FOUND IN A MUSEUM

 FOUND:

AROUND EXETER, DEVON

Now in the Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery

FOUND: HIPPO BONES BY THE HONITON BYPASS

Bones from seventeen hippos were found in 1965 when the Honiton bypass was being built.

The perks of building roads!

They're fossilised now.

Lost between 70,000-130,000 years ago.

FOUND: HUNDREDS OF HAND-AXES

Found in gravel pits near Axminster.

Multipurpose tools for cutting, chopping, digging and butchering.

Lost between 230,000 and 290,000 years ago.

FOUND: ARROWHEADS & AXE-HEADS

Found dotted around many parts of Devon, lost around 6,000 years ago.

We saw a film of a man making one. Flint shaping flint.

It inspired some making back at home. They're sharp enough to cut up an apple.

FOUND: FRENCH WINE JUGS

Found in Trichay Street and by the Acorn Roundabout, Exeter.

Lost around 800 years ago.

It is now too late to claim this lost-property.

Their owners are long deceased, but in finding these objects, we have the opportunity to learn more about our ancestors and life in Devon, 800 years ago and throughout prehistory.

Hippo bones, hand-axes and arrowheads, all evidence of life in prehistoric Devon.

What was life like in prehistoric Devon?

Here's a mock-up. Whilst your kids spent their time lying on the grass, your sheep warmed themselves by the fire.

Another 'FOUND' poster needed...

PINK CREATURE

Found in a prehistoric dwelling.

Answers to the name of 'De Li'.

Lost around half an hour ago.

No child in the immediate area seems to lay claim to her.

This dwelling may actually be more representative of life in Roman Devon.

But that's what happens in museums, you get the chance to compare life in different times.

You get the chance to dress up as a Roman

and give a talk on 'your pots' from the thirteenth century.

This is particularly true of the 'Making History' gallery in the Royal Albert Memorial Museum.

The gallery takes you from prehistoric Devon right through to contemporary Devon and Exeter.

We saw some fabulous film footage of seaside holidays in the 1950s & 60s.

I was won over by the double-deckchairs. I want one!

Visit the Royal Albert Memorial Museum open Tuesdays to Sundays each week.

We did try and go on a Monday! Do check the website here before you go.

Tea and Portraits?

Should you ever admit to popping into a gallery just for a cup of tea?

Well it wasn't just for the tea.

"I know a cafe with beautiful rooftop views", I suggested.

We had tea and pastries at the National Portrait Gallery, on our way to this exhibition,

Portals to the Past,

where there was no buffet car.

Anyway Crossrail weren't providing refreshments, only archaeology. 

I was feeling a little guilty,

not paying any attention to the portraits, 

heading straight to the Portrait Restaurant,

intent on breakfast with a view.

Then we came out of the lift on our way down and spotted this.

The Royal Family at Buckingham Palace 1913.

Huge.

Imposing.

Beautiful.

We got sidetracked.

Nearly three and a half meters high.

Four small people in a huge room?

A painting with an air of informality yet King George V is standing to attention?

Why is the Prince of Wales standing behind the sofa?

A family portrait not commissioned by the family themselves?

And where are the other three princes?

I felt better, less guilty.

I had looked at a painting.

So the visit hadn't just been all about breakfast after all.

Paintings and breakfast are available at the National Portrait Gallery.

Details on their website here.

Remember to keep your eyes peeled when coming out of the lifts!

Things We Do In Bed

Things We Do In Bed,

not my words but the title of a quilt exhibition in Danson House, Bexleyheath.

Wait! before you stop reading because needlework isn't your thing...

...I give you stories of Birth, Sleep, Sex, Illness and Death

The quilts are made by many different people:

The anonymous to mark a birth, the carers of the dying, the sufferer of depression, the widow, the wife, the daughter, the grieving, artists, prisoners, men, women, makers from the 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st centuries.

Looking at this list, there are some pretty significant events in people's lives that have been marked by the making of a quilt.

Birth

Quilts can provoke debate. Here Grayson Perry responds to the abortion debate, and perhaps the messiness of giving birth. Mind you this quilt is incredibly ordered, rhythmical and symetrical.

No mess, no disorder. 

This quilt was made for a baby in the 18th century.

This photo only begins to show how incredibly fine and delicate the stitching is.

This quilt was made later in the 19th century, again for a cot.

Each piece of fabric probably has its own story to tell.

Sleep

Like the patchwork squares in the last photo, these squares also tell stories, each one made by a different person, men and women.

Exhibited on a prison bed.

Each square was made by a prisoner, taught to sew by Fine Cell Work (a charity).

They work with prisoners to give them a skill and a chance to earn an income.

