitter in this portrait. There's no record of Kitty having sat to Reynolds, although I think the portrait may have been made around the same time as that of her husband during one of their frequent London visits. James Northcott later recalled that, and I quote, Reynolds had them at his house for weeks, and even sometimes gave up his own bedroom to receive them, so they were very special and privileged guests. Stylistically and technically, Mrs Mudge's portrait is reminiscent of other female portraits by Reynolds of the early to mid-1760s, so the precision of the manner in which the fabric of the dress, lace, and first stole are painted suggests the intervention of a drapery painter. Kitty Mudge outlived her husband and she died childless in the summer of 1782. Well, following Zachariah Mudge's death in the spring of 1769, following a fatal attack of Gout on one of his regular trips to London, Reynolds's principal contact with the Mudge family was Zachariah's youngest son, Dr John Mudge, whom he'd known since childhood. When his family moved from his birthplace in Biddiford, North Devon to Plymouth, he attended Plymouth in grammar school where Joshua Reynolds was a fellow pupil and where Reynolds's own father, Samuel, served as headmaster. John Mudge established a successful practice as a surgeon in Plymouth, specialising in the prevention of smallpox through inoculation. Although resident in Plymouth throughout his life, Mudge gained national recognition and fellowship of the Royal Society for his scientific work on the developing of lenses for the reflecting telescope. In 1752, immediately following his return from Italy, Reynolds spent three months in Plymouth with family and friends. At that time he painted John Mudge as portrait, which in composition and characterisation of the sitter is among Reynolds's most Rembrandt-esque portraits. It was engraved, as you can see here, by William Dickinson, probably around 1777, so some years later, when Mudge was elected fellow of the Royal Society. Later in the 1750s, Reynolds painted another portrait for John Mudge, this time of his eldest son. I'll also call John, this is a later engraving by Samuel William Reynolds, no relation to Joshua. As Northcott recalled, the teenage Mudge was working as a clerk in the Navy office in London. In order to surprise his father, who evidently missed him, Reynolds painted his portrait, peeping out from behind a curtain. The portraits that Reynolds painted of John Mudge and his son must have counted as among Mudge's most treasured possessions. Admirers of the portrait of John Mudge Sr. included his son-in-law, a man called Richard Rosdew, who over 50 years later commissioned a copy from Northcott, which is now true with him. So this is the later portrait. Northcott's copy, dated 1808, we have a record that it was painted in 1808, is very faithful to the original. Amongst other things, it serves as a strong visual reminder of the years that Northcott had spent with Reynolds as his pupil, his ability to emulate Reynolds' style, and the key role he played in the workshop at the height of his master's career. I would say that slides are never accurate, and this, when you see the picture in the room, in the panel room in natural light, it's not quite as harsh as you see it here. I would make that point. James Northcott was born in Plymouth in 1746, and he'd known the Mudge family since his youth. In fact, an important professional link was clockmaking. This was a trade pursued by James Northcott's father and his brother, Samuel, and Zachariah's son, Thomas Mudge. In 1766, Samuel Mudge, Northcott, one of whose clocks can be seen, this is a clock by Northcott's brother, which you can find today at Troyerthen, and again I was delighted to find that. Samuel Northcott spent time with Thomas Mudge in London learning clockmaking. His networks were very significant, the scientific networks, in connecting and promoting mutual interests, and art and science are very closely related, and their career paths of these professional classes into being overlapping and interweaving is quite fascinating. James Northcott did not aspire to follow his father, all his brother's profession as a clocksmith, but wished to become an artist. In this endeavour, he tried on several occasions to print a ship to London-based engravers. First, James McCardle, and then Edward Fisher. Nothing became of it because, evidently, Northcott's father opposed the proposition. It was almost a decade later, in 1771, that Northcott, seemingly out of desperation, walked to London with his brother, Samuel, armed with letters of introduction, including one from Dr John Mudge to Joshua Reynolds. That summer, Reynolds, presumably out of respect for his friendship with Mudge, took on Northcott as his pupil, took him under his wing and invited him to live under his roof in Leicester Square. As we see, that's very important that this relationship, he was almost family in a way. Northcott duly wrote to Mudge to express his heartfelt thanks, and Mudge in return offered him personal encouragement and financial support. The importance of John Mudge to Northcott as a friend and a patron during the formative years of his career is highlighted by the portraits of Truithan and associated correspondence, some of which actually remains little known and hasn't really been used by Reynolds scholars. In June 1771, Northcott wrote to his brother Samuel, and a lot of Northcott's letters to his brother Samuel are in the Royal Academy, and they are quite well known. He wrote to his brother Samuel telling him that he had procured a pair of spectacles for Dr Mudge from Dolland, the optician. In 1772, Mudge wrote to Northcott, thanking him for, and I quote, the obliging present of the picture, which is exceedingly well done. He doesn't identify the work in question, but it may have been, I quote, a small landscape by Rysdale which Northcott copied in Reynolds's collection on which he recalled having presented to Mudge. Rysdale's small landscape, which had belonged to Reynolds, is now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum in New York. So this is the picture that I think probably Northcott copied and gave to John Mudge. In another letter of April 1774, John Mudge congratulated Northcott on two pictures he had exhibited at the Royal Academy of, I quote, a young lady and an old man. He also inquired of Northcott whether the engraving of Reynolds's Count Ugalino exhibited the previous year at the exhibition had been finished. Now Northcott would have had a particular interest in this celebrated painting, not least since he had modelled for one of Ugalino's sons, the figure on the right hand side with his hand over his face. And in January 1775, John Mudge wrote rather plaintively to Northcott, You will be so good as to give my compliments to Sir Joshua and tell him that I believe he forgot his promise, which I have with great impatience expected, the etching of Count Ugalino. He was so good to say that he would give me one of the first impressions as soon as they came to his hands. Do be so good as to put him in mind of it. The Metsotent engraving by John Dixon, shown here alongside Reynolds's painting, had been published almost a year earlier in February 1774, and I don't know whether Dr Mudge received the engraving. In 1773, Northcott exhibited a portrait of John Mudge's elder brother, Thomas Mudge, by now one of the leading capital's leading clockmakers, shown here in a portrait by Nathaniel Danse of around the same time. Northcott's brother stated on hearing the news of Northcott's portrait, we were all pleased to hear that Sir Joshua and Miss Reynolds thought your portrait of T. Mudge worthy of a place in the exhibition, and Mr Mudge was no less pleased when he heard it. And though he was impatient to have the picture before he learned this news, yet he now says he could wait with patients for six months with satisfaction. The portrait, which is now enthrased, was evidently commissioned by John Mudge to promote his protégé's career through