A lot goes into making our museums wonderful places to visits and caring for our collections. This series of blogs invites staff at Wakefield Museums to tell you about their day.
John Whitaker
Museums curatorial and collections officer
Well the pressure is on here. I have been asked to write
about a day at work for the blog and I’ve just read Ali’s entry Alison Creasey Day in the Life from last time. How do I compete with rainforest day?
8:40am
Get into work at Wakefield One, quickly check emails, have
coffee, spring into life
9:00am
Meet artist Harriet Lawson and drive over to our off site
stores.
Harriet is a very talented artist who we have commissioned
to create an art work in one of the showcases in the upper atrium of Wakefield
One. She works mainly with pottery and textile and will be using the museums
pottery collections to inspire her display.
9:30am
Rummaging through the pottery collections at stores
Our stores are a treasure trove. Museums tend to have more
stuff than there is room to display and also some of the collection is very
sensitive and will fade if on display for too long and so we need somewhere to
store it. It’s a warehouse building and a bit like the end scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark except I have not yet found the Ark of the Covenant in the
collections (you never know though – I have not yet been in every box)
Anyway we have lots of pottery for Harriet to look through,
the project focusses on everyday pottery rather than artwork so we picked out
some pieces made in Castleford and Ferrybridge as well as plates and teapots
from our social history collection, and early Roman and medieval examples. She
is interested in getting a complimentary colour pattern so there is a lot of toing
and froing. She photographs the chosen items.
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| Harriet Lawton selecting pieces |
Harriet particularly like the pieces which are chipped and
worn as they really show that the objects have lived a full life before they
came to the museum for retirement – she does take this to the extreme though as
she really liked a Chinese plate which is broken in two (broken and repaired
BEFORE it came into the museum collection I should add, the old repair has
failed!)
12:30pm
Back to Wakefield Museum for lunch – a sad sandwich today.
1:30pm
Back on the road this time over to Pontefract Museum
2:00pm – 4:00pm Meet the Curator
I’m covering Meet the Curator at Pontefract Museum this
afternoon. The Meet the Curator afternoons are designed as an opportunity for
visitors to bring in treasures they have at home to show a museum curator – to
be dated, identified or offered to the museum collections. Our collection is
built on generous donations from local people since the first objects came to
us in the 1920s. Our criteria for collecting is that they are related to or can
tell us stories about people who have lived and or worked in the Wakefield
district – and we have not already got examples of them in the collection
already. We are definitely sorted for flat irons, radios, mangles, dolly tubs
and commemorative royal pottery!
This afternoon is as eventful as ever – an interesting
Chinese blue and white pot for identification and Roman coin which turned out
to be a copy this time.
In between enquiries I also help our museum designer Andrew
Marsland display a First World War British officer’s jacket in the foyer
at Pontefract Museum. The jacket is quite unusual as it displays officer
stripes on the sleeves, something which was toned down very early in the war
because it identified officers to the enemy and made them a target. The display
is part of the many activities we have developed to commemorate the beginning
of the First World War. We have a Great War Trail at Wakefield Museum which
includes a jar of pickled plums, a decorated biscuit and a watch worn in the
trenches to time going over the top on the first day of the Battle of the
Somme. The subject of the war is difficult to balance. It is a commemoration
not a celebration but sometimes it is important to finds the chinks of light in
the darkness.
.JPG) |
| Andrew Marsland working on a First World War jacket for display |
4:00pm
Back to Wakefield
