National Museums Liverpool Blog - national conservation centre

Copyright Stephen Shakeshaft

The photographs in the exhibition Liverpool People by Stephen Shakeshaft have struck a real chord with visitors and brought back a lot of memories, as the comments made during reminiscence sessions in the exhibition have proved. Some of these comments have been included with the photos on the exhibition website now, and there are more below.

If you would like to take part in a reminiscence session there are a few more planned, with the next one taking place tomorrow afternoon. Full details are in the exhibition events programme on the website.

And don't forget that there are just a couple more days left to enter the caption competition and win a signed copy of Stephen Shakeshaft's book 'No Illusions' - so get your thinking caps on if you haven't entered yet!

"One thing which stands out is the expression of resilience mixed with hope on the faces of the people in our great city."

"We seem to have grown up in poverty but children always seemed to be laughing. The photographs made me realise this."

"The photo of the clothes rack reminds me of sitting at the kitchen table with wet clothes dripping into your dinner."

"The photograph of the lady with the washing rack reminds me of my gran's house. She always had the kettle on and cake in a tin."

"My son can't believe some of these photos. Why have an indoor washing line?"

"I love the photograph of the lady with the gas mantle. Looks like she's just come in from the wash house, is so pleased with her washing all done and is ready for that cup of tea. I can almost hear her sigh."

"The photograph of the carters reminded me of my dad and brother who used to be carters. They would dress up the horses with brasses and ribbons and go to shows. We used to take the horses back to the stables in Whittle Street."

"I'm reminded of the rag and bone man with his goldfish. Where did he put all those goldfish on his cart?"

"The photograph of the carter reminded me of having our milk delivered by Mabel in her pony and trap in West Derby in the fifties. Sometimes she'd give me a lift to the Saturday cinema in the village. I couldn't tell whether the smell was Mabel or the horse."

"The shop with the children reminds me of shops always having a bell that rang whenever the door opened."

Copyright Stephen Shakeshaft

It's competition time again and this month's picture comes courtesy of the rather wonderful exhibition Liverpool People by Stephen Shakeshaft, which is at the National Conservation Centre until 24 January 2010.

Have a look at this photograph from the exhibition - you can see a larger version on the exhibition website - and see if you can think of an amusing caption for it. Post your entry as a comment (please keep them clean) by the end of the day on Sunday 22 November and the winner will be notified the following week.

Stephen Shakeshaft himself has very kindly offered to judge this month's competition. The lucky winner will get a signed copy of his book 'No Illusions' which includes many of the pictures from the exhibition and more from Stephen's first 30 years as a newspaper photographer.

Head of objects conservation,Vivien Chapman, (left) inspecting the flag in the textile conservation studio

This special Rainbow Flag was recently donated to the Museum of Liverpool's permanent collections and will be displayed pride of place in the People's City gallery in the new Museum of Liverpool when it opens in 2011.

This flag represents a very important first in Liverpool. It was flown above Liverpool Town Hall for the first time for the International Day Against Homophobia on 17 May 2009. It is just one of the many objects with amazing stories which curators seek out to ensure contemporary issues and events in the city are represented for the future. International Day Against Homophobia marks the day in 1990 when the World Health Organisation took homosexuality off its list of mental illnesses. It is hard to believe that until relatively recently this was still the case but with recent homophobic attacks in Liverpool it is all too apparent that there is a long way to go in challenging prejudice and intolerance.

The flag was kindly donated by Liverpool City Council. It is a fitting time to add it to the collection at the start of Liverpool's annual Homotopia festival. National Museums Liverpool has always supported the festival and will be holding a free talk about the secret language of Polari at 2pm this Saturday at Merseyside Maritime Museum as part of the programme of events. Further details are on the Sailing Proud page on the Merseyside Maritime Museum's website.

You can see more photos in the Rainbow Flag set on Flickr.

Children at the National Conservation Centre's Big Draw event

Before I went on maternity leave and was not a little deluded about life with a newborn, I harbored dreams of spending blissful hours drawing my precious new baby, who would of course sleep peacefully throughout.

Having studied art at university I felt sure this would at last be my chance to dust off the easel and ease my way back into drawing again… afterall what else would I have to do?

Well my little girl is now 16 months old and I am still yet to as much as sharpen a pencil. However my time might have finally come as she has suddenly realised the potential of crayons. They no longer go straight into her mouth but instead she eyes the room looking for a suitable suface to make her mark. She has even started to shout/command/instruct “DRAW!” as soon as she has a suitable implement in her hand.

Her timing couldn’t be more perfect as we are right in the middle of Big Draw, the annual celebration of all aspects of drawing.

The Walker Art Gallery  has some fabulous displays of Big Draw inspired artwork already on show, but there is still space for more. If you want to take part and maybe have your work amongst the Rubens, Rembrandt and Rossettis then head to the gallery any weekend in October.

Events at the National Conservation Centre will definitely appeal to the more scientific-minded. Members of the Merseyside branch of the British Science Association will be on hand on the 17 and 24 October, to help explore the relationship between science and art. Using the centre’s equipment, a range of pictures and patterns from the microscopic to the telescopic, as well as live images, will provide exciting inspiration for all budding artists.

A free downloadable drawing pack is available and details of all Big Draw events at National Museums Liverpool are here .

Françoise Chircop Rutland of the University of Liverpool, who is doing her PhD on NML Hittite collections, asked Annemarie Le Pensèe in Conservation Technologies to scan a mysterious mould from an excavation by Professor Garstang in 1907 to 1911 at Sakje Gözü, southern Turkey.  Making a computer positive from the scanned negative it turns out to be a mould for a type of axe known in Middle to Late Bronze Age Egypt - between 1300BC and 1180BC.

Screenshot of a 3D computer model of the the cavity of a Hittite mould mirrored and reversed. The 3D model was created using non-contact laser scanning.

The axe - called a 'fenestrated "duck-bill" axe' on account of its window shaped apertures and its duck-bill shape - is known from other examples (not in our collections) though both moulds and axes of this type are rarely found outside of Egyptian collections. There's not many moulds about... and moulds, presumably, facilitate the production of more axes for use in the ‘smiting’ of which the Hittites were so fond according to the Old Testament of the Bible.  Some archaeologists now believe that these axes were used for ritual battles between prize fighters and symbolised high social status both in life and death – since these axes were buried with them. 

Stephen with the photo of Lizzie Christian

We would drive around Liverpool in a mini chasing news – two six footers crammed in the tiny car.

Stephen Shakeshaft was already an established staff photographer at the Liverpool Daily Post & Echo in Victoria Street when I joined as a news reporter in April 1970.

Even as a young man he was very distinguished-looking, tall with an aristocratic nose and an excellent head of hair (which he still has). Stephen was also very funny ha-ha, veering between droll comments and biting sarcasm. We got on well and often traded insults.

It was obvious that he was a rising star among some other very talented people in the office including John Sergeant, Tony Wilson and Roger Alton.

This is not to mention others making their mark such as Phil Key and a youthful, pipe-smoking Joe Riley. I worked with them all until September 1973 when I joined the Press Association in Fleet Street.

Stephen sometimes gave the impression of being rather cautious and methodical. This was deceptive as I could see he was always looking out for a good picture.

I have never seen him at a loss or flustered in any way. I think he may have sometimes regarded his day-to-day work as unchallenging – such things as head-the-ball shots at soccer matches, people scurrying out of the criminal courts or competition winners.

Stephen always poked behind the scenes for gold and about 70 of these largely hidden treasures are on view in his new exhibition Stephen Shakeshaft: Liverpool People at the National Conservation Centre until 24 January 2010.

I find this show totally and utterly fascinating. These brilliant studies capture a Liverpool going through great change from the 1960s onwards.

This is the third of Stephen’s exhibitions I have helped to publicise. I think it is the best because it demonstrates his great ability to capture the personalities of ordinary people.

He has also recorded some of the city streets as they were before pedestrianisation, CCTV, pelican crossings and hideous steel shutters.

This is a world before superstores sucked the life out of our corner shops and closed local pubs, where most people got around on shanks’s pony or took public transport.

To me the pictures evoke a time when people enjoyed mucking in together and laughing at the experience.

I also remember some of the people in the pictures. One of my favourites is this famous shot of greengrocer Lizzie Christian at her city centre barrow (shown). Mrs Christian always had a ready smile for everyone, lighting up the street around her.

Other pictures I like include a crowded wash house which was a great place for exchanging news, Prime Minister Harold Wilson at a packed public meeting and two dockers with a traditional wooden handcart.

As you can probably tell from my blog posts, I've been looking forward to the exhibition Liverpool People by Stephen Shakeshaft for months. The good news is that the exhibition is now open. The photographs on display present an honest and affectionate view of the many incredible characters that Stephen has encountered in the city over the last few decades. They are bound to bring back memories for many people, while the anecdotes that accompany them should raise a smile or two.