the image of his eminent brother. So, again, it's this going out of his way to help the young Northcott through his own family, promoting Northcott through his own family. Another portrait commissioned by Mudge from Northcott at this time was a copy of this picture, Reynolds's 1755 portrait of his friend, the military engineer and courtier, Leonard Smelt. Mudge flattered Northcott, and he said, his copy, I quote, is so very a good one that if you had pleased, you might have kept the original and palmed me off with the copy. For except the advantage the former has of melanness of tone, which is discoverable when only the two are side by side of each other, I protest I should have not known yours from the original. Mudge retained Reynolds's original, painted some 20 years earlier, and presented Leonard Smelt's family with Northcott's copy, and covered the whereabouts of Northcott's copy. So, again, it's this very warm kind of recommendation and the comparison between Reynolds and young Northcott, and this flattery. Towards the end of his time with Reynolds, Northcott painted the portrait of James Ferguson, Scottish astronomer and instrument and globe maker, who was a close friend of Dr John Mudge and who shared his interest in astronomy and scientific instruments. This portrait of Ferguson, now a true withen, and virtually unknown, is not recorded in his account book, which he only began to keep when he established his independent portrait business in Portsmouth, probably in the early summer of 1776. In all likelihood, Northcott painted this portrait sometime in 1775 or early 76, while he was still in Reynolds's service. It may have been painted in London, where Ferguson lived, or during his visit at that time, which was recorded to John Mudge in Plymouth. Northcott portrays Ferguson in a soft cap, holding in his hand one of his scientific publications, possibly his select mechanical exercise was published in 1773. The format of Northcott's portrait, depicting Ferguson in profile, in a profile pose as a philosopher and intellectuals, clearly influenced heavily by Reynolds's earlier portrait of John Mudge, which he may have regarded as a pendant, thus uniting under one roof his own works with that of his master. The importance Northcott attached to his portrait of this distinguished man of science is reflected by the publication of a mezzatant engraving in March 1776. The engraver was Francis Hayward, who in 1776 was still a teenager, and he was enrolled as a student in the Royal Academy Schools. The print is quite possibly his earliest engraving, as well as the first published likeness of Ferguson, who died just eight months later on 17 November 1776. So it's interesting in the sense that Mudge is helping Northcott, is helping Hayward, does this kind of, you know, mutual kind of help. Without doubt, at least in my mind, the most impressive portrait that Northcott painted for John Mudge during these early years was his own self-portrait. Northcott painted this previously unrecorded work probably just before, and I didn't know this at all before I went to Truiddon. Northcott painted this unrecorded work probably before he left for Italy in the spring of 1777, as can be indicated by the comparison with a drawing by, around that time, by Prince Hall, his travelling companion in Italy. Although the precise circumstances surrounding the self-portraits creation are uncertain, it is likely that he presented it, I think, to Dr Mudge as a mark of respect for his patron, and as a means of inserting himself quite literally into Mudge's circle of influence. Northcott may also consider it as a visual right of passage, confirming that he was now regarded himself as an independent artist, emerging from the shadow of Reynolds. Indeed, in a letter written in February 1776, Northcott told his brother that he was astonished to learn that Mudge, to learn that Mudge had expressed the view that he should continue to remain with Reynolds. Instead, as he noted, rather than become the imitator of a single artist, he wished to develop his own style and earn an income. He was also determined, as Reynolds had done, to travel to Italy. Well, over a career spanning nearly 60 years, Northcott proved to be a prolific painter of self-portraits, of which this is, I'm sure, the earliest. The portrait is, in many ways, exceptional. It's vigorous in terms of the bravura handling of the paint, with loosely applied brush strokes across the entire composition. The expression of the youthful artist in the act of painting is compelling and intense. In certain respects, the dramatic image is influenced by Joshua Reynolds' youthful self-portrait of around 1749, made just before his visit to Italy. When, like Northcott, his future lay very much ahead of him. As Northcott pursued his career in London following his return from Italy, he kept in close touch with the Mudge family, who continued to commission portraits from him. In 1786, he painted John Mudge's portrait for his son-in-law, the Reverend James Young, an engraving of which, by Samuel William Reynolds, was published in 1795, engraving on the right-hand side. In this portrait of the 65-year-old Mudge, so he's now become the senior figure that Zachariah had been in many ways, in this portrait of the 65-year-old Mudge, Northcott effectively repriezed his portrait made over 30 years earlier, depicting Mudge in a similar soft cap before a drape with his arm this time resting upon an open book. Northcott and John Mudge remained in contact during the remaining years of Mudge's life. In March 1791, Mudge wrote to Northcott expressing his views on Edmund Burke's latest publication, Reflections on the Revolution in France, noting his agreement with the need for change in France, if not the means. He also asked Northcott to present his kindest remembrance to Sir Joshua, so you get the feeling that he's close to Northcott, but Reynolds is somewhat decent. By this time, Reynolds was virtually blind and in very poor health. He died in February 1792. John Mudge died just over a year later. Northcott attended his funeral in Plymouth. The news of his death, he recalled, came very unexpectedly to me and very much affected my mind, as the idea of Dr Mudge was connected with a long train of circumstances. Over the ensuing decades, Northcott promoted himself energetically as the leading authority on Joshua Reynolds, his life and his legacy. His earliest account of Reynolds appeared in 1813 as memoirs of Sir Joshua Reynolds' Night. Published the same year as the Great Commemorative Exhibition of Reynolds' Art at the British Institution. Further editions followed, including in 1819, the life of Sir Joshua Reynolds in two volumes, Revised and Augmented. During this time, Northcott remained on amicable terms with the Mudge family. In the 1820s, however, matters took a dramatic turn for the worse. As Northcott, in an effort to boost his public persona, engaged with the popular press in the person of the radical journalist and critic, William Haslett. In the last section of this talk, I want to address the issue, this issue and how it relates closely to the patronage of the Mudge's and the portraits at Truithan. The catalyst for the dramatic downturn in affairs was an essay written by William Haslett in the New Monthly magazine in 1827. This was the sixth of these essays entitled Boswell, Read of Vivas, Boswell Revived, where the author published his conversations with Northcott, revolving around recollections of earlier life and earlier times and the great men that he'd known, not least Joshua Reynolds. The essay featured prominently a less than flattering account of Zachariah Mudge, whose engraved portrait after Reynolds, Northcott showed to Haslett. Influenced, no doubt, by Northcott's revelations, Haslett observed that and I quote, Mudge appeared to me a complete high priest, bullying and insincere. In the course of the public, I don't expect you to read this. But you can if you want. If it's like going to the optician. The only bit that you might, I'm going to talk