Things I have collected

I have been thinking about what Sarah Cheang says in her essay about the collection providing a material encoding of the collectors desired identity. Displaying a collection is a way of communicating your personal preferences, an instant way of representing yourself. You can portray anything you want through your collection.


Things I collected as a child:

• Stamps - kept in albums, my Uncle Graham would send 1st day covers, some of the stamps were old, my prized stamp was a Penny Red.


• Postcards - kept in a photo album. I would buy at least one everywhere I visited.


• Rubbers (erasers) - kept in an ice cream tub, brought out, counted, arranged, re-arranged, sniffed, put back in box.
  

Things collected as a teenager:

• Parrots - earrings, brooches, ornaments, pictures etc. displayed in my bedroom, gifts mainly and all new.


• Vintage Handbags - started buying them when I was about 15 and I started to buy my clothes in secondhand shops. Kept in a box.

Things I collect now:

• Coffee pots - dispalyed in kitchen, all brought at jumble sales or secondhand shops. All practical and I have used them.


• Jugs - as above.


• Necklaces - all worn, vintage and cheap plastic, kept in jewelery boxes and dishes in bed room.


• Vintage haberhashery - most brought, some gifts, some displayed, most in tins and boxes, brought out, counted, arranged, re-arranged, sniffed and put back in boxes.
  

So what's to made of that? The collections as a child were kept private, probably not my choice, I'm sure my mum made me put them away, but they were taken out and viewed, worked on/added to and then put away.

As a teen the parrots were displayed, more of a way of rebelling, they were bright and bold in a house of beige and brown, my room was very 80's, pink and grey. I then started collecting and coverting vintage practical things again as a rebellion to the new plastic that was all around. I had also started working as a Stage Manger having to buy and find props, so I was becoming more aware of these items. All the things I started to buy would be used, they had to be practical again the opposite of my mum's ornaments that would sit on the side, even practical things she brought couldn't be used straight away, they had to be washed up, put back in the box and put in the cupboard.

The vintage haberdashery is a fairly new collection but I feel it's a mission to save it from being thrown away or unappreciated. I think that's the thing that distresses me most, the idea that things can be dismissed as rubbish and thrown out, this idea makes my blood run cold.

A collection of collections

I have been reading a selection of essays called Collectors, Expressions of Self and Others, edited byAnthony Shelton who is the Head of Collections at the Horniman Museum.

In Sarah Cheangs essay 'The Dogs of Fo: Gender, Identity and Collecting' she say's at 'the Collection is the self, created by the will of the collector in response to both conscious and subconscious desires.

It represents the desired self: an ideal self. Whatever longing has produced the collection, it can be seen as a way of providing a controlled cohesion of identlity which is otherwise fractured and unstable.

This self possession through possessions is so strong that the loss of the collection can be likened to loss of self. The collection also offers an opportunity for immortality, as the materiality of the collection, of preserved intact can insure continuing integrity of the collector's identity after his/her death.

Collections provide a material encoding of the collectors desired identity.'

My Cabinet

I have some LED lights that I want to put in the cabinet but they are very dim, I've tried wiring them up to a 9v battery but it doesn't seem to make much difference, my Dad said I might need a transformer.

Not sure what's going in it yet but after talking with Rachel about the Victorians fascination with collecting and labeling I'm thinking that I'll label and number all the objects, then I'll do a key and have a display/info board with an explanation to what they all are. I might even do a paper leaflet/info sheet, maybe a word search or quiz...............................

Don't know why but I thought the cabinet opened the other way??? I've had it for ages, years and I used to use it as a bathroom cabinet but it's been hidden in the loft and shed since we moved to this house. I've had to hide it because every time Peter finds it he tries to get rid of it asking me what I want it for? I've not known what I wanted it for until now, hurray for not getting rid of things, I knew there was a reason I kept it, didn't know it at the time but I do now.

Natural History Museum

Our trip to the Natural History Museum was primarily to see the butterflies. The kids found the case with them hatching fascinating. When one feel off, because it's wings were to heavy and wet, they frantically called the keeper to rescue it and put it back on the shelf where it would hang to dry out it's wings.

