platypus

When I was photocopying yesterday, another piece I found was a typed essay about platypuses (or should that be platypi?) following on from the letter below… Perhaps there is more delving to be done to find out why Mary liked these funny little creatures! I didn’t have chance to read the actual essay but once it is photographed and transcribed we can have a look.
Incidentally, I had a meeting yesterday with people here to talk about how we catalogue the letters. I think we’re going to accession the whole lot as one collection, and then within that, list each individual document/letter on our content management system, KE EMu. This will mean that they are all accessible to the public and there should be a way of linking them to the blog. We are very lucky to be having a student on placement here over the summer – Melanie Williamson from Leicester University to help us do this and enable everyone to read this fascinating correspondence.

in her 100th year

I have been photocopying the correspondence to send to Sally for transcribing.
I got a bit emotional yesterday when I came to this…
Mary was still corresponding with the gallery up to her death.

Drawer of keys

I finally have a day to think about my own work.
We first visited the Bygones collection in 2006.
The room was full of metal cabinets and it was a very exciting moment when we opened the drawer full of keys.
The thing that was so exciting for me, was that most of the keys were quite ordinary, used everyday for years.
Folding keys, engraved keys and keys that looked they locked something very heavy and important.
The pencil holders I made since are influenced by the rows of various sized keys, but I still need to do them justice.

I have pleasure in sending you herewith the Platypus

I only photographed a few letters..and that was one of them..
It must have been an unusual letter to open.

Platypus

Dear Sir William Boyd Dawkins

I have pleasure in sending you herewith the Platypus, from Mrs Greg, which you so kindly promised to hand over [to] the proper authorities in the Manchester Museum.

With all good wishes for 1923

Believe me,
Yours sincerely

Assistant Curator

Storytelling

‘I can teach you – yes, anybody – what the instruments are for, and the light will flash once every four seconds as it always does, but I must teach you how to keep the light. Do you know what that means?’
I didn’t.
‘The stories. That’s what you must learn. The ones I know and the ones I don’t know.’
‘How can I learn the ones you don’t know?’
‘Tell them yourself.’

Lighthousekeeping by Jeanette Winterson

Marymary

We have a provisional date and exhibition venue for marymaryquitecontrary! Alex and I met with with Miles, the curator at Platt Hall, today about staging an exhibition in 2011. A showcase for Mary, her extraordinary collection and the creative, imaginative possibilities unleashed by opening the cupboard doors and seeing what happens. Very excited about the possibility of bringing things blinking and stumbling back into the light. Just need to work out some funding…

Quizzing Glasses

When we found these in Mary’s collection, I thought they were wonderful objects and had never heard them called quizzing glasses before.
A tool to look at things quizically..

Lists

Mary’s Lists

As promised..
One of Mary’s Lists.
The one list says
“fossil of fish eye in a box”

Hazel