about it. So in the course of this published conversation, this sixth conversation, Northcott made close reference to a manuscript memoir concerning Zachariah Mudge, written by an old school friend, the dissenting minister, John Fox. Among other things, Fox's memoir shed new light on Mudge's early life, including an account of Mudge sleeping rough on the streets of London, following the rejection of his amorous advances on a local Devin housemaid. Northcott also drew upon the memoir to suggest that in later life, Mudge, whom Fox regarded as a daest, had no real respect for the spiritual values expressed in his sermons, and that in old age, and I quote, he grew indolent at last and spent his time in playing cards with old ladies who were rich and pious. Northcott told Haslett that he, and this is quite significant, Northcott told Haslett that he passed Fox's manuscript memoir to Reynolds, who had been anxious to learn more about Mudge's personal history. He also told Haslett that he didn't know what had become of the manuscript memoir, but he suspected Reynolds of having burnt it, because it revealed that a man he had regarded as, and I quote, a saint and the model of a Christian pastor had turned out to be little better than a vagabond and a mountibank. However, this is where it became interesting, I can now confirm that Reynolds may not have even known of the manuscript, let alone destroyed it. I know this because in 1790, Northcott made a transcription of the original document, which at that time still belonged to Fox's grandson. Northcott clearly valued this privileged access and its controversial contents, and he embellished his own transcription with original letters and his own recollections of Reynolds, so he mixed his own personal history up with this document by Fox, and he entitled it, Worthies of Devon. He must have had it close to hand at the time of the conversation with Haslett. Following his death, Northcott's own transcription was purchased by a London print seller, who sold it in turn to the Plymouth Proprietary Library in 1855 to where I traced it. Frustratingly, I got in touch with them, I was informed by the librarian that it had been destroyed in the Second World War when the library was bombed. Thankfully, I then discovered, subsequently, it had actually been published in the 1890s in the transactions of a local history society, including details concerning the circumstance surrounding Northcott's transcription. So what is evident ultimately is that Northcott was being, shall we say, economical with the truth in order to spice up Mudge's life history and aggrandise his own position and his own significance. But then things got worse, at least in terms of our opinion of Northcott's character. In the course of his published conversation with Haslett, Northcott passed comment not only upon Zachariah Mudge, but on the present generation of the Mudge family, which he affirmed and I quote, derived its chief luster from its first two founders, like clouds that reflect the sun's rays after he has sunk below the horizon. So these people, the descendants of John and Zachariah Mudge are just sort of pale limitations. Although Zachariah Mudge had been dead for nearly 50 years, his descendants and members of the local community in Plymouth took great offence. Richard Rosdew, John Mudge's son-in-law and guardian of the family name, responded immediately in a letter of complaint to the editor of the new monthly magazine. Perhaps because of their long association, Rosdew didn't blame Northcott but Haslett, who he claimed had perverted the conversation by asking and I quote, insidious questions and then publishing them without the knowledge of the party from whom they were drawn. Northcott in turn dissociated himself from Haslett informing Rosdew that he was and I quote, a papist, a wretch, a viper and he would stab him if he could get at him. So he also wrote a personal letter to Thomas Campbell, editor of the new monthly magazine in which he described Haslett's articles as worthless trash. Northcott, by way of an apology, Campbell published Samuel Johnson's eulogy on Zachariah Mudge first published in the London Chronicle at the time of his death in 1769. I wasn't aware of the significance of any of this until I started to work on the pictures at Troyden although I knew about Haslett and Northcott. In 1830, Haslett published his conversations with Northcott in book form. This time, Rosdew wrote directly to Northcott threatening him with legal action if the book repeated and I quote any of the false and libelous accounts of the Mudge family which have appeared in the new monthly magazine. Northcott in turn requested Haslett to censor the offending passages much to Haslett's disappointment who felt that Northcott had lost his nerve. In any event, Rosdew realised that Northcott, who in truth relished the controversy, had continued to collude with Haslett behind his back. At that point, he severed his ties with the artist who had enjoyed patronage and friendship with the family for the past 70 years. Rosdew said and wrote ingratitude, envy, meanness and an ordinary self conceit together with falsehood have marked the painter's conduct respecting the Mudge's. To these I may add extreme vanity to gratify which he would sacrifice anything not accepting his money. Rosdew also banished Northcott's self portrait which he had inherited from the walls of his home and consigned it to the attic where and I quote it was placed with its face to the wall. Meanwhile, a few years earlier in 1825 Richard Rosdew had decided to pay his own tribute to Zachariah Mudge by the commission of a monumental marble bust of him from the sculptor Francis Chantry. The bust completed in 1830 was placed in the South Isle of St Andrew's Church Exeter where much had been vicar. The inscription which lorded his virtue and his intellect read and I quote, in private life he was amiable and benevolent in his ministry faithful eloquent and persuasive distinguished for the knowledge learned and for talent among men of science. Chantry modelled the bust upon Reynolds's portrait of Mudge then owned by Rosdew. Indeed Chantry was apparently so impressed with Reynolds's portrait that he offered to waive his £500 fee if he was permitted to retain it. In the end he settled for a copy of the portrait by the contemporary portraitist John Jackson. The bust itself was destroyed in the bombing of St Andrew's in 1941 and I only knew of it from a mutilated fragment and I was again delighted when I went to Truithon to find among the Mudge papers because there are also Mudge papers at Truithon a cart de visite showing it in its original state confirming its reliance upon Reynolds's portrait and this in itself is useful because it's the only image we have of Chantry's bust before it was virtually destroyed. In 1830 as the bust of Mudge was being installed at St Andrew's William Hazlett, his career in ruins died in poverty from stomach cancer. James Northcott died the following year aged 84 a wealthy man. Anxious to erect his own memorial Northcott left £1,000 in his will for a monumental marble statue of himself to be made by Francis Chantry. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1838 and the statue was erected in Exeter Cathedral two years later. Although like Reynolds he died and was buried in London Northcott was clearly intent that his memory should be preserved in the county of his birth from where so much of his early patronage had derived and where these friendships these lifelong friendships had been forged whether the surviving members of the Mudge family were as impressed by Northcott's monument is quite another matter. As Northcott's earliest biographer Alan Cunningham reminded his readers in 1832 Northcott was still deeper in debt to the Mudge's than his master by them his works had been introduced to the world and himself to Reynolds. Thank you. There you are. OK. So, for any thoughts, responses, questions that you have had to ask in response to that, thank you and to those images.