And of course we had to go into the museum where I took photos for research purposes.

I love these old wooden display cabinets, all the displays look fresh and newly arranged.

I also like the way that new technology has been incorporated into these old cabinets.

I think this one shows you all the things insects feed on.

Spooky shadows

Rachel's Collections

My friend Rachel collects things; dolls, hearts, photos of shoes, graffitti......

There are some great photographs she has taken on her blog, photos from her travels near and far.

Rachel is also an expert on cabinets of curiosities having made her own 'Cabinet of Hearts' which contains lost hearts, each one telling it's own story.

Frames

I walk past a framing shop everyday, outside are a rack of frames, I never really gave them a second look until about a week ago when I saw a sign on the rack saying 'free frames'!

So what happens when you frame something?

I've never really thought about frames and their influence on the art they surround. I have just read a very interesting article from the Guardian website, in it William Bailey is quoted from his book 'Defining Edges':

"The design, must effect a transition from the existing physical location, usually a wall in a room or a gallery, into the illusionistic realm of the painting. This should occur graciously and imperceptibly. The frame should also prepare the eye and mind of the viewer to accept and embrace the domain of the painting on its own terms."

Changing the frame can elivate the painting into a higher status, giving a picture a guilt frame implies that it is a masterpiece. I have always prefered plain simple dark coloured frames, like underlining a important piece of text, is it saying 'here is my art'?

Dirty Dick's

A colleague mentioned 'Dirty Dick's' today, I had never heard of the place. Intrigued I went straight off and googled it. Apparently there was rubbish 'displayed' everywhere, if people left things behind or dropped stuff on the floor it got stuck up on the walls.

from the website:

Nathaniel Bentley was an ironmonger who had a shop in Leadenhall Street. On the eve of his wedding, tragedy struck. His bride-to-be died. So distraught was Nathaniel that he locked up the room in which he had prepared the wedding feast, never to enter it again. A broken man, he neither washed or changed his clothes. When his cats died he just left them. It is thought that Dickens used this tale as the inspiration for Miss Haversham in Great Expectations. The English love an eccentric and his notoriety meant his business flourished. When Nathaniel retired in 1804, the landlord of the Old Port Wine Shop in Bishopsgate bought the contents lock, stock and dead cats. He put them on display at his pub and renamed it 'Dirty Dick's'. In 1870 the pub was rebuilt from ground level, the wine vaults are part of the original building. The 'dirty' contents were carefully relocated in the new pub. Sadly it was decided in the mid nineteen-eighties that a clean up was in order and the dirty artefacts were cleared away.

Horniman Museum

taken from the Horniman Museum website:

History of the Museum
Victorian tea trader Frederick John Horniman began collecting specimens and artefacts from around the World in the 1860's. Horniman's key mission was to bring the world to Forest Hill and he opened part of his family house to the public so they could view the riches he had collected. As the collections increased they outgrew the family home and in 1898 Horniman commissioned Charles Harrison Townsend to design a new Museum.
The Museum opened in 1901 and was dedicated with the surrounding land as a free gift to the people of London by Frederick Horniman forever for their recreation instruction and enjoyment. The original collections comprised natural history specimens, cultural artefacts and musical instruments. Over the last 100 years the Museum has added significantly to the original bequest with Horniman's original collections comprising only 10 per cent of current ethnography and musical instrument holdings.
Further buildings were added to the original during the course of the last century notably in 1911 when a new building was donated by Frederick's son Emslie. In 1999 the Museum demolished some of the later additions and embarked on a Centenary Development to create a new extension and several associated spaces, and opened in June 2002.

The Horniman is our local museum and I've been visiting it for nearly 10 years. There is a permanent natural history display and in the Centenary Gallery there is an interesting display about the collections and how they are clasified. I had a quick visit with my son recently and took some photos but will have to go back soon for a longer visit.

These type of displays are a favorite with my children, many an hour has been spent studying the life cycles of various animals.

Displaying your art

Thames Southbank May 2009


Tate Long weekend May 09

Turbine Hall, Tate

Robert Morris: Bodyspacemotionthings