Maria McKinney’s Sire exhibition at The MERL – extended until October!

Maria McKinney Sire Exhibition
Maria McKinney Sire Exhibition – “Feed / Harvest” sculpture

Good grief. I started this blog on the 13th of March. It’s been sitting in the “drafts” folder all this time, and the exhibition finishes at the weekend!

UPDATE! The exhibition has been extended, and it’s now running all the way through to the 27th of October!

Maria McKinney Sire Exhibition
Maria McKinney Sire Exhibition – “Environmental Footprint / Cornucopia” sculpture

According to the brochure, “Maria McKinney’s Sire is an innovative exploration of selective breeding and genetics in contemporary cattle farming”. It’s also a fascinating juxtaposition with The MERL‘s own collections, both in terms of the methods used to create the sculptures, and the way that they’re displayed alongside one another.

Maria McKinney Sire Exhibition
Maria McKinney Sire Exhibition– “Environmental Footprint / Cornucopia” sculpture

I took quite a lot of photos of the sculptures, all of which are made using the plastic straws that are used to store semen during the breeding process. This one, which is my personal favourite, is titled “Environmental Footprint / Cornucopia”. I absolutely love the contrast of its visual relationship with the basket work of various types that are stored above it, as well as its reflections in the glass doors on either side of the space.

Maria McKinney Sire Exhibition
Maria McKinney Sire Exhibition – “Environmental Footprint / Cornucopia” sculpture photographed on a large white bull

This oddly-angled photo does no justice at all to the main part of the exhibition, which is nine enormous photographs depicting bulls wearing the sculptures. They represent the different qualities that are considered desirable to breed into modern cattle, whether that’s increased milk production, climate resilience, or lack of horns. The best way to see these images at their full scale is quite simply to rush down to The MERL and have a look at them!

Both the images and the sculptures are displayed in The MERL’s first floor mezzanine space, which is also home to their strawcraft collection and their collection of livestock portraiture. Being able to see both the museum collections and the art exhibition in the same space enables the viewer to clearly see how studying these objects and paintings has been influential in the development of McKinney’s artwork.

I could happily waffle on about the juxtapositions of modern plastics versus natural materials, and the stark contrast between the lush green fields of the animal portraits and the heavily industrial surroundings of McKinney’s bulls… but honestly, if you’ve got time this week, I heartily recommend that you pop on down to The MERL and have a look!

Travelling Show

Carters Steam Fair

We try to visit Carter’s Steam Fair every time they come to our local park, and this weekend was no exception. I wanted to take lots of photographs of the typography. (I still haven’t saved up enough money to go on Joby Carter’s signwriting course, but one day I will. One day.)

Carters Steam Fair

The rides feature two main styles of artwork – the intricately carved and decorated work of the 19th century…

Carters Steam Fair

…and the streamlined Art Deco style of the early 20th century.

Carters Steam Fair

This gorgeous Morris JB van is from the late 1950s. Every time I see it, I mentally drive it away and use it to travel around selling lovely things. Fortunately for the Carters it’s extremely unlikely that I’m ever going to learn to drive, so their ice cream van remains safe for now!

One day I must be brave and ask for permission to photograph some of the fair’s living vans. (There were people doing that, but it seemed a little bit rude. They are people’s homes, after all.) The Carter’s website has some more information about them, but not about the one I fell most in love with, which was a very streamlined caravan, which you can catch a glimpse of from their Facebook page:

I must admit, I’d gone to Carter’s looking for magic, and didn’t find it there this time. (Not through any fault of the fair, which I absolutely love, but more to do with my own frame of mind at the moment.)

hedgespoken_logo_button

So, I was very excited to go online yesterday morning and find out about Rima and Tom‘s new project – Hedgespoken. It’s going to be a travelling performance space and home all in one! Please watch the film, it’s absolutely gorgeous, and explains their hopes and dreams beautifully.