I'm here today to get ready for tonight's majlis and for the coming nights on Mojaveh. So come on inside and I'll show you what I'll be doing. Today I'm going to sing an album for a small majlis and I'm going to help with that first. The thing I'm going to be doing is putting out the chair. Before the majlis we have to make sure the carpet is clean so I'm going to use that. So we are going to have a say here to speak to us. I'm going to put the microphone on the monitor. Now we are ready for the majlis. See you guys next time. Bye!


It's four o'clock, and I'd like to call the city planning commission meeting for May 12th to order with the Planner, please call the roll mayor van der steen here alderman boran Here Ryan sasma Jerry Jones Marilyn Montemire Here David Huffman Don's feet on Seven are present. Thank you very much Please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag Next is the introduction of committee members and staff. I'll start on that end with David Jerry Jones vice-chairman My van der steen mayor and chairman Chad Pellichick planning director Steve Sloplowski from the planning department And online Marilyn Montemay or citizen Alderman Jim boran. I'm 10th district. I'm the alderman on the plan commission Welcome everyone. Thank you for those introductions does anyone on the Plan Commission have any potential conflict of interest with the items before us today? Hearing none next item is to move on and approve the minutes from our planning commission meeting on April 28th I entertain a motion Thank you for that motion in support to approve those minutes. Is there any discussion? Hearing no discussion all those in favor of the motion, please signify by saying aye opposed Motion passes Next move on to items for discussion and possible action item 3.1 is a conditional use and variance application by van wike auto ink to permit auto sales and display at Doug's Auto Service located at 1821 Cooper Avenue turn it over to Steve for a report on this item. All right. Thanks, mayor Ben van wik is here the new owner of Doug's Auto Service and Ben is looking to add some auto sales at Doug's Auto Doug's Auto has been in business since 1977 The applicant indicates that they're proposing the auto sales because he's had a number of people looking for vehicles over the years And since he's not doesn't have the ability to sell vehicles He has to pass them on to other customers and can lose those customers and have them have their cars and things like that serviced and other auto repair dealerships, so what? Mr.. Van wik is looking to do is to have the ability to sell three vehicles on that site Okay, anyways, you can see where the three vehicles are located on Calumet Drive on the map that you have before you and that's where and That's where They would like to have the vehicles along Calumet Drive So so he's looking at the ability to have three indicates that there's an ability to have quite a bit of parking on site And there's also some spaces in the neighboring business next door that you can see on that the Street to the West is called Cole's Court and there's an ability to utilize some of the parking at that The neighboring property to the south Um The only concern that staff really had with the proposal is the parking I have not heard from anyone that we sent out notice to in terms of any sort of concerns Neighbor concerns or anything of that matter And other than that there was a few items on the Cole's Court side of the building That there were some tires and just some miscellaneous debris I spoke into Mr. Van Wyke about that and he told me that there's an ability that he is in the process of screening And doing some screening behind the building that all of that stuff will be removed from the street So other than that staff was recommending approval of the proposal with the conditions you have before you Steve thanks for that staff report. Mr. Van Wyke, would you like to add anything to that? Okay commissioners Mayor Go ahead Jim. I somebody hasn't made a motion. I will make a motion to approve subject to conditions Thank you for that motion. Is there a second and Jerry seconds it Jerry. Did you have some comments? Okay, please go ahead There we go Okay, I'm just a quick question for you with the number of these stalls and spots that are on the lot How many vehicles are you working on as far as repair goes at any one time in addition to the three vehicles? That you'll be listed for sale Yeah, please step right up to the podium. Thank you. Um, it definitely ranges on the day and how busy we are we've seen upwards of maybe 15 to 16 vehicles at one time that we work on I Did count the number of spots that are a lot allows and it's about 20 at max capacity Plus we also have some parking for our employee vehicles in the Adjoining business behind us So we've a lit that's four vehicles we've eliminated out of the parking so I'm also in the middle of trying to purchase another shop in order to expand and get some more room So but with what we have right now Definitely the maximum amount of cars that we have had come in for repair. We've been able to work with it And you'll have the new cars in the same spot every time I'm gonna guess. Yeah, I'm gonna let I'm gonna allot them in a certain spot in the parking lot for sale If they're getting worked on pre-sale before they're up for sale, then I will They might be in other spots, but when they're for sale, they will be in those in those places. Okay. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Is there any other discussion? Ryan You have to use the on-street parking at all your business right now. I do Just to make it easier for us but We have about four to five spots that we can use next to our building So we mainly use them We used to park all over the place and I've been trying to change that so Maybe one or two cars might get scattered in other spots, but majority of them they get they stay in our lot So after you're done working on them you drop them off out in the street or do people like in the morning drop them off out in the Street to get work done most of them drop them off in the parking lot. Okay. Yeah So I'll retell them to drop them off in the parking lot remove them if we have to It's a small area, but we stay on top of it And my other question is for Steve how many letters did you send out? Looks like about 16 And you know You know, and you know, there's definitely And you can you can kind of see that you know on Cole's court in this area You know that there is a little bit of parking and things like that that does take place in that area So all of those neighbors in this general vicinity this area across the street You know, so there was about 16 properties that received Letters of this and I did not get a single call from anyone on this matter Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Ben. Don't you also charge a fee for People to pick up vehicles and things like that may want to explain that I charge a $15 a day storage fee So if somebody it gets people to come pick up their cars We rarely get one left over and I have gotten to a point where I do park it at my personal house if it Becomes a problem with somebody leaving a car around Okay, thank you other discussion Don sweeten. Would there be any changers in signage? I actually just had new signs put up Last fall So I don't see any changing in signage I'm not I'm still sticking more to the repair side of it then I am the car sales It's not going to be my main source of income there. So this is just Expand a little bit. Thank you. Thank you. Any other discussion? Okay, we have a motion on the floor all those in favor of the motion to Prove the conditional use and variance application to be signified by saying aye opposed Opposed Motion passes. Good luck with your project. Thank you Item 3.2 is a preliminary plaid approval for stony Brook stone Brook crossing addition number one located south of Fox Meadows subdivision between South Business Drive and many road Steve. All right Ross Warner is online. So this was a preliminary plat that the plan Commission had looked at in believe it was February and one of the conditions of that approval of that preliminary plat had to do with the city park located at the Southeast corner of the subdivision and there was a thought of potentially swapping that property and creating a new city park elsewhere in the subdivision that kind of went to Marina Parks and Forestry and there was some Not everyone was receptive to that idea. So the Warner is elected to Just remove that and keep the park where it is There's discussions with the city in terms of Outlat 3 which is located at the southeast corner of stone Brook Yeah, the southwest corner of stone Brook