In addition to the photographs, Stephen's old Micro Press plate camera that he used during the 1960s is also on display. It's a real piece of history, and is fascinating to a digital camera user such as myself. I couldn't imagine lifting it, let alone taking a half decent photo with it, so it really does bring home what an accomplished photographer Stephen is. He recalled about using the camera:

Stephen Shakeshaft in the exhibition

"Using this camera was the perfect discipline for a young photographer and quite the opposite of today's technology. To cover a football match at Goodison or Anfield I would have 10 slides which would carry 20 glass plates (5 x 4 inches), this gave me just 20 opportunities to get THE photograph.

The camera required strong shoulders, it was cumbersome but I carried it everywhere with me. In the dark room the only way to test if the plate had been loaded the correct way was to taste the emulsion with the tip of my tongue. Maybe that is the reason why I have silver hair today!"

Several statues from the Lady Lever Art Gallery have recently been out on loan to the V&A for the 'Thomas Hope:Regency Designer' exhibition. On their return they made a quick pitstop in the sculpture conservation studio, where they were checked and re-waxed before being ready to return to public display.

You can see the sculptures making their way back to the Lady Lever Art Gallery in our Moving stories Flickr set. As you can imagine, moving several large, heavy sculptures without damaging them is quite an operation, which required the combined efforts and specialist skills of the technical services team, sculpture conservators, conservation technologies and the handling and transport technicians, as well as some serious heavy lifting equipment. The good news is that the move was a success and the sculptures are now back on display.

Nicky Lewis examining original photographs by Stephen Shakeshaft in the paper conservation studio

In the build up to Liverpool People by Stephen Shakeshaft, which opens in a few days, I have been posting some of the photographs that didn't quite make it into the exhibition on the blog along with Stephen's funny and insightful stories behind each one. But I'm sure you're all dying to know about the pictures that are actually in the exhibition. One person who has seen them already is Nicky Lewis, who has mounted and framed them all ready for display. This included a few original prints, which required extra careful handling as she explains:

"After days spent mounting brand new prints of Stephen Shakeshaft's work it was a real thrill to get my hands (gloved, of course!) on some of his original prints. All of his images have great stories to tell but there's something quite special about seeing the real thing. The creases, tears and fingerprints, the scribbled notes and pencil lines to show where the image was to be cropped, all transport you to the desk of the newspaper photographer and that - I imagine - frantic time before that day's newspaper went to print.

Although the images will be framed in a similar way to the copy prints I instantly have to think differently with original objects. We have a responsibility to not allow their condition to deteriorate any further. So I have chosen mounting materials that are acid free and controlled the amount of light that the photographs are exposed to, and will monitor them closely while they are on display. You can also take a closer look at them in the exhibition at the National Conservation Centre from Friday."

Many people will remember Stephen Shakeshaft's fantastic football photographs from the Soccer Shots exhibition a few years ago. The good news is that there are some more on show in Liverpool People by Stephen Shakeshaft, which opens a week today. Here's a picture of the crowds that didn't quite make it into the exhibition.

Being paid to go to football matches may sound like a dream job, but as Stephen recalls below, life on the touchline was far from easy:

Copyright Liverpool Daily Post and Echo

"Football crowds fascinate me, every emotion is on view - jubilation, frustration, anger, despair and a lot worse. Why don't photographers show excitement on a goal being scored? Because they are watching the aftermath from players and fans, the goal passes them by. Even now I watch football totally emotionless, after 40 years of sitting on the touchline it has taken its toll.

From the aching knees after lying prostrate in front of the Kop to the scars of European cup ties I have suffered for my sport. A bottle bounced off my temple in Rome, a police dog took part of my ankle in Rotterdam and a Bruges defender landed so heavily on my back I couldn't exhale for two days. I lost so many jackets after smouldering cigarettes landed on my back - 'Hey mister, you are on fire!' My shoes were taken off my feet at Wolverhampton Wanderers by a cheeky fan who was obviously annoyed that my body was blocking his view - I had to bribe him to give them back.

The problem was we had to lay flat on the grass on a groundsheet between the fans and the touchline, parallel with the goal post. This was not a position conducive with fast reactions - in other words we had to dodge the missiles from the crowd and the studs of the advancing winger heading for the penalty area. If a foul was committed on a home player in front of us the missiles showered down aimed at the offending player - coins (half crowns the favourite as they travelled the furthest, being the heaviest) hit me on the ear leaving me seeing stars for a few minutes, pop bottles, darts, meat pies. One night I counted five pellets that had been fired from an air pistol which I gave to the police. It wasn't all bad though, often after a stormy, eventful match there would be enough money scattered around the groundsheet to buy a round of drinks.

We would always follow the home team attack and at Anfield walking around the ground to the Kop for the second half on a wet cold day it was like walking into a giant hairdryer - the heat hitting us from the crowd. It was a great view and a dramatic angle to take photographs from, camera at pitch level. A wet day was miserable, the ground sheet resembling a pond. The secret was to dress accordingly - starting off with long johns underwear, two pairs of socks, thick jeans, two sweaters, scarf and cap and then a waterproof leather divers suit which had no ventilation. I just prayed I didn't need the loo at half time and at the end of a game, after a good soaking from the rain, I literally squeaked when walking.

Leaving the ground in the middle of the crowd my feet didn't touch the ground until I reached the main road, my elbows stood out like handles and I was lifted by the pressure of the throng as I hung on to my cameras.

Songs developed on the Kop from nowhere, it was if 20,000 people had been in a rehearsal room before the game, as one they developed the funniest anthems and hilarious chants against the opposition - but when they sang 'You'll Never Walk Alone' the hairs on the neck always stood up.

I couldn’t do it now but I'm glad I did it then."

Dockers. Copyright Stephen Shakeshaft

With just over a week to go until the exhibition 'Liverpool People by Stephen Shakeshaft' opens at the National Conservation Centre, here's another photo from his archive that didn't quite make it into the exhibition. Stephen took many photos of the dockers during his career as picture editor and chief photographer of the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo, and remembers that they were real characters:

"They provided the backbone to the city and its commerce. They also provided the material for the jokes of Liverpool comedians. They were very suspicious of a man with a camera. 'Don't take my picture, lad - take his - he has his makeup on!' Whoever sold caps went out of business when the dockers went. Walking around Canada Dock you had to keep your eyes skinned and spend as much time looking up as concentrating on your subject; 'Watch your 'ead, lad'.

I covered dockers' strikes and pickets, I was there when they received their redundancy notices and when they realised their jobs were gone - replaced by the container monsters of Seaforth.

All dockers had nicknames which fitted their personality or character such as 'Stanley Matthews' who, on the unloading of a crate, would always say 'I'll take the corner'."

Frank Green. Copyright Stephen Shakeshaft

The upcoming exhibition 'Liverpool people by Stephen Shakeshaft', which opens at the National Conservation Centre on 18 September, is bound to bring back a lot of memories for people who have seen Liverpool evolve since the 1960s. However Stephen wasn't the only person documenting the changing face of the city, as this photograph from his archive shows. This one of a selection of images that didn't quite make it into the exhibition itself that Stephen has kindly agreed to share here on the blog instead. He recalls:

"In a way we became unofficial archivists of the Liverpool scene. The post-war planners destroyed old Liverpool with a determination never matched by the Luftwaffe. Communities were wiped out. Slums went, but so did good houses. Folk songs were written about moving out to the housing estates in Speke and elsewhere. Uprooted families gazed from the windows of high rise flats.

The process was photographed by myself and painted by Frank Green. Our purpose was the same - to record the passing of the old city. This is Edge Hill as it was then. What would these houses have been worth today with modernisation and renovation?"

Frankie Vaughan. Copyright Liverpool Daily Post and Echo

Here's another photograph that didn't quite make it into the upcoming exhibition 'Liverpool people by Stephen Shakeshaft'. Over the course of his career at the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo, Stephen met a huge number of celebrities. One that he remembers particularly fondly is the legendary Frankie Vaughan:

"Frankie Vaughan, also known as Mr Moonlight, was one of the nicest people I've ever met. Sometimes entertainers or celebs disappoint when meeting them but Frankie was genuine and he loved Liverpool. In my teenage years I sat watching my mother swoon as he sang 'Give Me The Moonlight' on television's Sunday Night at the London Palladium.

He was everything that a pinup should be and he still had that Frankie giggle all those years later when he gave me a lift in his gold Rolls Royce along Lord Street in Southport. I can still see the expressions on the holidaymakers' faces as they
watched open jawed as we pulled up at the traffic lights. Looking in they saw that the driver was Frankie Vaughan and on the back seat there was ME!

I had persuaded him to be photographed on the beach at Southport when he was starring in the Summer Show. He walked in the sandhills with his wife Stella and was moved to tears. He told me as a child he would visit the same beach from his Dingle home for his one day’s annual holiday with his parents.

This photograph was taken in 1998 shortly before he died. He was in Liverpool and wished to visit the streets of his childhood."