I’m hoping to find a little money to send their way at the end of the month, and I’ll be following the project’s progress with great interest.

I’m always a little bit nervous talking about my interest in magic and liminality and travelling life (particularly when I don’t travel myself!), for fear of being thought even dafter than most people think I am already. But in a world as horrible as the one we’re currently living in, I can totally understand the need to create your own magic, and to share it as widely as you can.

Natural History Museum: Animal Inside Out

Greyface Dartmoor Sheep at the Natural History Museum

This sheep is a Dartmoor Greyface. He is here to lull you into a false sense of security, because all the photos below this one are going to be of wobbly things in jars. If you don’t like wobbly things in jars, I suggest you just look at this lovely sheep for a bit. He lives at the Natural History Museum, in their Wildlife Garden. He had a couple of friends, and he seemed very happy there, grazing away on the meadow.

I went to the Natural History Museum to catch the Animal Inside Out exhibition before it closed. Paul declined to come with me on the grounds that he’s too squeamish, but given that it was full of excited three-year-olds yelling “look mummy, you can see all that squid’s insides!!”, I think he would have probably coped. Although some of you will no doubt be pleased to know that there was no photography allowed inside!

I felt that the exhibition was slightly on the small and under-explained side, although I don’t know what I would suggest to improve it. More detail on the actual plastination process, perhaps, which was described in just one paragraph. The exhibits themselves though were absolutely amazing. The delicacy of an entire animal comprised solely of its own blood vessels was stunning.

Many of the more robust pieces were on open display, so you could go right up to them and look really closely. Somehow the texture of the plastinated creatures gave them a somewhat “fake” quality, so you could easily believe that you were looking at very detailed models. I found that a tiny bit disappointing somehow, but then I’m the woman who likes a good old-fashioned spirit-and-taxidermy collection, so maybe it was simply all a bit too modern for my liking!

Spirit Collection at the Natural History Museum

After I’d had a good look around the exhibition a couple of times, I wandered over to the Darwin Centre to find out whether the Spirit Collection Tours were happening this week. Sadly they weren’t, so I contented myself with pointing my camera through the windows. Hence the fuzziness of the picture above. But look! Lizards!

Spirit Collection at the Natural History Museum

This is a fish, otherwise unlabelled. I don’t know what it’s been treated with to make it green, but it’s absolutely beautiful.

Spirit Collection at the Natural History Museum

This is a Lesser Vampire Bat. Isn’t he adorable? Preserving mammals in formalin or methylated spirits tends to cause them to lose their colour over time, so they often turn either orange or white.

Spirit Collection at the Natural History Museum

And this is an octopus. Please excuse the reflections on the glass, it’s hard to get rid of them when you’re taking a photo of an animal through a display case and a jar.

At this point I had to dash back to Paddington to catch the last off-peak fast train of the afternoon, so I didn’t really look at the rest of the museum. Next time I’ll get out of bed a bit earlier – there must still be corners of the place that I haven’t discovered yet!

Waltz on the Wye – Sunday

Sunday

On Sunday it was very cold, and I was very tired. I honestly thought I was smiling in this photo. Apparently the smile didn’t make it as far as my face! In case you’re wondering, the stones in the wall are level, but the bench is on a slope.

(All benches in Chepstow are on a slope. In fact all of Chepstow seemed to be up a hill. In every direction. It certainly felt like it by Sunday, anyway.)

This was my least successful outfit of the weekend, or at any rate the one I was least happy with. I couldn’t face wearing my bowler hat (too tight) or my top hat (too big) again, so I borrowed Paul’s cap. The jacket (McCalls 5759looked fine on the dressform, but turned out not to fit me terribly well. In fact I disliked it so much that it went to Oxfam along with the previous night’s dress.