and many road. So that would be Outlat 3 which would be worked with with the city and Eventually the parks department in may do some improvements to that part So that was kind of the switch is with the subdivision itself Everything else is virtually the same to what the plan Commission had looked at previously It's just that that park is now going to be at the southeast corner and it's not included as part of the subdivision so that being said there's 44 lots in the subdivision that are zoned mr. Eight which allow for single family and two family Developments there's 87 lots that will be for single family subdivision or single family Dwellings and then at the northwest corner of the property. It's lot 145 that remain neighborhood commercial And that there's no formal development of that at this point in time But it is a mixed use zone that would allow for residential as well as some commercial There's the plan basically as you can see is to have two main and or one main entrance Road that would come from business drive and then one that would come from many There's five cul-de-sacs in the subdivision and then another primary road is Rimrock Road Other than that they're creating Two three outlets two of the outlets are used going to be used for Sib city stormwater ponds for Storm drainage in the facility and again out lot three is going to be for that Half acre for that neighborhood park The only other thing to mention to the plan Commission to be aware of is that the streets in the subdivision are not going to be a typical city street Specification in terms of curb gutter and sidewalk This is going to be Pavement with ditches and in and the main roads you would have a four-foot wide pedestrian pathway along the roads so Other than that the subdivision is basically identical to what you had seen previously and staff was recommended approval Thank you for that report Steve Mr. Warner did you want to add anything to Steve's report on the changes to this plat for the subdivision? No, I think Steve did a good job of okay. Thank you commissioners any discussion Otherwise that entertain a motion one question. I'll go ahead Marilyn What is meant by two family home Marilyn that would mean that they could in in that neighborhood residential They could either do a single family or say for example a duplex up and down side by side So that's what the two family refers to Owner living in one or don't we make that kind of rule? Nope that would be up to the owner who purchased that property and then they would have the ability to I guess they could rent it They could condo it But no there's nothing that says that it necessarily needs to be home ownership now I'm not sure Ross if you can address that if there's any type of Covenants that restrict that but maybe you could address that from your end. Thank you. Thank you for the information Mayor I have some questions go ahead Jim Thank You mayor Mr. Warner I on the on the 87 single-family homes. What are your price points going to be on those homes? So generally speaking our homes for single-family are between 250,000 to 450,000 is where our homes that we build throughout the county currently are and Then the other the other 44 I guess those were those those were some of the Possibly the two families that generally in the same price range Yeah, so two families you start from a little bit less probably about 235 to 350,000 per unit So per side, so they would be a little bit less, but Not substantially different And I have a and then I have a another question the the stormwater ponds are those going to be I looked at the map Earlier today, but are the stormwater ponds just going to be independent? Or are you planning to actually build houses around the pond? Those two outlaw would be just the pond and there'd be no houses on those two lots specifically Okay, but there would be lots adjacent to them, but with you know adequate distance to Not be truly on the pond Thank you. I just wanted to add that I represent district 10 on the far south side This is a very exciting development for the far south side of shabuagan shabuagan having a having a residential Subdivision and also the property taxes that this development is going to generate for the city is going to be a huge help To our annual budget, so I fully support this and I wish you a lot of luck on the project mr. Werner Thank you Thank you for those comments with that I'd entertain a motion Thank you for the motion in support to approve the project with staff recommendations is there one any other discussion before we vote Seeing none all those in favor of the motion please signify by saying aye Chair votes aye Opposed motion passes Thank you very much for your project mr. Werner Next we'll go on to item 3.3, which is our own number one of 2021 approving the capital improvements program is recommended by the capital improvements commission for the program period of 2021 through 2025 and adopting the program for implementation Steve You have anything on this or Chad So I don't know if we want to if you chair if we could ask Darrell to come forward and just talk about what was approved Thank you Darrell as as many of you plan commissioners are aware this process kicks off in Early spring with the department heads identifying Updates to their prior five-year capital improvement plan following their submittal Again the key is to try and create a level purchasing Over the five different years Based upon your many of you being involved in this in the past Also a key consideration is the amount of debt needed to support these projects whether they'd be capital equipment purchases or or actual construction related projects The Next step is a presentation to the capital improvement commission. They typically meet twice Presentation was made by each department head Regarding their projects and of course the 2025 being the new year all those projects typically are new for consideration There were some new there was additional information provided at those meetings Specifically regarding Shoreline Metro and some of the federal CARES Act funding to allow for many of the originally planned 2024 2025 moving them up and occurring in either 2021 or 2022 Also, the expectation is Many of those purchases will be done a hundred percent with CARES Act funding. Normally. It's an 80-20 split So that definitely helped on the total Debt that's being recommended in front before you The changes that were made By the capital improvements commission are highlighted in orange if you have the spreadsheet That you're able to pull up the I'm trying to think if there was one more change. I think that was substantially the change To the five-year capital improvement plan as presented to the capital improvement So following your review it will go to the Common Council for their final consideration and ultimate action on it In regards to the amount of debt necessary for general obligation again There's there's additional debt that is either TID or that is user fee paid by the utilities the 20 20.4 million is 800,000 dollars higher Than the five-year capital improvement program that was presented to you a year ago. So slightly more debt associated with this project but Averaging a little over four million dollars on any given year Any questions? Dearly thought there was an amendment that was necessary for transit Is that all corrected or is there still something that needs to be done? Before it goes on to the city council Great question. I'm trying to recall if the commission at their second meeting already made that Substitution as part of their recommendation. I think that's still necessary The you know utilizing the CARES Act related information As far as a hundred percent funding and moving it to earlier year Mayor's asking whether in the final recommendation from the capital improvement Commission whether they took care of that or whether that responsibility lies now with the Plan Commission Derek could you maybe explain the the change that was made? I think they discussed it But the documents that they Proved, I don't think included all of the changes So if you can just describe the change that took place then we can maybe amend that on the floor here okay As as city administrator Hofflin explained there was a couple projects that we bumped up One related to some improvements to our facility for calendar year 2022. I think it was We bumped that up for next year so that we could take advantage of these CARES Act Federal dollars that are available for transit We did receive just under three point five million dollars. That's gonna offset Lost revenues and some of our expenses in our operation budget, but then we'll have some opportunity to use Some of those funds for capital