In this project they considered sleep, getting a good night's sleep in prison,

which can be quite problematic.

The green thread in the pillow in this square was picked apart from the prison sheets,

'...so there is a bit of the prison in my square'.

This blew me away...  the skills, the dreams!?

Sex  

Fifteen quilts with words, the connections of sex.

On a chaise longue!

Illness 

By the time Karina Thompson gets to 70, her heart will have beaten unnoticed 2.6 billion times.

Quilted images inspired by her echocardiogram. 

A quilt made at her husband's bedside.

The making of it, keeping her company when he could no longer communicate.

Again a quilt made in response to tragedy.

Encouragement sent to her son following his car accident, sewn into hexagons of hope. 

Stones and painkillers sewn into a quilt.

 

Intending to feel the weight of all this,

the experience of lying under this quilt of stones and painkillers turned out to be,

"not too heavy at all, it felt quite nice".  

Death

 A 19th century widow's quilt.

These two quilts, grey and white, were made by a daughter in response to her mother's dementia.

The grey fibres resembling her mother's hair and the crazy patchwork design, her skin...

...eleven years later, remembering her in white.

As I said, these quilts, essentially bedcovers,

were on display in the bedrooms of Danson House.

These two displayed where the original bed would have been,

underneath the ceiling from which drapes would have hung.

Whatever your thoughts on needlework,

it certainly doesn't shy away from addressing the big things in life.

Things We Do In Bed is housed in the bedrooms at Danson House, a Georgian Villa.

The quilts were chosen and brought together by the novelist Tracy Chevalier.

Things We Do In Bed is on until 31st Oct 2014 in Danson House.

Not open on Fridays & Saturdays,

and learnt by experience, not open until noon each day.

Visiting information here.

Tracy Chevalier quilts too

 Buy a rafflle ticket to support Danson House and you may win a quilted cushion she has made.

Bill Douglas Cinema Museum: The 'Flicks'

We went to the movies in my last post and saw Bill Douglas' extensive collection of film memorabilia, housed in the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum in Exeter.

His collecting didn't stop at all things 'moving image'.

He went back, to the time before we all started going to the cinema.

The magic of the moving image began before cinemas.

Like with this zoetrope with horses galloping.

Here's a selection of images, to have a go for yourself.

Here's a Mutoscope. Not a risque one!

It's brilliant, to be able to see how it works.

Turn the handle and the pictures flip by, making it look like things are moving.

Like a giant flip-book.

Apparently they were popular at the British seaside right up until the 1970s.

Now Magic Lanterns.

Stories told through slides projected onto screens. In colour too!

English Church History anyone?

Or the story of Robinson Crusoe?

Or perhaps Red Riding Hood?

A later, mass produced version for the kids.

A 'Mickey Mouse toy Lantern Outfit'.

If you hadn't got a magic lantern, you could always make your own amusement with shadow puppets.

Perhaps with your hands...

...or with this beautiful Shadow Theatre.

You could intrigue your friends and family with magic mirrors!

Or with pictures in 3D?

With the stereoscope.

My grandad had a stereoscope in the 1950/60s.

He had to stop using it in the 70s when he couldn't get the double slides developed anymore.

Sharing family photos took rather a long time, passing it round, waiting for our turn to look through the viewer.

But then we were rewarded with the magic of the 3D photo.

He was always taking photos, instead of asking us to smile, he'd say 'show us your teeth'.

I still keep my mouth closed now when someone takes a photo of me!

A Viewmaster.

'I've got one of those somewhere', my mum.

We probably have all got one of those somewhere.

Here' a much more low-tech way of making 3D pictures.

No scrabbling round for batteries, for the stereoscope light-bulb, when they run out.

And finally I give you 'sound'!

Thomas Edison's Phonograph.

Sound recorded with a needle on a hollow tube of hardened wax.

However did he come up with that idea?

The first recording was made in 1877,

of 'Mary had a Little Lamb'.

I do however save one last encore for the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum Activity Box.

It was magic, for both adults and kids.

Viewmaster, 3D pictures, magic mirrors, zoetrope, flick books, optical illusions, thaumatrope (spinning discs), shadow shows and more.

Kept us amused for ages.

Big thanks to Big Douglas Cinema Museum for this.

An authentic hands-on experience, and ironically not a screen in sight.

So following this, pictures began to move. You can read all about the moving image in my previous post,

Bill Douglas Cinema Museum; Lets go to the movies! here.

Find out more on the the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum website.

Not only will you find information about visiting,

but it also has a brilliant 'Kids Zone', which I think should be called an 'Kids, Adults & Everyone Zone'.