Kenny Everett. Copyright Liverpool Daily Post and Echo

Here's another one of Stephen Shakeshaft's fantastic photos, this time of a well known face. This photograph hasn't made it into his upcoming exhibition 'Liverpool people by Stephen Shakeshaft', which opens at the National Conservation Centre on 18 September, but it made me smile so I thought I'd share it with you. Stephen took this picture early on during Kenny Everett's career and remembers:

"Celebrity Squares was a popular quiz show hosted by Bob Monkhouse. The voiceover as the prizes for contestants came on was from the irrepressible Kenny Everett - who went on to be a great DJ and television star. I was amazed how many bottles of cola he got through during the show."

Sister Marina, Walton Prison. Copyright Liverpool Daily Post and Echo.

There's just over a month to go now until the exhibition 'Liverpool people by Stephen Shakeshaft' opens at the National Conservation Centre. The exhibition will be packed full photographs spanning Stephen's career as photographer and picture editor at the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo.

There are lots of great photos that didn't quite make it into the exhibition itself, like this one, which prompted Stephen to reminisce about the time he spent behind bars - just visiting to take photographs of course.

"I photographed Sister Marina visiting Walton Prison. Her smile and compassion were for all - she was there to comfort those who needed her faith, solace, prayers and hope.

A hand stretched through the bars of a locked cell and a finger tapped me on the shoulder - looking round all I could see were dark penetrating staring eyes and a finger that seemed to be 6 inches long - the other hand came through the bars and I was offered a tin cup full of tea. I hesitated, smiled and took a sip - the warden teased me with a suggestion that there was something else in the cup that I would not want to drink!

One of the most uncomfortable situations I found myself in was covering life in a women's prison. Entering the recreation room I was confronted by more than 20 women prisoners, their jokes and repartee was X certificate - all to the amusement of the Governor, who wore a long white mac with epilettes and black knee length boots!"

When they handling team say they're moving houses they usually mean literally!

As I've mentioned many times before, there's never a dull moment for the handling and transport team. Since I last reported on their activities they have safely transported a huge variety of objects from our collections, including ship models, paintings, a stained glass window and some Hindu Gods (well, sculptures of them, anyway). Some have been moved from storage to the conservation studios for treatment and back again, other objects have been gone on or off display and a few have ben loaned to other organisations.

Some of the more unusual jobs have involved taking a whole rack of uniforms to the conservation freezer to treat a possible insect infestation and weighing weapons from the collection in order to determine the floor loadings of planned displays in the new Museum of Liverpool.

On a rare break from work a few weeks ago the team had a sneak preview of the new galleries currently under construction at the Museum of Liverpool. They were all impressed by the scale and design of the building. However in the back of their minds I'm sure they were all thinking the same thing - they'll have their work cut out installing all of the many objects in this huge building in time for the opening.

You can see what they've been up to in the Moving stories Flickr set of photos.

Celebrations after Liverpool won the European Cup Final in Rome, 1977. Copyright Liverpool Daily Post and Echo

A little while ago I mentioned that preparations were already under way for the next exhibition at the National Conservation Centre. Opening from 18 September 2009 to 24 January 2010; 'Liverpool people by Stephen Shakeshaft', will include photographs spanning the career of the picture editor at the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo.

It has been a tough process whittling down the huge selection of images available to a suitable number for the exhibition. Unfortunately there just isn't space to fit everything in. So over the next few weeks I'm going to be featuring some of the photos that didn't make it into the exhibition itself here on the blog. This one in particular made me smile. Here's the story behind it in Stephen's own words:

"The Eternal City was ready for the arrival ofthe Liverpool fans. I had arrived a week before to send build up features to the Echo. It was Liverpool's biggest match - ever!

The first train to arrive in Rome's main station could be heard a mile away, the L-I-V-E-R-P-O-O-L chant was getting louder by the minute.

Hundreds of fans stepped into the sacred city in red t-shirts and scarves - no suitcases, no toothbrush, no change of clothes - and marched towards the city. I watched a group swaying down a road tunnel still singing - when in Rome do as scousers do. The city was a festival of red, who were the other team? There seemed to be few German supporters around.

Liverpool won, even Tommy Smith scored, and at the end I made towards him to take a celebration picture. The other photographers waited for him to turn around as he jumped into the trainer's arms. I went the other wat and my picture was just what I wanted. I later asked Tommy why he had run straight to the trainer at the end of the match. 'He had my teeth in his pocket and I wanted them back before having my picture taken', he replied."

Something got Mick started... A young Mick Hucknall outside Pickwick's club. Copyright Francesco Mellina

With the Summer Pops in full swing a huge variety of international musicians have descended on Liverpool. The festival always attracts a lot of new big names to the city but also features many familiar faces and bands who started in the area many years ago. It was interesting to read an interview with Mick Hucknall in the Daily Post in which he reminisced about rehearsing in Liverpool in the late 1970s and early 1980s. His first band The Frantic Elevators, which he played in for seven years before forming Simply Red, was managed by Roger Eagle, one of the co-owners of the legendary Eric's club.

Inevitably another familiar figure on the Liverpool music scene at the time, the photographer Francesco Mellina, met and photographed Mick Hucknall many times during that early part of his career. Here's one of Francesco's photographs taken in a back street behind Pickwick's club. It's just one of the fascinating glimpses of bands before they were famous that you can see in the Sound and Vision exhibition at the National Conservation Centre - which also includes U2 back in 1980 when they were the opening band for Wah! Heat and Pink Military.

Here's a special report from Isobel, who spent last week helping out behind the scenes at World Museum Liverpool for her work experience placement.

"When asked to choose a work experience placement, the traditional primary school or office jobs didn't really appeal to me. So instead I decided to work in the World Museum. My mum works there, but I didn’t really have a clue what she actually does. Maybe the readers of this are more knowledgeable than I am, but 'curator of numismatics' doesn't mean much to me! I wanted to find out what museum work entails, as I, like a lot of people, didn't really know what goes on behind that 'no entry' door.

My first day was with Emma, head of Ethnology, in the museum stores. Along with Chrissy, I helped measure, handle and photograph Buddha figurines. I learnt so much about different types of Buddhas and symbolism in Buddhist figurines and felt so lucky to pick up and hold things that are usually behind a glass case! It was so amazing to think about the culture and history surrounding each Buddha.

On Tuesday I was lucky enough to be shown the zoology stores by Tony, including vast cabinets of insects, spirit stores full of interesting samples, and stuffed animals from old displays.  I was at the National Conservation Centre on Tuesday as well, watching an interactive activity for the Weston Discovery Centre being made. In the afternoon I was with my mum looking at a new acquisition, a set of bravery medals being awarded to a seaman who gave himself up to the Japanese during World War II to save his ship. The human story behind those medals was really interesting, and more valuable to me than the solid gold coin I had been handling minutes before!

Wednesday was back at the museum stores, putting together Egyptian pots. This is a challenge, but very rewarding when you find two pieces that fit together. I can describe it as the most difficult and oldest jigsaw I have ever attempted! I also held a pot that was seven thousand years old and still had the potter's fingerprints on it. Among the Egyptian stores I also saw a mummified cat's head, which looked disturbingly like my pet, Boots.

My favourite day had to be Thursday, spent at the Clore Natural History Centre. I'm interested in Biology and it was great to spark the kids' interests in something and see how excited they got. Additionally I had spent all my other days behind the scenes, so it was a nice change to be front of house. Although I didn't have the knowledge to answer all of the children's questions, I learnt through listening to the demonstrator's answers, and, like what I've been told by many staff at World Museum Liverpool, working here means you are constantly learning!

Finally, my last day, Friday, was spent in the museum stores working with Roman coins. I've learnt so much this week, and the variety of the work I've done has been wonderful. I enjoyed my time there so much I am considering doing some volunteer work at the museum!"

If, like Isobel, you are interested in a career in the museums and would like to volunteer to get more experience you can find out more on the Volunteering pages on our website.

Across the National Museums Liverpool website, we have loads of great games, e-cards, online-only exhibitions, videos, interactives and podcasts for you to enjoy. And we've just launched our new VIP Zone as a hub for all these cool features that really bring our collections and exhibitions to life.

You can watch a video of a Pharaoh talking about life in ancient Egypt or download a talk by curator Pauline Rushton and photographer Francesco Mellina about our Sound and Vision exhibition - photographs of Liverpool music and fashion from 1978-82.

This multi-media stuff gives people from around the world the chance to get a better experience of what we have in our venues, even if they can't come along in real life.

You can also find all our social networking sites in the VIP Zone. So if you want to follow the new Museum of Liverpool on Twitter or join the Walker Facebook group then you can find links to our social sites there too.

Here's one of the latest videos we've put online featuring George Holt, the former owner of Sudley House, in the dining room. He talks about dinner parties, his plans for improving the city of Liverpool and describes some of the paintings in the room.

Pauline with a fab sparkly dress from the Mrs. Tinne collection.