projects as well One of the other projects that we had Allocated was for paratransit vehicles and we had talked about doing two vehicles instead of one And that was that I think a hundred and eighty thousand dollars Project the other one I talked about with our facility changes was two hundred thousand so we allocated Three hundred eighty thousand dollars to CARES Act projects for calendar year 2021 instead of using local dollars or a mixture of local and federal dollars for those projects in 2022 mayor van der steen I Think the I think your recollection is in regards to specifically the or the orange two In 2021 we had a busted formula in our spreadsheet and as a result there was an error and so the orange reflects an administrative change to be consistent with the individual project pages and And so that was identified after the cap improvement commission met And we wanted to identify that before you as plan commissioners Okay, do we need an amendment to make that correction? I think we do. Okay. Thank you for that information Derek and If you look at the spreadsheet that's attached to the RO though it has a It has the dupers that Derek actually talked about Yeah, this is a different item that Darrell's talking about Chad do you have I can't see so it is does it have 1.99? It's got a for debt or I'm sorry for grants for 2021 Well, it doesn't get into the specifics as to how they're funded. It just talks about the projects Right, but yeah, it was the summary spreadsheet Which again had an error in its formula? On page one of the spreadsheet It's got it's got count. It's got an updated orange at 1.99 9 0 4 0 Yeah, I think for county state and federal grants. Yeah, previously. I think the cap improvement Commission the spreadsheet which they Reviewed and took action on the grants was 1.619 as opposed to That number should be one point one million nine hundred ninety nine thousand oh four oh and the Reduced amount for general obligation Borrowed funds should be four million two hundred forty one thousand three sixty seven. That's what's in the spreadsheet. Okay Okay, so we need a motion first of all to approve the capital improvements program Thank you for that motion in support and then I need an amendment to Do what Darrell suggested and what's now in the documents for us to approve? It's in there though. Yeah, but it wasn't when it went through the last one So we need an amendment to change it to this and then we'll approve it and send it on to council Okay, seems like okay Okay, we have the amendment on the floor Darrell just articulated the numbers. Is there any other discussion on the amendment? Seeing none all those in favor of the amendment, please signify by saying aye Chair votes aye opposed Very good the amendment passes. So now we're voting on the main motion to approve the program as amended Go ahead Jim Correct that is the corrected amount instead of the four point six million We will be borrowing that probably around this time next year similar to what we just did for some of the 2020 projects That is correct All right, thank you Is there any other discussion on the motion? Go ahead Darrell I want to say something go ahead Marilyn. Oh Thank you Good work on the part of the capital improvements commission and the administration and Derek using that Here's money good work Thank you Darrell. I just want to confirm again the changes that you voted on as far as an amendment the bottom line for spending in 2021 remains the same for the spreadsheet that the capital improvement commission and that was in your packet again It was just those two numbers are corrected Okay, thank you All then we'll take a vote all those in favor of the motion as amended signify by saying aye Chair votes aye opposed Motion passes and I appreciate all the work Darrell that you did on this as well as all of our department heads. Thank you Our next meeting is set for May 28th and Jerry Thank you for that motion and support all those in favor of adjournment, please signify by saying aye We stand adjourned. Thank you for your time


year but a lot has changed since then. I'm doing a new bookshelf tour because not only do I have a new bookshelf, which is not news to you if you've been to my channel, you know that I got a second bookshelf, but since my last bookshelf tour I have a new shelf. I moved apartments and I have gained a lot of books. So I thought it's time for a new bookshelf tour especially because also the last one that I did was a bookshelf tour but also had all of my spooky decorations on my bookshelf. So I had like all kinds of decorations and knickknacks and whatnot. But I think that I need to have just a basic good-all fashion. This is what my shelves look like regularly bookshelf tour. And I especially wanted to do this now not only because of everything that has changed but also because I'm about to decorate my shelves for Halloween and for spooky season for fall. And so I wanted to get this video done before that happened. Also I am so sorry the lighting keeps changing, the sun keeps going behind clouds and coming out and I just I'm having such a hard time timing like when I talk with when the sun is out. So we might just have to deal with that but I will do my best. Anyway there isn't much more that I really need to say. I'll do a voiceover kind of explaining different sections of my shelves. I won't go through and read book by book what I have on the shelf. I'll just give an overview and you can feel free to like pause the video and actually look at every title if you really want to. But if that's just long and boring for you then don't worry I'm not gonna do it. So yeah we'll just get right into it then. Alright so we are gonna go ahead and start with the very top shelf on my tallest bookshelf and this one's not very interesting. It just has a lot of my dictionaries, maybe cookbooks, activity books, crafty books, really just anything that I don't spend a lot of time with or aren't interesting and I don't want in the videos. On top I just have some wedding decorations. Moving to the next shelf under I have some of my older books as well as some of my classics. On the right are some of my old and classics and then on the left I have Twilight and I have The Maze Runner and The Selection just kind of those older books that I really want to keep holding on to and then I have a cute little square with a whole bunch of sayings on different sides so I have stay a while up on that one. As we move further down we get to more of the books that I like and want to feature. These don't really have much of an organization to them other than they are books that I enjoy that I want to keep on my shelves but aren't my favorites and don't fit into any other category. I do see that my I get the Christy book should be moved to the shelf above to fit in with my classics but I have some other series I have some sci-fi on here I have just little bits and fragments. This is my favorite shelf this is the one you can see the best in my videos and it really hasn't changed much over the years. It has my favorite books on my shelf which are a lot of fantasy a little bit of sci-fi one contemporary these also happen to be most of my mythology based books or my most culturally diverse books as well those tend to be my favorites and below that is the bottom shelf the very last shelf that has my contemporaries on the left side my most colorful and some of my more random favorite books on the right of either independent books or books where I don't own the entire series and I've got the Tea Dragon Society all the way on the right because this is the only shelf they will fit on as you can see I have plenty of books stacked on top of each other on the shelf and moving on to the half shelf right next to it on top here are all of my husband's books I tried to make as many of them fit as could possibly fit on top of the shelf he's got these little elephant bookends to keep them safely on top of the shelf he reads mostly nonfiction and then the first ones on top of my books are my historical fiction on the left and my dizzy twisted tails on the right normally I have my historical fiction sorted by country and right now they're not but that's because I've been rearranging them but normally they'll be by country and then Disney twisted tails used to be by rainbow but now they are by which ones I've read and I'm debating if I want to put the ones I've read in rainbow order or in order of my favorites and then just have the ones I haven't read in the middle of the shelf my roommate just gave me these cute little H-O-M-E book decorations and so I decided to put those by some of my favorite lesser-read genres low that is the shelf where I do have my Harry Potter books I do not