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
A couple of strands are intertwining! In thinking about value and having loved Mary’s spoon collection, I was reminded of a spoon from my own collection, a Victorian, ceramic measuring spoon. This got me thinking about making some kind of measure of value. At the moment I am thinking spoons, but it may develop into other things like cups. Instead of being marked with the usual units of measurement the objects would carry a value measurement such as precious, priceless, worthy etc stamped into the clay or maybe written on a tag. I would aim to reference Mary’s spoons in some way. Perhaps some would be made then broken, torn or worn etc. I like the idea that these ones might carry the highest value measure. Perhaps I might include some accession numbers or some of the unknown initials marked on the spoons. Lots to play with! Sharon
Victorian ceramic measuring spoon
Spoon drawer, Mary Greg Collection
Inspired by Samual Crompton’s Threads
…a find on a boot sale this weekend.
Found on a boot sale in Cuddington.
The tag on these keys makes you wonder what on earth the appliance could have been!
My suspicions are that they are for a fridge…but my imagination conjures up a huge child snagging machine!!
Went to a Boot sale over at Cuddington today..found all these keys on one stall…Mary would be proud.
If you want to see them better go to Alscrapmetal Blog and click on any photo, which will take you to my Flickr page.
One of the hopes I have for this blog is that we can just collect all our thoughts and follow lines of enquiry, and use this as a record to edit later.
I have started a few projects based on things we found in the collection..
on the Chatelaine, keys, candles and threads..(more on all soon)…
The bodkin case keeps resurfacing in my mind.
It was a very ordinary looking item, a useful thin box for keeping your bodkins in.
I have made these small boxes over the last two years…(see pic)
still not sure why..or what for…
But I like the idea of little metal boxes made for a specific item, that would be carried on the person..especially with a name like Bodkin.
These are two objects from my own collection..The rounded one is a needle case, but I am unsure what the other one was for.
Mary has a bodkin case in her collection and I am thinking about making something of a similar ilk…
This is one of the most uncanny things so far… Mary’s chatelaine which has a holder for pencil stubs – just like ones that Hazel made before seeing Mary Greg’s version – and only 80 years later. I think Hazel IS Mary Greg!
Having just looked at Samuel Cromptons history, I wonder if this letter is real. He lived in King Street, Bolton and died in 1827.
Mary has a number of items in her bygones collection that have wonderful stories, they give worthless objects excitement and meaning.
This idea has always been a main part of my work, I like to take the banal and try and show its importance.
Fluff, gravel, string and rusty nails are some of the items I have created “stories” and inventions for
Once an item has a story it is like touching history.
There is the first shovel of earth they dug when the Manchester ship canal was dug in one museum I visited.
Relics abound in religion…there are meant to be so many splinters of the cross.
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