From an early age I was interested in vintage clothes, fashion and customising. I liked nothing better than rummaging in my Mum's (cool) friend's cast-offs and cutting big holes in tops so that I could look punky - or something close! (I was obsessed with the cartoon Jem and the Holograms).

So it's no surprise that for the first Ask the curator feature I asked Pauline Rushton, curator of costume and textiles, to be in the hot seat.

If you have a question about the fantastic range of costumes in our collections (from Edwardian frocks to Vivian Westwood suits) then take part in Ask the curator, which gives you the chance to ask our featured curator anything you like.

Send in your questions to Pauline by midnight on Sunday 21 June and we'll choose the best ones to ask her in a video interview, which we'll put on the site.

Although curators do gallery tours at the museums and galleries, most of their time is spent working hard behind the scenes. So we are lucky to have Pauline for this short period of time for you to ask her questions.

The video of Pauline's interview will be up from Monday 6 July so come back and check it out. You'll be able to find out her answers and listen to her talking about one of her favourite objects from the collections.

Have a listen to Pauline and I talking to Claire Hamilton about Ask the curator, on BBC Radio Merseyside. (Interview starts at 50 minutes into the program.)

In the centre of Francesco Mellina’s Sound & Vision exhibition there’s a screen slideshow which is well worth dwelling over. There are some really impressive names in terms of rock pedigree – people like Joey Ramone, Johnny Thunders and Joe Strummer.  However, the person who took my eye was a youthful, mop-haired Wayne Hussey propping up the bar in The Pyramid Club alongside Pete Burns. I completely forgot that before creating goth band The Mission and spawning a legion of devoted fans Wayne had been a member of both Sisters of Mercy and Dead or Alive. I really like the picture because he looks like an average guy – not the untouchable, lamenting, god-like stage persona that my friends and I worshipped. (Or maybe it's just because he is standing next to the ever-flamboyant Mr Burns!)

I’m still a little bit fond of Wayne as he touched our lives albeit briefly. Tasked with devising a social studies project at school, we set out to find how music impacts on youth culture. While I interviewed local Smiths' fan ‘Sad Eric’ and a Lemmy-alike Motorhead fanatic, my buddy set her sights a little higher and wrote to Wayne to find out how music had helped to shape his identity. Imagine our joy (and I mean the sort of ecstasy that only an unhealthily preoccupied teenager can experience) when a pale purple envelope dropped through the door containing an eloquent, beautifully handwritten letter on Mission branded paper! Pure bliss.

The Sound & Vision exhibition has sparked a lot of gigging memories for me. So much is captured on digital cameras and phones and uploaded to Facebook nowadays, whereas I have rely on my rather grainy recollections. I have this mad idea that I saw The La’s supporting The Mission at the Royal Court and there was a power failure. Someone jumped on stage and did an acoustic spot until the lights came back up and I heard it was Pete Wylie – another Liverpool star that features in the exhibition. It all sounds so unlikely now ... whether or not it was really the case, I can't say. Does anyone else remember?

Anyway, thanks to Francesco I’ve dusted off my God's Own Medicine album and given it a twirl and it still sounds amazing. I’m just glad someone had a camera handy as well as the talent and inclination to capture some of this bygone era.

Press Assistant Alison Cornmell has been looking after the publicity for the exhibition Sound and Vision at the National Conservation Centre. Last week she took a special visitor around the exhibition for the first time:

Jill Furmanovsky visits Francesco Mellina's exhibition

They say that there are no more than six degrees of separation between all people, and I think there is some truth to this. My mum’s sister’s husband’s auntie knows Ben Shephard’s Nan, thus meaning that me and that fine-looking GMTV presenter are practically best mates!

Ok that was a tenuous link but after my meeting with rock photographer Jill Furmanovsky there is now only one degree of separation between me and some of the greatest musicians in the world…of all time...ever!

On Friday 5 June I was lucky enough to be introduced to Jill Furmanovsky by Francesco Mellina. She has captured many of the biggest names in rock music, including Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Mike Oldfield, Bob Marley, Eric Clapton, Blondie, The Police, The Sex Pistols, The Pretenders, and the night before I met her she had been photographing Oasis at their gig at Heaton Park in Manchester.  

Francesco and Jill know each other from many years ago when Francesco was manager of Dead or Alive and hired Jill to photograph them. Now years on they  have re-established contact and Jill came to visit Francesco’s exhibition Sound and Vision at the National Conservation Centre.

After having a brief chat with her me and Francesco left her to have a look around the exhibition by herself. Twenty minutes later she emerged from the gallery telling us that she thought the exhibition was fantastic, and was filled with quite technical questions, none of which I could answer. So after grabbing a quick picture of them both I let them have some time to catch up and discuss all things photographic.

As I walked out the Conservation Centre on Whitechapel I thought of all the people I am obviously now closely linked with…Debbie Harry, Sting, Chrissie Hynde, Noel Gallagher, Liam Gallagher. I’m now in very good company..although nothing tops Ben Shephard.

Helen Halliwell and Bill Sillitoe installing the new display

Yesterday I saw the installation of a new display of Islamic ceramics in the Weston Discovery Centre at World Museum Liverpool. The display is a very personal project for technical services technician Helen Halliwell, as she has been closely involved from the outset.

Helen used to work as a demonstrator in the Weston Discovery Centre before joining the technical services team over at the National Conservation Centre recently. When the display of Islamic ceramics was proposed to tie in with the Arabic Arts Festival next month, Helen’s expertise was called on as she has a background in ceramics - she worked as a ceramics technician while studying for her Masters degree in the subject. So Helen worked with curator Emma Martin to select pieces of 13th and 14th century Islamic pottery from Iran, Iraq and Egypt for the display. The pieces, which have never been on display before, were chosen as they are great examples of the geometry and patterns in their designs, which Islamic ceramics are famous for.

After finalising the selection Helen joined technical services, which is the department responsible for creating mounts and installing displays. So she has been involved in that side of the project as well, including specifying the layout of the display case.

I caught up with Helen and senior technician Bill Sillitoe when they finished the display off yesterday. Bill made the supports for the wall mounted sherds in the display, using wire with a silicon tubing covering to protect the artefacts. Although they look quite simple, each one is specially made to support a specific sherd safely at the correct angle.

You can see more photos of the installation in our Islamic ceramics display set on Flickr.

Helen Halliwell and Emma Martin installing the new display of contemporary netsuke at World Museum Liverpool

One of the real privileges of my job is being able to see some of the behind the scenes work that goes into the creation of museum displays, the sort of things that most people take for granted. For example, not many people know that every single display stand supporting artefacts in our venues has been individually made by the highly skilled people in the technical services department, based in the National Conservation Centre. They don't just buy shelves and supports from the DIY stores, they hand craft every single display stand to suit the specific needs of the object it will be supporting.

The newest member of the team, Helen Halliwell, got to see her first major project go on display today. Helen worked with senior technician Bill Sillitoe to make a display stand for the World Cultures gallery at World Museum Liverpool to show contemporary netsuke figures. The smart circular stand has brushed Perspex shelves on both side to display the tiny figures from the Jonas Goro Gadelius collection, which was kindly donated to the museum by his widow Gabita. The really clever part is that it has a removable coloured disk in the middle, so when the display is refreshed each year to show different netsuke figures, it will be easy to change from its current red to a different colour that will suit the new figures.

You can see more photos of the installation in our netsuke display set on Flickr

Photograph taken by Francesco Mellina of two punks in Liverpool City Centre. Do you have a simliar quirky style?

Alison Cornmell, press assistant at NML in charge of Sound and Vision at the National Conservation Centre writes:

Do you consider yourself to have a unique and quirky style? If so The National Conservation Centre is offering people like you the chance to celebrate your own individual style in a fantastic fashion competition, Picture This!

This competition takes inspiration from Sound and Vision: Music and Fashion, photographed by Francesco Mellina, Liverpool, 1978-82 on display until 31 August 2009 at the National Conservation Centre.

Sound and Vision captures the late 70s to the early 80s in Liverpool, a pivotal point when music and fashion merged to create new sounds and styles. This sub-culture developed their own style and fashion creations making themselves into New Romantics, Rockabillies and Punks.

This competition asks you if you have the same flair for fashion as the people pictured in the exhibition. The person judged to have the most distinctive and individual style will have their picture displayed in the exhibition for its duration: the perfect opportunity to be part of an exhibition documenting the past’s creative look and prove that Liverpool still has a imaginative and innovative style!

So why not pop along to the National Conservation Centre and pick up an application form in the Sound and Vision exhibition, to book your slot for one of the sessions. Be quick – entries must be submitted by tomorrow and places are limited!

Francesco Mellina will photograph all successful entrants over two sessions on Wednesday 27 May and Saturday 30 May, 1pm – 5pm. Each session will last up to 15 minutes, and photographs of all entrants will also appear on our website.

