Sheffield Archive
Mary Greg is leading us to many places. Sharon and I joined Alex in Sheffield last Wednesday to visit the Graves Art Gallery and see Mary’s Nature Diarys. (Awaiting permission to add photos). She had painted some wonderful bugs and made very detailed notes of the weather and animals. Lovely stories of finding moles in the potting shed. Alex has also arranged for us to go to the Archive where another bundle of Mary’s letters were waiting for us to see.
Matches
Thinking along the same lines as the spoon.
This is the reason why I love the Mary Greg collection,alongside wonderful expensive artifacts (dolls houses and a beautiful Noahs Ark stuffed with animals) are the banal objects that bring history back to the everyday. The matches are slightly different from the ones we use..but different enough. Most were throw away..tossed in the fire they lit..but here we have some examples….The large ones look hand made. I tried breaking some thin wood from an orange crate into spills and its an art. Also note the museum accession number, it rather overwhelms the matches.
One of Mary's lists
Creativity is a messy business, and a quick snapshot of my work bench illustrates that quite well.
Lots of half started pieces…most of the pieces have been cut out and filed and I can assemble them now whenever I get a spare few hours.
I am more influenced by the chatelaine than I thought, as I do seem to be making a making a set of objects to carry.
Pencil holder
String Winder
String Collector
List capsule
I think I need to work on the names, if only I could think of something like Quizzing Glasses.
ALSO note ..I have started stamping JONES on the objects I am now making for the Project.
Found in the collection on our last visit.
This is another reason I love Mary Greg’s Bygones Collection.
An old wooden spoon, presented by Mr Goodwin in 1842.
“found several feet…….surface at Bakewell”
An object that has no material value, but is now a
“Curious wooden spoon” with its own museum number and a place in history.
On our last visit to the collection I found this roll of paper in a metal tube.
You could see little bits of handwriting on the paper, but it remained impossible to extract and required someone with he correct tools and gentle coaxing to unroll it.
Not being able to read it does make it even more intrigueing, and had inspired me to make paper rolls with lists on ..which you can’t quite read…well you almost can..
Some of which will be shopping lists.
Horse Carrots.
Milk
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