Whitby Literary & Philosophical Society

The Whitby Literary & Philosophical Society are the people who run the Museum, Library and Archives. They also run a series of lectures and on Thursday afternoon I attended what was a very popular and entertaining lecture on the Foundation of Hild's Streonshalh & Whitby Abbey, 657 - 1100 AD by Roger Pickles. The series of lectures is published on the museum website at http://www.whitbymuseum.org.uk and although mainly for members of the Lit & Phil, guests are welcome on payment of the nominal fee of £1. I will hopefully attend a few more of these this year.

I have also begun to put together some ideas for workshops

On Saturday 14th March 2009, 11am until 2pm and on Sunday 15th March 11am until 1pm I will be encouraging visitors to make small drawings in the museum and then making them into badges - the charges for this will be £1.50 per badge. The usual museum admission charges will apply - but this is a fairly small admission fee of £3 per adult and £1 per child. Whitby residents can get in free if they produce some proof of their address.

There will be lots of other events as the year progresses and I hope to meet lots of interesting people. In between these fun things I will be continuing my own research with a view to producing a new collection of jewellery 'Inspired by Heritage' later in the year.

More fossils

I did go back to Whitby Museum on Thursday and spent the whole day sketching and photographing things, concentrating mainly on the extraordinary fossil collection.  If you 'click' on the picture of the Museum on the right it will take you to their website, with details of the collections and of the opening times.

The plant fossil is Cladophlebis denticulata which is a very graphic matte black, with the delicacy almost of a watercolour painting across the surface of the stone.  

In contrast the photograph of rib cage (below) is just the central section of a large Plesiosaurus Propinquus.  It is astonishing to me that such contrasting things can have survived almost intact for an inconceivable period of time.  There are so many beautiful patterns and structures in this part of the collection I could spend the whole year of my residency at the museum staring into one cabinet and not get bored but there is so much else to investigate in there.

I am beginning to develop a few ideas and at some point will publish a plan of workshops I will be involved in running inspired by the collections throughout 2009

Holotypes and ammonites

I have been into Whitby Museum again this afternoon, thinking I would do a bit of quiet sketching. Instead I have met a number of very interesting people (and apologise in advance to them as I won't remember any of their names) and been introduced to some holotypes of ammonites.  Now I have always liked the fossil collection but really only ever viewed it as a series of interesting patterns and forms.  I had realised that the museum had an important collection but now know that it has a number of 'holotypes' - which as I understand it are the actual physical examples (or one of several examples) used when the species of ammonites were being formally described for geological and scientific identification purposes and, yes, when you look more carefully you can see the differences in them!    I need to go in when there is no-one around now so that I can look more carefully and maybe even sketch and photograph some of them.  

I knew being artist in residence at Whitby Museum would be interesting and exciting but had no real idea of the wealth of inspirational material there was tucked away there............ just waiting to be explored.

Rings and things

I have spent the day making three rings that were supposed to be a set, but have decided I like two of them better than the third so put work aside and will have another look at them in the morning. I have also made a few beads with dashes of orange and red, trying to warm things up a bit.

A book of glorious hands

I have had a very exciting day my book is ready!  I got the phone call at lunchtime and rushed off into Whitby to collect it and I think it is really beautiful, just right for my project.  The book was created by Brian Cole at www.thecastlebindery.co.uk.  I was so excited I went straight up to the museum to show anyone I could find and found visitors...... so have actually started to collect the glorious hands.  I am asking people visiting the museum while I am there whether they would draw around their own hand and write inside the outline to say what is their favourite thing in or about the museum.  Entirely without my prompting some of the participants decorated their drawings so what I have started with are some very lovely colourful hands to cut out and stick into my book.

funny things happen when you can't see in

I attempted to make some beads using Double Helix Terra 2 yesterday, spent ages reading up on what to do and decided the first few were a bit too hot and that I hadn't really understood how to strike them using my hothead torch, they were a very pale almost grey colour. I went and looked up more information and had another go and thought I had got the hang of striking..... opened up the kiln after annealing them to find they had all completely changed colour, everything from yellow to blue, through a rich deep chocolate brown. Some of them are really nice but I am not sure there is even a pair that match. I will have to have another look at them in the daylight and maybe try again?

Wire bird

Well here it is fastened to the collar of my cardigan, my latest experiment is a little wire bird brooch. So now I've got that out of my system maybe I can get on