support JK Rowling anymore but I have not gotten rid of her books just because of what they meant to me growing up I also have my divergent books again these are books I just don't want a parent in my videos but I still have and then that little gnome there I'm going to call him my TBR troll even though he is technically a gnome and he's going to be by the books that I have not read yet so books that are on my TBR which is what that big empty space is for I will be acquiring books and I will be putting the books I haven't read there in that spot so I already have a designated area on this shelf for them and I do have two books on the left there that I have not yet read below that I moved the selection series as well as the maze runner I don't have two copies of those I actually moved them mid video because I can't decide on where I'm keeping things even as I am going through so again out of shot just some old series that I loved and then homegoing by yagya seeds in the middle there but everything to the left of it our books I have not yet read so those will be under the domain of the TBR troll and again there is some space there for future books that are coming very soon however I do not believe that the space there and the space on the shelf above will be enough so this is an overall view of my bookshelves as you can see I have a full shelf and a half a shelf which is pretty wide I would love to get a full shelf next to it but I don't think it would give me that much space and as you can see I don't really have a lot of space next to them there is a closet on the left side and the shoe rack on the right side and the door opens right on the other edge of that shoe racks there really is not space for another bookshelf to accompany these two all right thank you guys so much for watching I hope you enjoyed it and I would love to know how your shelves are categorized or how they're organized if they are organized at all if they're not also let me know if you like this video subscribe I post every week on Thursday but because it is spooky season I will actually be posting two videos a week for the next month and a half which I'm super excited about so make sure you hit the bell icon so that you can be notified when I do upload also I am active on a bunch of bookish social media accounts so look in the description below to find all of my social media accounts and feel free to just follow me let's be friends let's chat about books and if you want to see last year's video that link will also be in the description I have very similar Halloween decorations and those will be going up and you will see them in next week's video but yeah I believe that's everything thank you all so much and until I see you all in my next video I wish you a happy reading


Let me start by telling you a bit about Cheryl's career. Cheryl currently serves as the chair of the board of ISO New England and is also an adjunct senior research scholar at Columbia University Center on Global Energy Policy. Some of you also probably know that Cheryl was one of the longest serving commissioners at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and she was nominated by President Obama in 2010 and served until 2019 and was chair for many years. It is also hard to imagine that National Grid would be what it is today without Cheryl who I think around the early 2000s served as their executive vice president and acting CEO. With only a few minutes to introduce her, I picked these examples from her long CV because they show her ability to build and lead complex organizations to be part of an energy system in transition and to shape a new and better one. Now I'm going to shift now to discussions I had with a handful of Cheryl's former colleagues. One co-worker commented that he first met Cheryl. She was drinking from a coffee cup with the words on it, sleep is for the week and as a new employee I'm sure that set the stage for high expectations. But each person I spoke with including that somewhat intimidated one spoke about Cheryl's ability to infuse humor and fun into the workplace especially after challenging meetings to improve wholesale electricity markets and the reliability and resiliency of the grid. Another C3E ambassador and close colleague Collette Honorable suggested that Cheryl embodies what C3E is all about. A brilliant dedicated public servant who leans in to challenging issues and always is always willing to roll up her sleeve and more importantly listen to others. And most importantly she has made an incredible stride for women many of whom she has mentored and now occupy leadership roles at FERC and beyond. And from Gina McCarthy I just want to quote this directly who many of you know is the White House national climate adviser and her comments were Cheryl and I have spent some entertaining hours together at technical conferences she hosted at FERC when I was at the Environmental Protection Agency. While neither one of us were beloved by most of the other attendees Cheryl always stayed focused, fair and professional and she is the perfect person to download with over a glass of white wine or two. Congratulations Sherry you really are the best and I second that. And finally in closing up Cheryl I just want to say that the qualities you bring to this all important time of energy transformation namely your tireless commitment to make vital changes in energy policy and regulation your ability to bridge divides and your endless championing of women who will become leaders in this crucial sector will continue to inspire me and countless others to build a truly magnificent 21st century energy system. Congratulations on your lifetime achievement award. I'm going to hand it over to you. Well my goodness Lisa thank you so much for that wonderful and very generous tribute and thank you to Colette and Gina for their words in the anonymous allegedly intimidated mug intimidated I still use that mug people it's just really an honor and wonderful to be here with all of you and I when I looked at the website it's particularly an honor to receive this award that has been received by so many of my role models Betsy Moeller, Vicki Bailey, Sue Tierney, Senator Murkowski and I did bring the award which you were kind enough to send it's really quite elegant so I tried to display it on the shelf behind me that I was not capable of doing it properly so I'm going to I'm going to occasionally refer to notes even though I try not to do that because I don't want to you know mess this up because this is an important moment but when I was having my hair done for this award but not even for the award it's even worse than that when I was having my hair done to take the picture to put on the website of me getting the award the haird my hairdresser who I've gone to for a long time said ooh a lifetime achievement award doesn't that make you feel old and I mean really not because I was reflecting that I got my first work permit when I was 14 and a half that was how old you had to be to get a work permit in the state of Massachusetts and that was like 52 years ago so I hope I live a long time and I hope I have more achievements but anyone who's had a work permit for has been working for 52 years has to be self self and acknowledge that they're most of their career is behind them more than is ahead of them um when I first found out I was getting this award the wonderful people at C3E asked me what theme I wanted for the narrative of my clean energy journey um with the award write-up and my first reaction was how about I've lived a lifetime these are my achievements but of course I was being sarcastic um when I thought about it I thought I would choose the theme of mentoring both the mentoring I benefited from as I went along and the mentoring I try to do myself and I think the word mentoring is often misinterpreted when people use it I'm often asked do you have a mentor and the image is of like a single fairy godmother who kind of flits behind you your whole career and does magic whenever you need it and the implication is if you don't have someone like that like a single person who's like looking out for you you can't be successful but the truth is that I like a lot of people had a whole posse of mentors who kind of popped in and out of my life at different times when I needed help and there were other times when I really could have used help and there was no mentor available um it wasn't like a lifetime job for anyone some of the people who mentored me are older and wiser others are people my age who just happened to be in a position to make a difference at a particular time some are women some are men some are people who I've had a long term sustaining relationship with and others are people