Boxhead recreating his pose from one of Francesco Mellina's photographs

Yesterday evening the National Conservation Centre resounded with the sights and sounds of the 1980s to celebrate the opening of the exhibition Sound and Vision - music and fashion photographed by Francesco Mellina, Liverpool, 1978-82.

The exhibition takes a look at the music and fashion scenes in the city at the time, including punk, New Wave, New Romantic and Rockabilly. There's also some great shots of some of the local and visiting bands who played in the city at the time, including an early photo of New Order still finding their feet without Ian Curtis. You may also recognise a certain unknown Irish band who opened for Wah! Heat and Pink Military on tour in 1980. What was their name again? Oh yes - U2!

As you would expect, the opening event was attended by lots of fashionable Liverpool faces, some of whom you can see in our Sound and Vision opening event Flickr set.

It seems that Eros, the Greek god of love, has been working his magic again, as Liverpool.com have just named Café Eros in the National Conservation Centre at the top of their list of five secret coffee bars. Of course, if caffeine and rather lovely statues are not your thing then you may be tempted by some of the cakes and other treats on offer - check out the Café Eros menu on the website.

If you are immune even to the charms of giant muffins and wickedly rich hot chocolate then another reason to visit soon is that there's less than two weeks left to catch the fantastic Recollections exhibition of photographs by Philip Jones Griffiths, which has been extended until Easter Monday.

Eleanor Beyer, an art historian from the British Museum's conservation and science department has been visiting the National Conservation Centre and working with Nicky Lewis in the paper conservation department. Here's a review that she has very kindly written about her impressions of our facilities.

Nicky Lewis at work in the paper conservation studio

"I was excited to be given a tour of the National Conservation Centre by conservation mount cutter Nicky Lewis as it is fascinating to learn more about what takes place behind the scenes. I was looking forward to hearing about the day to day dramas which unfold in the conservation world, for example, how millions of tiny pieces of ceramic might be carefully pieced together to reconstruct a smashed museum object.

Though I did not see this aspect, I did learn more about how National Museums Liverpool's collections are preserved and cleaned for presentation to the public. The centre deals with an extremely varied collection from ceramics, paintings, prints and drawings, sculptures and other objects, very much like the British Museum's collections and conservation sections.

The mounting studio has up to the minute equipment which will be used in the coming months, for instance to supply mounts for the new displays at Liverpool's docks. In the painting studio, several paintings were being cleaned and conserved, for example the 'Virgin and Child in a landscape' by Luca Signorelli (or his nephew) where large parts were now exposed revealing original painting, and some later additions which are still be cleaned away.

The new centre with its airy light well equipped spaces provides an excellent facility for taking care of the collections, and even better you can get an idea of the work which goes on by visiting the Reveal gallery."

Stephen Shakeshaft with just a few of his photographs

Today anyone passing through our Design offices might have thought they'd taken a wrong turn and ended up in the news room of the Echo, with picture editor Stephen Shakeshaft sifting though a selection of photographs to pick the perfect ones to illustrate a story.

We haven't started our own newspaper up though - Stephen was working on the selection process for an exhibition of his photographs which will open in the National Conservation Centre in September.

Many people will remember Stephen's earlier exhibitions, which took a candid behind-the-scenes look at the famous faces from the worlds of football (Soccer Shots at the former Museum of Liverpool Life) and celebrity (Shooting Stars, also at the Conservation Centre). 

His next exhibition will cover a broader and arguably more fascinating subject - the people of Liverpool itself. Stephen has been photographing the city's residents for the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo since the 1960s, so it could be the understatement of the century to say that he's a bit spoilt for choice in terms of material for this exhibition. As before his pictures will be accompanied by his fascinating anecdotes about the characters behind the pictures, giving an insight into the news and people that have helped shape the city over the last few decades.

Stephen has promised to keep the blog posted about progress and maybe even give a preview of some of the great stories behind some of his favourite pictures in the run up to the exhibition.

Elevation of the Midland Goods Warehouse. Reproduced with the consent of the Partners of Edmund Kirby & Sons.

I originally came to Liverpool to study architecture at uni, back in the days before computers took over the world when we made 'proper drawings' to millimetre accuracy. I'll never forget being told on work experience that I'd never be an architect if I couldn't draw a straight line.

I never did become an architect but have never lost my fascination with architectural drawings. It was a real treat therefore to see an exhibition of drawings by the local Victorian architects Culshaw & Sumners at Liverpool's Central Library. The exhibition has been curated by architectural historian (and former Walker curator) Joseph Sharples, who researched a huge archive of 6,000 drawings by the firm.

One of the firm's city centre buildings is the Midland Goods Warehouse, which was converted in the 1990s to become the National Conservation Centre. The elevation shown here isn't in the exhibition, but you can see a section through the building showing how the architects took advantage of the slope in the land to make it easier to unload carts.

Exhibitions of this type usually focus on grand designs, whether built or unbuilt, so it's a refreshing change see the inclusion of drawings for tiny court houses in Toxteth. The drawings were submitted in 1843 but were rejected as they fell short of the legal requirements for healthy housing established in the Liverpool Building Act the previous year. Together with the other drawings, showing grand business premises and housing with carefully routed staircases to keep servants out of the way, this gives a fascinating glimpse of life in the city at the time.

The exhibition is in the Piction Reading Room at the library until 31 March 2009.

The handling team carefully wrap Jude the Giant's head in plastic sheeting

As I've mentioned many times before, life for National Museums Liverpool's handling and transport technicians is certainly never dull. This Flickr set of photographs of their activities this week look like scenes from a Victorian murder mystery - with dark, mysterious tunnels and body parts being wrapped.

The team were actually moving the mobile statue Jude the Giant. Many people will remember Jude, who was made in workshops at World Museum for the city's 800th birthday pageant in 2007, and has recently been on display in St Georges Hall.

She has now been dismantled, wrapped in protective packaging and taken to the National Conservation Centre for treatment before going back out on display in a new location later this year.

The handling team were assisted by textile conservators, especially when moving Jude's dress, which is a painted item that needs special care and attention. Handling technician and senior driver Paul Kelly thinks that the whole team deserves a big hand for doing such a great job.

Calling all part time art and craft students - how would you like to have your artwork displayed in our venues during Adult Learner's Week in May 2009? You could if you win the 'Inspired by...' competition.

Entrants in this year's competition must submit a piece of artwork inspired by the collections, exhibitions or displays in either Sudley House, World Museum Liverpool or the National Conservation Centre. You may submit any art, craft, multi-media, digital work, video or animation. Participants must be over 18 and studying arts or crafts part time. Full entry criteria and downloadable application forms are on the Inspired by... web page.

We've just published a cute little pocket guide to many of the fab happenings at NML in 2008. It's good to revisit highlights like Ben Johnson's residency, the Superlambananas, the opening of Seized! and exhibitions like Art In The Age of Steam and The Beat Goes On.

You can download your copy of The Little Book of Big Highlights here (pdf 6mb).

It has been another busy and varied week for the handling and transport team, who have been taking a lot of different objects from storage to the National Conservation Centre for routine condition checking to prevent deterioration. One item in particular caught their eye, as handling technician driver Paul Kelly explains below. You can see more of Paul's photos of this and other objects in our Moving Stories set on Flickr.

Handling technician Danny John... or is it King Kong?

"Way back in the mists of time in the 1960s lots of chaps built model buildings for their model railway layouts using Bayko building blocks. Some chaps obviously got into it in a very big way and produced a very large building - none other than the Empire State Building - which is now in the Museum of Liverpool's collections. It must have taken them weeks to do this and the cost would have been enormous - Grandma must have had a deep pocket money wallet.

This week the handling and transport team delivered the model from storage to the National Conservation Centre for conservation treatment. Naturally the urge to imitate King Kong could not be resisted, although due care and attention was of course paid to ensure the safe handling of the model. Happily the model made it safely to National Conservation Centre in the correct number of components. Afterwards though we had a big problem trying to get handling technician Danny John out of King Kong mode..."

Mr Heggarty, headmaster of St Michael's School in Kensington, takes delivery of Superfiveadaybanana from Richard Roberts

Here's the latest picture from Superfiveadaybanana's travels to local schools. Today the handling and transport team shepherded the sculpture from Brae Street School to St Michael's School in Kensington.

This is the latest move in a busy month for the team, which has involved taking plant models from World Museum Liverpool to Wrexham Museum for an exhibition and returning the huge Peter Doig painting 'Blotter' to the Walker after it had been out on loan. Closer to home, the team have also transported some delicate pieces of sculpture from our stores to the National Conservation Centre for assessment and treatment, as well as helping to install the next big exhibition at the Walker, Fashion V Sport. You can see some of what they've been up to in the Moving Stories photographs on Flickr.