We spent the morning looking at the contraptions exhibition, which was incredibly inspiring. The competition part of the proceedings was won by Richard’s beautiful pocketwatch. Chatting with Richard and Donna later that day left us full of ideas that we really must try out…

Sonic Screwdriver

I successfully nagged Paul into making a little contraption for me, and I’m hoping that next year I can encourage him to enter something into the exhibition himself. This started life as a Sonic Screwdriver projector toy. After some mysterious shenanigans with Milliput, wargaming model parts, and a detailed paint job, it turned into this lovely little thing!

Sonic Screwdriver

This was our one concession to sticking a watch part onto something. I take full responsibility.

We spent Sunday afternoon in the Drill Hall, looking around the market and listening to some of the talks. We started off with The Atomic Chemist’s slideshow about firearms. It was enjoyable, but became much more interesting to me when we came home via the Pitt Rivers Museum, and I could see exactly what he’d been talking about as we looked at their gun collection. We then stayed for Crinoline Robot‘s talk about Victorian and steampunk knitting, which was by turns informative and hilarious! I can’t wait to knit her scandalous Victorian ankle-less socks, designed especially for the event.

Sadly we missed Mark Cordory‘s Q&A session, mostly because we didn’t recognise his name until after we’d seen his contraptions, by which time it was too late. He used to be Head of Props Fabrication for Dr Who, during the Ecclestone and early Tennant eras, and the quality of his work was just lovely. We did manage to catch Will Segerman though, and his talk about quick-and-dirty ways of making great looking props was good fun. (And packed!) We came away from that one with lots of notes and ideas, well worth sitting in a horribly warm room for an hour!

Waltz on the Wye was our first steampunk event, and we went into it not really knowing quite what to expect. I was only really interested in the dressing up (anachronistic Victorian-ish clothing? yes please!), and I’d hoped that Paul might be interested in the contraptions. As it turned out, Paul was more interested in dressing up than I’d expected, and we’ve both come away inspired and enthusiastic. Everyone we met was friendly, helpful and open, which is a lot more than I can say for certain other events that we used to go to. The willingness of people to share their knowledge was just lovely, whether it was the best place to buy a pith helmet or an interesting way to make a contraption.

I really hope there’s another one next year, I can’t wait to go back!

London Trip

British Library

This must be the most-photographed view of the new British Library. But it was such a beautiful day, and the building looked so striking against the clear blue sky, that I just couldn’t resist. I went to see the Royal Manuscripts exhibition which was very beautiful, but very busy. I got a bit tired of having to peep over other people’s shoulders, so I left after about an hour and went up to the Treasures of the British Library gallery instead. Much cooler, much quieter, and still full of beautiful things.

While I was there I wandered over to the conservation centre, where they have a little exhibition that I hadn’t seen. I was surprised to find that I actually knew almost everything the exhibition had to show me. I always feel as though there’s more I can learn about almost everything, so sometimes it takes me by surprise to discover that I already know more than I think!

Happy Birthday!

In the afternoon I met up with a friend who’d been in a meeting just around the corner from the Grant Museum. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to go in again, and was excited to discover that we’d arrived on their birthday! Yes, we did sign the card and fill in the quiz. Jo loved the museum – although frankly who wouldn’t love a place with a skeleton in a party hat?

Pulmonary Vein

I had every intention of taking lots of artistic photos, but Jo and I were so busy going around pointing at exciting things that I failed miserably. I did like this one though – another ingenious bit of labelling on an elephant’s heart.

Manatee Socks!

As if Jo wasn’t already excited enough about the preserved infant manatee, she was thrilled to bits when I gave her a gift of manatee socks! The manatee looks suitably impressed, I think. Probably jealous. Jo’s going to visit manatees in Singapore soon, as well as meeting orangutans in Borneo. Now I’m jealous!

Walking home

Despite leaving London just after 5, it was getting dark by the time I walked home from the station. The lake was misty as the sun set, so I took the opportunity to snap a picture. Quite a contrast to the blue sky over London!