who just happened to be there for me and I don't have a long term relationship with so I thought I would just mention a few of my mentors and then say because I think they exemplify the issue and say a little bit about how I tried to uh pay it forward so I started out to law firm like a lot of people had a lot of loans to pay and I learned a lot but I didn't make partner and I also had a young baby and was trying to figure out where I went next in my career and I got a phone call from a partner I had worked with who asked me if I ever thought about working for an electric company because he had run into the general council of new england electric system now part of national grid and he thought he offered to make a call to see if they needed a lawyer now the partner I called with was someone I worked on a couple cases with but it wasn't someone who had any obligation to look out for me or find me a job he probably had 20 things on his to-do list that were more important and certainly more billable than making that phone call to me but he made it just to be a nice guy because the thought crossed his mind and that call I had done no energy work you know ended up presenting a major inflection point that led to my working in energy for the next 35 years so I went to the electric company and I ended up loving it right away I just really liked the issues at the intersection of energy in the environment which there have been all along right now it's much more about climate but environmental issues have driven much of what happened in energy for my entire career the general council was really patient with me because I did have this baby very young and I had a messed up child care arrangement and I think I was one of the the first people to work hybrid before that was a word we used or it was even a thing and I did that for a few months and then I kind of went into what was supposed to be my real schedule and I had barely gone into my real schedule when I found out I was unexpectedly pregnant again and I was terrified to tell my boss I just hoped I would be one of those people who like could be like six months pregnant and people didn't know which was like the exact opposite so of course I had to go tell my boss and he was I mean this was in 1987 when things were not as universally civil there even now they're not universally supportive but there was less general support and he was extremely supportive and accommodating and just just extremely understanding that I would be needing more time off and so forth and that single conversation kind of made me go from like the electric company is a place to work for a few years to like maybe I'm going to make my career here I mean that made such a difference to me so a few years later I was still there managed not to get pregnant any more times in close succession and I got another important mentor when we got a new CEO and he had he asked me to come up and write speeches for him and be one of his assistants and that changed my career again because it ended led to my moving into management and we also had a female chairman who was really a pioneer going to law school in the 50s and trying to manage a career in a family decades before I had done it and she was an important role model I left the electric company I left National Grid in 2007 and I had a leave in contract that I had to be out of energy for two years and when that time ended I started networking to try to get back into energy and maybe some of you have had this painful experience this was pre-linked in pre-twitter at least for me of writing cold emails to people seeing if there are opportunities or they know of anything they can suggest you and can you buy them a cup of coffee and can you talk I mean it's just really painful I mean I would get up every day and say okay I'll write six today and but an energy colleague that I wrote to again not someone I was super close to whom I had emailed ended up giving my name to the Obama White House when they were looking for a fur commissioner from the New England region and the fact that she remembered my email and that I was looking for jobs and that she mentioned my name changed my life again it really changed my life and I wasn't prominent outside my local circle and I wasn't even that prominent in my local circle after two years of doing nonprofit work but I competed for and won the FERC seat and that that really did feel like a fairy godmother moment more more so than most of them so I moved to DC I didn't really know many people but people were extraordinarily welcoming to me and um this is a little bit sad actually but I was the eighth female commissioner at FERC in its history and five of which is I really don't feel like I should be in the single digits I mean we're not talking civil war era here but whatever I was the eighth and five of the seven who had served before me all collectively took me out to lunch and offered to be a support network and kind of show me the robes and all and some of them had served decades before and so that was you know again they didn't all have to drive into Washington that day and do that but people go went the extra step I wish I could give equally specific examples of like oh I wrote an email for this person and this happened or I had a call and then they got this job um but it's hard to know if you've actually had that impact sometimes you don't know and maybe you'll never know but I've really tried to help others succeed in their careers in energy when they need help just the little things no matter how busy I am I make an effort to reply to emails whether I know the person or not you know they say oh I went to Columbia a few years ago or someone at FERC to gave me your name or whatever reply to emails reply to LinkedIn messages return calls meet with people when I can I give career advice and suggest people for jobs employees of course who worked with me who I know very well co-workers students others in the energy field whose paths I crossed I try to affirmatively reach out when I know someone is between jobs that I worked with those can be difficult messages to write but sometimes those are the times people don't get enough messages like my own mentors the people I've tried to help include a lot of women but also men both people I work closely with and can really give references to and so forth but also people I've just known over the years through conferences and events and students that I've taught I don't give references for people I don't know well I mean I have to be honest but even with people who I don't have a job or I can't write a big long references almost always something you can say to steer them towards someone or introduce them to someone or suggest something I'm definitely not perfect at it I don't know that there's such a thing but I it's something I really tried to do and I do it partly because I know how much it helped me but also I usually not always enjoy it getting to know people hearing their stories and I also kind of am selfishly aware that at the end of the day the people I mentor are an important part and maybe the most important part of my own contribution to the clean energy field the more time that goes by since I left the electric company which is now quite a long time 2007 and even since I left FERC the less I think about oh I ran that safety campaign or I came out with that brilliant purpose strategy or I helped shape that principle those kind of fade and but the people that I tried to help develop come into more prominence just as one example when I think about the the people I believe I had 12 advisors over nine years in my office at FERC and also assistants who held a similar role in my time in senior management and when I look at what they're doing now already and it hasn't been that long I'm really excited with their accomplishments to say nothing of their potential going forward and then I think about all the people I've kind of interacted with in energy over 35 years and the kind of circle of people expanding and there a lot of them are spread in a position to make a difference I say this all the time when I'm with students but it's really clear to me that the baby boom wonderful and self-absorbed that we have been our entire lives are not going to solve all of the energy and climate problems that are facing the nation in the world so we pretty much had better be developing the generations that have are going to succeed us and so in this stage in my life that's when I'm going to continue to try to do so thank you again for this wonderful honor thank you for everything you do at C3E the ambassadors and all the people involved with the organization to advance and support the role of women in energy thank you