Hi Everyone,
it’s week 3 already and I cannot believe my time here is nearly over; three weeks have gone by so fast that I hadn’t really noticed! But, you know what they say about time when you’re having fun. So, for this entry I’ll be discussing the preparations made for the Micki Schloessingk exhibition and for a ‘Surprise Fantasy Tea Party’!
The majority of the week has been spent up in the Ceramic Gallery at the Aberystwyth Art Centre, now that Neil had pretty much decided where he wanted the ceramics to be placed and in what order it was time to clean – everyone’s worst nightmare but absolutely essential in an exhibition. Emily and Neil had the difficult task of cleaning the glass cabinets whilst I tackled the hoovering. As previously mentioned, these are the sorts of details that no one will really notice – they would only notice if things weren’t clean and tidy. Patience is what I have learnt since working in the Ceramic Gallery – you need a great deal of it to handle all the ‘fiddly’ jobs…and lots of cups of tea.
It is only a small thing, but having noticed that my photographs are being used on the information cards in the Schloessingk exhibition gave me a real sense of pride after all the cleaning was done. Here is an example of what some of them look like:
On Tuesday, Louise Chennell, Assistant Curator and Assistant Ceramic Archivist, took Georgina, Anna, Emily and me away from our everyday tasks – scanning, health and safety checks and mending mounts – to create a selection of fantasy teapots for a workshop she will be running on Saturday 28th January up in the Ceramic Gallery. The task was to create teapots and cups based on similar ones found in the collection; this is a fantastic way to get children and families interested in the School of Art collections. Our part in the workshop was simple; we had to create our own examples for the children to look at and perhaps to follow. This meant that we could play with school-like equipment all afternoon – this was the best day! It was just so much fun to sit and use our imagination, something that I haven’t been able to do very much since I graduated. Louise generously provided us with children’s scissors, various colours of cardboard, shiny metallic cardboard, copious amounts of coloured tissue paper, paper cups, polystyrene cups, masking tape, PVA glue, Sellotape, googly eyes, pompons, straws, pipe cleaners, Christmas baubles and colouring pens.
Here are some images of the fantasy teapots and teacups I made:
Thank you, Louise, for a really wonderful afternoon.
Aberystwyth University School of Art Museum & Galleries 