Grant Museum of Zoology

Grant Museum of Zoology, UCL

Somebody at the Grant Museum of Zoology definitely has a sense of humour. These four skeletons are perfectly placed to watch over the whole museum from their vantage point in the first floor gallery!

Those of a sensitive disposition should probably look away now, because the Grant Museum is filled with skeletons and things in jars. And when I say “filled”, I really mean it. I was reminded a little of the displays at Pitt Rivers, where the museum is as much about the origins of the collection itself as the individual objects in it.

Grant Museum of Zoology, UCL

There’s a whole cabinet full of brains from different animals, so that you can compare and contrast them. I just love the way the parts have been labelled with little slips of paper stuck directly into the specimen. This one is

Brain of “Dog” in median section to show the main convolutions and sulci.

(Sulcipl. depression or fissure in the surface of the brain. The bumpy bits are gyri.)

Grant Museum of Zoology, UCL

I didn’t make a note of exactly which species this is, but it reminded me of Skycarrots‘ beautifully delicate photograms of Mermaids’ Purses that she found on the beach. When you find these washed up they’ve usually already hatched, so I find it really exciting to be able to see one from the inside.

The museum’s currently open Monday-Friday, 1-5pm. I didn’t stay long because I was on a trip to UCL with work, so I’m going again on Monday. This time with a better camera, and a friend who wants to see the baby manatee!

(Yes, this does mean there’ll be more pictures. Sorry, Lettice!)

Wild Boy’s Ball

So, at long last, here is the completed stripy/steampunk outfit!

Paul and I went to the Wild Boy’s Ball at Kensington Palace, and had an absolutely magical evening. You can see all the photos that Paul took, over on Flickr.

We started off by going inside the palace itself, which was actually quite different from the last time I went. They’d repainted the entrance staircase, and changed quite a few of the rooms and installations. The giant dolls were gone, which was a shame, but they were allowing photographs (without flash) inside this time, which was brilliant. Perhaps the most enchanting but also the most creepy things were the new light installations by artist Chris Levine. At first glance they just look like a tower of flickering lights, but when you turn away from them you see people in your peripheral vision! (Sadly they gave Paul a terrible headache and made his eyes twitch.) I sat in the knitted throne, and was bowed-to by two of the Wildworks cast – who went on to give me a knitted orb and sceptre to hold until I made a wish!

When we came out we saw a show by The Gaiety Engine, which was hilarious. We also walked around the sunken gardens, which had been transformed with hundreds of red baubles hanging from the arches. Each bauble contained a piece of artwork or a secret written down by a member of the public. There may have been a certain amount of posing for photos… and as we were walking back, the official event photographer asked me if I’d mind posing for him, which was exciting – that’s never happened to me before! I suspect it’s just because I was conveniently wearing the right colour of dress, but he took some lovely pictures. Shame I didn’t think to give him my email address so I could get copies. You can see the whole set on Kensington Palace’s Facebook page.

I wanted to do the craft activities, so I made a pretty paper rose. (Like this, only bigger.) I didn’t make a lantern because there was a massive queue, but I rather cheekily brought all the lantern-making materials home with me, so I can make one anyway. Photos to follow when I’ve glued it all together and found a tea-light to pop inside. It’s very pretty.

There were supposed to be some people giving period dancing lessons and seduction tips, but we didn’t see them – although there was a small group of people in period costume, so it might have been them. At the end of the night there was dancing in front of the Orangery, run by The Last Tuesday Society. Every single piece of music was a waltz, and I tried very hard to teach Paul how to dance, but sadly he couldn’t get the hang of it. Which was a shame, because I could quite happily have waltzed for an hour, if I’d had somebody to waltz with. Paul and I did dance a bit, but it wasn’t waltzing by any stretch of the imagination!

Lobster Skirt!