The rush to enter the competition started back in the 1960s... 'Street sign, Liverpool 1966' Philip Jones Griffiths/Magnum Photos. Courtesy of the Philip Jones Griffiths Foundation

Another month, another 'Name that object' competition graces the National Museums Liverpool web pages. This month you could win the rather fantastic 'Recollections' book of photographs by Philip Jones Griffiths, a selection of which are currently on show in the Recollections exhibition at the National Conservation Centre. The book has page after page of stunning shots - but you don't have to take my word about how good it is, just read the review 'The early vision of Philip Jones Griffiths' in today's Independent if you don't believe me.

A copy of the book will be winging its way to the first person to correctly identify the mystery artwork in this month's competition. If you are not a winner then get down to the National Conservation Centre shop, where a limited number of copies are available at a special discounted price during the exhibition.

Woolworths in Wavertree Road, Liverpool, 1931

Today the last Woolworths shops will close their doors for the last time. The loss of this familiar household name from the high street marks the end of an era that actually started in Liverpool a century ago. The first British shop of the famous chain opened in this city in 1909.

I don't have a picture of that particular store, but for anyone who has been saddened to see the empty shelves of their favourite Woolies shop over the last few weeks, here's a photo of the Wavertree Road Woolworths during better times from the Stewart Bale collection, which was recently shown in the Metropolis exhibition. There's also a picture of the window display of the London Road Woolworths in 1931 from the same exhibition, advertising a 'Household week' sale with 'Nothing over 6D'.

Billy Fury thanks you for voting for The Beat Goes On! Image courtesy Liverpool Daily Post and Echo.

I know you will be truly excited about finding out the result of our poll to find out your favourite exhibition from our venues in 2008, so I will put you out of your misery. With an admirable 52.75% of all the votes, our monster music exhibition The Beat Goes On came out on top. But don't fret if you haven't been to this exhibition yet as it is staying at the World Museum until 1 November 2009. You can also check out our listings page to find out about any events going on that are related to this exhibition.

Yes everyone, it's that time again! The end of the year and time to vote on which exhibition you think was the best from our venues in 2008. Cast your minds back to the dramatic shots of the city from 'Metropolis - capturing modern Liverpool', or maybe your favourite was the 'John Moores 25 Contemporary Painting Prize' exhibition with it's cutting edge contemporary paintings? Here is a selection of some of our exhibitions from 2008 for you to vote on....

If you'd like to find out about our main exhibitions for 2009, then check out the listings page for more details.

Rudolf during his Christmas makeover

Since the summer the Superlambanana at the National Conservation Centre has been a Super-lab-banana, complete with a lab coat, goggles and a magnifying glass, ready for action in the working laboratory in the Reveal gallery. This week though he has undergone a complete transformation ready for Christmas, and is now Rudolf the red nosed Superlambanana.

You can see more photos of the transformation, courtesy of Dave Abbott and the learning team at the National Conservation Centre, on our Rudolf the red nosed Superlambanana Flickr page. Dave tells me that just for Christmas Rudolf has found a new home in the window of Café Eros, which should give him a good view as Prancer, Dancer and the rest of the team go past with Santa.

He'll have plenty to do as there are lots of Christmas activities planned over the next few weeks, including carol singing at 10am on Monday, Christmas crafts on the next two Saturdays and Christmas box workshops on Tuesday and Thursday. Full details are on the National Conservation Centre events page.

Rudolf will also be in a great position to try out the brand new menu in Café Eros, so he may put a little weight on over the next few weeks.

David Whitty places an Egyptian artefact in its specially made display stand

Many people will be going to the new Ancient Egypt gallery when it opens on Friday to see the incredible Egyptian artefacts from our collections, many of which haven't been on display for decades. But have you ever looked underneath and behind these priceless objects at the display stands and mounts that are supporting them? It may surprise you to know that these have all been specially custom made by the highly skilled technicians in our technical services studio at the National Conservation Centre.

I popped into the studio earlier this week to see Bill Sillitoe and David Whitty busy preparing the last few display stands for the Ancient Egypt gallery. They produce everything pretty much from scratch, cutting and bending sheets of Perspex to create stands and soldering together the wires to make supports for some of the objects. You can see more photos of them at work in our Making display mounts for the Ancient Egypt gallery Flickr page and I hope that you go to the gallery to admire their handiwork from Friday.

The one that didn't get away...

It's Friday so the handling and transport team decided to go fishing. Not in the Mersey though, they fished through the museum stores to find this giant turtle which needed to be taken to the taxidermy department at the National Conservation Centre for restoration.

They finished the week, which has included transporting everything from a Superlambanana to some ancient Egyptian artefacts, by helping taxidermmist James Jackson to install some scenic material on the Chirotherium display at World Museum Liverpool. You can see some of the highlights of their week on our Moving stories Flickr photo page.

Over the last few weeks the handling and transport team have been helping to prepare the Ancient Egypt gallery, which will open at World Museum Liverpool on 5 December. However in complete contrast to the ancient Egyptian artefacts, today they transported one of the newest works of art in our collections, the popular Superfiveadaybanana.

After spending the summer at the Walker Art Gallery, Superfiveadaybanana has been on display in local schools. Today Paul Kelly, Richard Roberts and Andrew Mountfield took the sculpture from Kensington New Park School to Kensington Junior School. Paul says that the children were really excited to have this unusual guest displayed in the main entrance to the school. You can see more of his photos of Superfiveadaybanana on the move on our Flickr page.

All hands on deck - the handling and transport team carefully manoeuvre the enormous painting of Jerusalem down the stairs

As you are probably aware, the popular Ben Johnson exhibition at the Walker closed earlier this month. Most of the paintings in the exhibition were on loan from other collections, so they have been packed up ready to be returned. One of them, the 'Jerusalem' painting, was too big for the lift, so it was carefully carried down the stairs this morning. This was quite an operation - for every person supporting the painting on one side in the photo above, there's another person hidden on the other side.

The good news is that one of the paintings hasn't left the Walker. The Liverpool Cityscape belongs to National Museums Liverpool, so it will go back on display on 21 November once the gallery it is in has been rehung.

Have you ever wondered what exactly goes on behind closed doors after an exhibition has closed though? Here's your chance to find out, as there are some photos of the handling and transport team taking down the Ben Johnson exhibition on our Flickr pages. I'll let handling technician, senior driver and ace photographer Paul Kelly explain what's going on in them:

"When works of art are to be moved from one location to another one of the principles we utilise is the creation of micro climatic conditions for the protection of the artwork. We achieve this by essentially wrapping the painting in large sheets of polythene which is then sealed. It sounds easier said than done simply because some of our works are extremely large and the Ben Johnson works fall into this category. The process is quite involved requiring assessment of the job in hand and almost telepathic communication between each member of the team if the goal is to be achieved safely. This work is seldom if ever seen by the general public because after the works are wrapped in Polythene they are put into large wooden crates then onto the vehicle that will transport them to their new location. Other work involved in dismantling an exhibition is the wrapping of the safety barriers and miscellaneous information boards - all part of just another day's activity for the handling team.

The crates used to transport large paintings need to be handled with extreme caution as they tend to be rather unstable when on the move and can be very heavy. We do have a wide range of skills and equipment to draw on and this enables members of the team to move these big objects effectively and safely."

A conservator checks an Egyptian sarcophagus as it is packed into a crate ready for transport

We are only weeks away from the opening of the newly refurbished Egypt gallery at World Museum Liverpool, on 5 December 2008. Conservators at the National Conservation Centre have been working hard for months to prepare the objects for display, such as this funerary shroud and - of course - some Egyptian mummies. Now that the artefacts are ready for installation the handling team have been carefully transporting them over to the museum.

Handling technician and senior driver Paul Kelly has sent this update and photo - and you can see more of his photos of the move, as well as others of the objects being prepared for display, on our Egyptian gallery Flickr page.

"This week the handling team drivers Andrew Mountfield and myself have been involved in moving some seriously ancient and delicate Egyptian artefacts from the National Conservation Centre to World Museum Liverpool.

Naturally before such artefacts are moved consultation with the curators is absolutely essential. The advice and recommendations of our curators is a must to enable the safe transportation of these rare and nationally important objects. Some artefacts are quite large, heavy and delicate so need the utmost care when handling.

Our thanks for their knowledge and assistance ultimately go to our curators, conservators and project team members Tracey Seddon, Graham Usher, Richard Roberts, Barbara Rowan, Ashley Cook, Helen Thomson, Pete Spinks. Without their help and their team's assistance we as drivers could not possibly do our job to the standards required to move these artefacts safely.

I am happy to report that the artefacts shown are now safely transported and awaiting installation in show cases at World Museum Liverpool."

More from Rebecca Kench on the ongoing conservation of Gustave Doré's 'The Flower Sellers'. Early work is covered in this post and you can see the original painting in this post.

The reverse of the painting. The dark patch is the wax.

'The Flower Sellers' presents us with several unusual problems, the most obvious one can be seen from looking at the back of the painting.  The back of the canvas has been coated in a thick layer of wax by a previous conservator in the 1950's.  This is not a treatment which we would carry out in this way today, but at the time it was believed that it was the best thing to do for the painting.  The wax was melted and applied to the reverse with an iron in the hope that it would go through the canvas to the paint layer and would help the flaking paint adhere to the canvas.  However the next problem that we face is what should we do with the wax? 
 
