Helen Peyton

Helen Peyton is a printmaker from Skipton. She has been an artist in residence at the Craven Museum and gallery since 2011. She has been running a project called Smart Gallery, that started in February, in which visitors bring along objects with interesting back stories. Helen uses these to produce her wonderful reduction lino prints.

For more information see http://revealingthehiddenarchive.blogspot.co.uk/

Marx-Lambert Collection, Compton Verney

Enid Marx (1902-1998) was one of Britain's foremost designers. She produced textiles, wallpaper, book jackets, was an illustrator, painter and a prolific collector of folk and popular art. She would often use objects from her collection to inspire her designs. She donated her collection to Compton Verney. They have recently raised funds to be able to display Enid's objects and the work they inspired alongside each other.

The gallery is presented as if it were Enid's own living room, with her wallpaper on the walls hung with items from her collection and her own prints and paintings. A wooden sideboard is used to store an interactive display encouraging visitors to play with pattern blocks.

Joanne Kaar

Textile Designer Joanne Kaar lives and works in Thurso. Her latest project is another 'Portable Museum' (see previous post). This one records the story of how Caithness Whalers introduced the Magellen daisy, a native of South America, to the northern coast of Scotland.

Simon Costin

Simon Costin is an art director and set designer whose passion for our folk heritage led him to create The Museum of British Folklore. As yet without a permanent home, the Museum instigates exhibitions around the country. Simon was asked to create a Victorian street scene diorama for the Museum of London to celebrate Dickens' 200th birthday.

When lifelong collector of fireworks and related memorabilia, Maurice Evans, donated his entire collection to the Museum they worked with Compton Verney to stage 'Remember, Remember. A History of Fireworks in Britain'.

Artists' responses to Museum/Gallery Collections

 I have been looking a examples of artists who have used existing collections as inspiration for their own work. The most notable from the past few years was Grayson Perry's 'Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman', pictured above. I took a group of my students to see the exhibition and we were lucky enough to hear Grayson speak about his work. He described it as a 'pilgrimage' through the British Museum's collection and a homage to the skill of centuries of unnamed people.

Simon Fujiwara's 'Since 1982' at Tate St Ives explored his Cornish childhood through the work of Barabara Hepworth, Alfred Wallis and other well known artists represented at the gallery.

Last year, Simon Starling produced a film that was shown in the Duveen galleries in Tate Britain. 'Phantom Ride' explored the history of the gallery space and the exhibitions that have been held there.

Bob and Roberta Smith's Epstein Archive Gallery

Bob and Roberta Smith (Patrick Brill) worked with curator Neil Lebeter to 'rifle through' the Jacob Epstein Archive at The New Art Gallery in Walsall. The culmination of two years work was the Gallery pictured below. A combination of Brill's trademark typography and items from the archive tell a narrative about the sculptor and his extended family.

MoMA, New York

Several pieces interested me particularly at MoMA. They had an example of Marcel Duchamp's 'Box in a Valise'. He made more than 300 of these 'portable museums' as he called them. This one consists of 68 of his works in miniature, creating an archive of his career. The technique used is a collotype print. Duchamp had worked as a commercial printer and used his knowledge to make these high quality reproductions of his original work.

They had a small collection of Joseph Cornell's work on display. He juxtaposed collections of found objects, often with little or no clear connections, into boxes. The viewer is free to make their own individual interpretations of these collections of objects.

Ferran Adria at The Drawing Center, New York

elBulli was a world renowned restaurant in Barcelona and Ferran Adria its pioneering chef. This exhibition at the Drawing Center in SoHo was entitled 'Notes on Creativity'. It featured his sketches, diagrams, notebooks, charts and lists which archive the whole creative and intellectual process of developing his dishes. Ferran Adria gave an introduction to the exhibition, talking about his philosophy and his relationship with artist Richard Hamilton.

'The Library of Secrets'

I visited the 'Volume' Art, Book and Print Fair at The Library of Birmingham this weekend. It gave me the opportunity to have a look at some more of the installations in the 'Discovery Trail' - artworks inspired by the library and its contents, designed to lead visitors around the building.

'The Library of Secrets' by Serena Korda is a large free-standing bookcase containing many classic books on its shelves. At each end of the bookcase are 'confessional booths' where visitors can write down their thoughts on paper and then slip them into the pages of the books to be discovered by others sometime in the future.

The interactive element of this installation particularly interested me. I will go back in a few more weeks and see how many people have contributed their thoughts.

Portable Museums

This is a possible way of curating my work. It would also serve as a way of encouraging feedback and participation from a range of audiences. Moseley Society Local History group is currently running a project called 'What Moseley Means To Me', they are trying to gather reminiscences from local people of all ages. They hope to collect photos and objects with accompanying captions.  A portable museum could be taken to schools, care homes and displayed in shops and pubs. People could add their own memories, stories and even objects.

Images above show work by Ron Pippin, Joseph Cornell and Marcel Duchamp. Below is a project by artist Joanne B Karr and Joanne Howdle, curator of Caithness Horizons Museum. It is inspired by the life and work of 19th century amateur botanist Robert Dick.