Basildon Park

I managed to miss the Horrockses exhibition at the Fashion & Textile Museum, so I was delighted to pick up a leaflet for Basildon Park and find out that I could see them a little closer to home. The dresses were beautifully displayed throughout the house, but the highlight for me was this lobster-print skirt – ideally placed in a room full of shells!

It was really nice to be able to get so close to so many of the dresses. I learned a lot about the intricacies of their construction just by being able to look at them in such detail. Most of the dresses featured an underarm gusset with tiny topstitching, which was something I hadn’t seen on any of my 1950s sewing patterns.

We also got to chat to the housekeeper, who was doing some conservation work on a pair of beautiful silk curtains. She’d had some very fine net dyed to the same colour as the fabric, and was carefully removing some older, more coarse netting and replacing it with the new. It was really interesting to be able to see the work in progress, and to compare it with some of the work around the house that had already been done.

The gardens and house were very beautiful, but mostly I just want to know where I can get hold of some lobster fabric!

She Sells Seashells…

Seashell Collecting Display

These seashells, part of an original Victorian collection, are now on display in the Cole Museum of Zoology. The Museum had recently acquired four new display cases, and the volunteers were asked to fill them! The new cases now contain examples of fossil fish, specialisation in bird skulls, variation in beetles and my Victorian seashells.

Seashell Collecting Display

These are some of the boxes containing the tiniest little shells, complete with original handwriting on the boxes, and newspaper underneath. Some of them list the place and date of collection, others have only the species name.

Seashell Collecting Display

I didn’t manage to get a very good photo of the entire display because of the lights reflecting on the glass, but it shows the difference between amateur and professional collections, and the variety of boxes that the shells were packed into. I wrote a little bit of information about the history of shell collecting, and Amanda (the Cole Museum Curator) added some more about the current laws regarding bringing seashells home from other countries. (If in doubt – don’t!)

I really enjoyed rummaging (carefully!) through the Cole Museum’s shells to pick out just a few for this display case. They’re still in the process of being cleaned and catalogued, and there are some real beauties.

Natural History Museum

Natural History Museum

A couple of Saturdays ago we went to the Natural History Museum. We booked tickets for the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition (which was the reason we’d made the trip), and also booked ourselves onto a Spirit Collection Tour. There are a few things-in-jars on display in the new Darwin building, but the 30-minute behind the scenes tour was absolutely AMAZING.


Photo © Natural History Museum

The first room was quite like library storage, full of floor to ceiling grey metal shelves. There was a little map on the end of each row, to show where you are and what’s in each cupboard. We learned that “Xenarthra” is the latin name for the group of mammals that includes sloths, anteaters and armadillos. (There was only one cupboard of those.) My favourite thing was the Victorian onion jar that was full of tiny opposums. Bless. (My least favourite was the stomach contents of a dolphin. Yuk.) Apparently the museum spends a fortune on specialist glassware for the Spirit Collection, so they re-use old jars as often as they can. I’d never seen mammals in a spirit collection before, which was interesting. It hadn’t occurred to me that of course in taxidermy you’re getting rid of all the internal organs and soft tissue, so you need spirit collections to preserve those aspects.

The second room was more like a lab, with shelves around the walls for the jars that are much too big to go in the cupboards. Mostly these contained large fish, or great big snakes in very long, thin jars – hence the need for specialist glassware. There were maybe a dozen enormous closed stainless steel vats, one of which apparently contained a male orangutan that had died recently at a zoo. There were three echinda nestled together in a jar, a rather startled-looking fox, and lots of rays each with a piece of paper tucked inside their gills. The highlight of that room was “Archie” the giant squid. She was stored in a glass tank which ran the entire length of the room. Absolutely amazing. There was also a small cabinet with some of Darwin’s original specimens from the Beagle voyage, which was pretty exciting too.

The tour is free, although you do need to sign up for a ticket in advance. I can’t recommend it highly enough! It’s also inspired me to do some volunteering at my local Zoology Museum, which I’m really looking forward to.