When wax is added to a painting in this way it does several things; firstly, it can be reduced but it can never be totally removed from the canvas fibres.  Secondly, it prevents the canvas from responding in the usual way to changes in the environment, and thirdly it means that nothing water based can be used on the painting in the future.  The second of these problems is the most significant as we think that the thickness of the wax will cause problems at some point. The wax-free canvas fibres will expand and contract dependant on how much moisture is in the air whereas the wax-coated areas will be far less responsive to moisture. This will cause a great deal of stress at the borders of the two areas and eventually you will start to see an outline of where the wax is restricting the canvas from moving when you look at the front of the painting.
 
In most of the deep red paint passage in the centre, in the shawl and around the heads of the two right children, there is wrinkling.  Before the wax was ironed into the canvas this must have been sharp and raised and the reason for the wax consolidation campaign.

Roberta from the National Conservation Centre cleaning the statue base of Ramses II

Here's an update on the refurbishment of one of Wold Museum's most popular galleries from antiquities curator Carolyn Routledge:

"In putting together the new ancient Egypt gallery at World Museum Liverpool we are introducing many new objects, but also bringing back some old friends. One favourite from the old Egypt gallery was a statue base that once held a statue of the famous pharaoh, Ramses II. 

The base was on open display and, for over 30 years, thousands of hands have traced the king's names and the pictures of prisoners carved on its sides. All this touching left the statue base very dirty. In order to show it to its best in the new gallery, our conservators have cleaned it and now the beautiful travertine stone can be seen by all.

The Ramses II statue base will be back on display when the Egypy gallery opens on 5 December this year."

Up the corridor without a paddle - the well packaged kayak leaves the National Conservation Centre

You can't really see it in this photograph but trust me, this photograph shows a c19th century Greenland kayak that belongs to Trinity House in Tyne and Wear - inside a lot of packaging. The kayak is quite rare as boats of this type are very fragile and tend not to survive. It has a wooden framework, with baleen bindings (the filtering material from inside a whale's mouth) and sealskin covering. However, the kayak was extremely dirty and showing signs of water damage when it first arrived at the National Conservation Centre for treatment. Parts of the skin and cockpit hoop were coated with a brittle black resinous coating, which had to be removed. The skin also appeared to have been waterlogged at some point in the past, resulting in severe shrinkage, distortion and blackening on drying.

Conservation of the kayak was a real team effort, with senior organics conservator, Tracey Seddon, working on the skin, while head of engineering and maritime conservation, Jonathan Carr, treated and repaired the internal framework. Once they had finished, furniture conservators Graham Usher and Malcolm Broadbere helped to adapt a special frame to support and protect the kayak on its journey back to the North East.

Its conservation complete, the kayak left yesterday for the journey back to Trinity House. At 5.4 metres long it was not an easy thing to move so Tracey called on the help of several colleagues to carefully guide it down the corridors and out of the building. That's nothing compared to what is to come though, as a first floor window is being removed in order to get the kayak safely back into Trinity House. Once inside it wil be displayed in a newly refurbished room.

Artist Paul Cousins standing next to his award winning painting 'Night Flight'

As you probably already know, the Best of Merseyside exhibition at the National Conservation Centre features the highlights of this year's open exhibitions held at galleries throughout Merseyside. Having made it through the rigorous selection process for the exhibition, the artists then faced perhaps their toughest critics - the visitors.

Since the exhibition opened visitors have been voting for their favourite artwork. Today Paul Cousins was announced as the winner of the Visitors' choice award for his painting 'Night Flight'. He was presented with a bottle of champagne and some Rennies vouchers in the exhibition.

If Paul looks familiar that may be because he was the man responsible for 'Cloudorama', the Superlambanana that was displayed at the Lady Lever Art Gallery over the summer.

Paul is not the only artist whose fate lies in the hands of our visitors, as you can now vote for your favourite painting in the John Moores 25 exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery, which opened at the weekend.

The Fab Four plus friend

Another month, another competition and another prize in our 'name that object' competition. Actually, it's the same prize as last month - a set of Beatles figures - but as so many people entered last time we figured they were popular and are offering another set this month. First clue appears on Monday morning (22nd). If you're keen to get your mitts on the figures you might want to visit the John Moores exhibition that starts this weekend and have a wander around the rest of the gallery while you are there...

The Annunciation by Edward Coley Burne-Jones

If you didn't have access to a computer over the weekend you mightn't have seen the answer to August's 'name that object' competition. The answer was 'The Annunciation' by Edward Coley Burne-Jones, and the winner was C Sharp of Liverpool. Another competition and another prize next month.

More on the progress of this reconstruction project from Kathy Wedge (here's the background to the project in case you've missed previous instalments), plus progress snaps on Flickr.

Wax model at foundry showing sprues and top of head cut off

The finished clay sculpting has now been approved by Liverpool City Council, but that is only part of the story. We now have to produce the actual foundry cast bronze reliefs from these clay sculptures.

The clay panels which as previously mentioned are very heavy were loaded onto a van using a hoist and fork lift truck and taken to a fine art foundry.  The panels are being cast using the ‘lost wax’ method of casting. This involves a thin layer of silicone rubber being painted over the clay models which defines the detail of the sculpting, further thicker layers of silicone are then applied until an accurate mould is produced. But of course  silicone rubber is not rigid, so a plaster jacket to hold the rubber stable and reduce the risk of distortion also has to be made.

Once this mould and jacket have been produced, wax is painted into the mould to form a wax model. The mould is taken off leaving a hollow wax sculpture which is cleaned and the detail checked for imperfections. The hollow wax sculpture is cut into sections for ease of casting, particularly where there are extending features, and wax sprues are added to the sections of the wax model, that will act as air vents when the wax melts at the casting stage.

The pieces of the hollow wax model are the dipped several times into a ceramic mixture which form ceramic shell around the sections which are strong enough to withstand the high pressures and thermal shock of the molten metal used in the casting.

The molten bronze is poured into the shell via a cupped sprue or air vent and as it is poured the wax melts running out of the air vents leaving the bronze casting encased in the ceramic shell.

The ceramic shells are broken off the bronze castings and the sections are welded together very carefully, and polished so that the joins cannot be seen. That is the end of the actual casting process but not the end of the story. More about the rest of the process in our next post.

Ashley Cooke on the mummies in the new Ancient Egypt gallery.

Examining the lamb mummy

The museum has about 60 animal mummies of various kinds, from crocodiles to dogs. In the new Ancient Egypt gallery there will be eight animal mummies on display in a showcase dedicated to animals. One of the mummies appears to be that of a very young lamb (museum accession number M13648). It was given as a gift to the museum in 1867 by the jeweller and antiquarian, Joseph Mayer. The intricate pattern of the bandages suggests it is of the Roman period (about 30 BC - AD 200). The National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden has 3 similar mummies that have been X-rayed and proven to contain the bones of very young lambs. We decided to X-ray our mummy to confirm the identification and the mummy's association with the god Khnumn, who is often depicted with a ram's head. We used the digital X-ray machine within the Reveal exhibition gallery at National Conservation Centre. We are now examining the results with the assistance of other colleagues.
 
But why was this little lamb killed and mummified? From the 26th Dynasty and on into the Roman Period (about 664 BC - AD 395) animals would be mummified en masse at cult centres for gods that were associated with animals. One such site was the temple at Bubastis which was sacred to the goddess Bastet. Bastet was often depicted in the form of a cat and pilgrims would purchase mummified cats so that they could make a votive offering (a gift) to the goddess.
 
Hundreds of thousands of cat mummies have been found in catacombs in Egypt. In 1890 about 9 tons of cat mummies from a catacomb at the cemetery of Beni Hasan were shipped into the port of Liverpool. They were sold off by the ton to be used as fertilizer. Bidding started at £3 per ton and gradually advanced to £5 17s 6. Thankfully this no longer happens!  If you'd like to learn more about animal mummies and how you could help care for the largest collection of animals mummies in the world visit the Egyptian Museum's 'Animal Mummies' website.

Snappy suits!

We're cutting it a bit fine with the August 'name that object' competition, but are launching it on Tuesday 26th August (so the final clue will be on Saturday 30th). The prize this month is this fab but vaguely surreal set of Beatles figures. I say surreal because, as you may have noticed, there's a crocodile on stage with them.  The figures are 'straight from the classic Beatles cartoon series' that launched in the US in 1965, and apparently the croc featured in the series. The mind boggles.

Anyhoo, should you wish to give the Fab Four and their crocodilian friend a home you first need to name the object from our collection. It's an artwork, with a new detail being revealed each day for five days. Enter using the link on the competition page.

Should you fail to win I'm reliably informed that you can buy these sets in the World Museum Liverpool giftshop where they are on sale as part of the The Beat Goes On exhibition.

Superlambanana outside World Museum Liverpool

They’re not small, or fluffy, but they have certainly proved to be cute and cuddly.

The Superlambananas, which have taken the city by storm in Culture Capital year, are now approaching their final week on display and I will be sad to see them go.

Here at National Museums Liverpool, we have been watching visitors engage with our own Superlambananas – located at World Museum Liverpool, The Walker Art Gallery, The National Conservation Centre, and the Lady Lever Art Gallery at Port Sunlight. These colourful creatures have been receiving a lot of hugs and will no doubt feature in hundreds of photograph albums and holiday snaps.

If you haven’t been to see our flock, remember they will be going away on August 25 – so we’ll see you soon!

Sam Sportun putting the finishing touches to one of the clay master panels

As you are probably aware, our conservators - and talented sculptors - Chris Dean and Sam Sportun have been involved in a major project to recreate three missing bronze relief plaques from Sefton Park's monuments. We have been following their progress on the blog as they have recreated clay masters for the missing bronzes using traditional techniques.

Today I was fortunate to get to see them at work while they finish off the fine details - such as adding fingernails - on the clay masters before they are taken to the foundry to be cast in bronze. Photos of them at work and some of the details of the clay masters are on our Sefton Park monuments Flickr slideshow, which has pictures from the very beginning of the project right up to date.

As I mentioned yesterday, the fantastic Metropolis exhibition closes this week. The exhibition is packed full of incredibly detailed photographs of recognisable Liverpool landmarks and some unfamiliar places.

The project team for the exhibition had the difficult task of selecting just 60 photographs for display from almost 200,000 negatives in the Stewart Bale collection. Here Nicky Lewis from Paper Conservation explains a bit about this process and chooses her favourite Metropolis shot:

"Picking a favourite Stewart Bale photograph is not an easy task.

During the image selection process for Metropolis: capturing modern Liverpool I spent time, as part of the project team, weighing up the merits of many of Bale’s photographs. We searched the archive for striking images that best portrayed Liverpool as a developing, modern metropolis- a reflection of the city today. The most difficult part was choosing only 60.

To me Abbey Cinema exterior is a stunning photograph - much more Hollywood than Wavertree. By taking the image at night the photographer could exploit the building’s illuminated architecture. You can see why we chose this as an image to enlarge for the exhibition.

I‘m also captivated by Crowds at the launch of Mauretania II. The launch of a ship was obviously a very popular event in those days, something we no longer experience. The amount of detail in the photograph is exceptional. Take a look at the extent people will go to for a good view. Some are perched on top of shed roofs and cars, whilst other dare-devils cling to steel work. 

That brings me to my favourite Metropolis image. It is not a highly iconic shot and does not depict a famous event or landmark architecture. It is Anglia Vans on the Assembly Line. Obviously Ford played an important role in Liverpool’s history and the image shows cutting edge technology of the time but my reason for picking it is much more personal. We always wanted to include ‘never-seen-before’ images from the Bale archive in the exhibition, not an easy task considering that our film negatives are frozen to stop them deteriorating (see How have the photographs survived? for more detail).

Using the order books from the Bale company combined with documentation from the storage process we were able to pinpoint a box (out of just over 1300), that contained images commissioned by Ford - we had no idea what they would look like however. The box was removed from its freezer and transferred to an insulated bag, where it would defrost at a slow rate. Twenty-four hours later, after removing the protective packaging layers I had a bundle of film negatives. It’s so thrilling to be the first person to look at these images since they were originally commissioned- you just never know what you may find.

As you look through them on the light box, the anticipation builds and you fear the image you are hoping for isn’t there... Then in a eureka moment it appears. The image stood out instantly as fitting the Metropolis theme and had all of the expected high qualities of a Stewart Bale work. Its composition is striking, with the assembly belt giving a great line of perspective. Not only is it satisfying to have brought this image into public view but I also see it as a symbol of how much hidden potential the Stewart Bale archive has.

NML’s long term aim is to digitise the Stewart Bale collection, to allow the public to view them more easily."

Detail of Anglia vans on assembly line at Halewood factory, 1965

You might remember a while ago I mentioned a rather large painting that was about to undergo conservation, 'Flower Sellers of London'. A few people commented on it, thought it was an interesting piece. Conservation work has now begun and painting conservator, Rebecca Kench, has the latest.

This image shows a detail from the flowers section of the painting. Before consolidation is on the left and after on the right. You can see that the section on the right is noticeably cleaner and smoother.

The painting came into the Conservation Centre for treatment at the end of last year. It's been in need of treatment for a while and we have finally been able to fit it into our schedule.  The painting was bought from the artist shortly after it was painted in 1875 by Henry Thompson. He gave it to the Walker in 1880.  "The Flower Sellers" is painted on canvas attached to a stretcher and the figures are a little larger than life size.  Treating this painting presents me with several problems. Firstly I need to deal with anything which could lead to paint loss. When the painting arrived in the studio, the paint was flaking and needed to be consolidated, or reattached, to the canvas.  This mainly affected the area of the flowers where there is damaged and broken impasto (thick brush strokes of paint), and old paint losses down to the canvas.   Although this area has been consolidated (stuck back down to the canvas) in the past, there are still some areas which are loose and fragile.  In order to fix this, I laid the painting flat on a table, with a support behind the canvas, and any flaking areas of the painting were laid flat and consolidated using a water based fish glue.

The selection process for 'The Best of Merseyside' involved a lot of intense discussions and difficult decisions

We've reached the last few days of the rather fabulous Metropolis exhibition at the National Conservation Centre, so if you haven't seen it yet then do try to get over there this week.

Preparations for the next exhibition, 'Best of Merseyside', which opens at the National Conservation Centre on 22 August, have been taking place all year and seem to have involved a mammoth operation. Sarah Craven from Knowsley Arts Service was on the selection panel, and has kindly explained the process below. You can also see some behind-the-scenes photos in our Best of Merseyside selection process Flickr slideshow.

"Best of Merseyside is a selection of the best from the open exhibitions run by the Merseyside boroughs: Halton, Knowsley, St Helens, Sefton and Wirral. In putting together this exhibition we have drawn on entries to existing exhibitions and selected from them. 10 artists have been chosen from each of the 5 exhibitions and together they give 50 artists; 50 works that reflect the variety, the breadth of work that is being produced in the area. The majority of these are not professional artists, who often do not enter the local open exhibitions, but semi-professional or talented amateur artists who are glad of the platform these open shows offer.

The selection process is now over. The selectors for this exhibition were Jo Dry and myself from Knowsley Arts Service, Louise Hesketh from The Brindley, Runcorn, Jess Bowstead from St Helens Arts Service, Colin Simpson from the Williamson Art Gallery and Phillip Wroe from Sefton Arts Development. We all have very different Open exhibitions in our Boroughs so the selection process has been fantastic. We have had laughs, arguments, stamping tantrums and lengthy debate over the artworks. We were looking for technical ability, use of medium, creativity, subject matter, composition and sheer genius which we have found in excess as we travelled around greater Merseyside.

One of the highlights of the selection was 'Man in a Blue Sweater' by Michael Kirby, from Kirkby, Knowsley. This small but powerful image has been used to promote the exhibition in the publicity so the portrait will be printed on thousands of flyers and banners. 

We will be running workshops to support this exhibition which will be announced shortly so watch this space for details.

Thanks are due to Arts Council England and to National Museums Liverpool, we couldn't have done it without you."

The three clay masters for the bronze relief panels are now almost complete

This summer our talented sculptors in the sculpture conservation department have been recreating three missing bronze panels from Sefton Park's monuments. Here's the latest news on the project from Kathy Wedge in Conservation Technologies, and pictures following the progress of the project from the beginning are on our Sefton Park monuments Flickr set.

"The clay models for the three missing relief panels from the Sefton Park monuments to William Rathbone and the Right honourable Samuel Smith have really taken shape now as the photograph shows. They are almost ready to be sent to the fine art bronze casting foundry.

The warm weather, although lovely for us, has caused a few problems for the sculptors to overcome. The clay has been drying out faster than normal and even started to crack in places that were more exposed to the air than others.

The way around this was to make sure that the clay was kept as hydrated as possible. Each clay panel has been sprayed with water on a regular basis and covered with damp flannelette blanket and then a polythene sheet to keep the moisture in when not being worked on immediately. Even so a few cracks were noted after a weekend break when there was nobody here to spray and it took some gentle but steady applications of water to bring them back to the right condition to be worked on. Fortunately they had not dried out too much.

On Friday 1 August the officials responsible for Sefton Park will give their approval (hopefully) for the clay models to then be sent to the fine art bronze casting foundry where they will then be made into the magnificent reliefs that will complete the monuments. More pictures will follow in a couple of weeks when they get to the next stage."

Spot the difference - the original right hand panel of the ivory diptych on the right shown with a 21st century replica of the other side on the left. Visitors can currently see both the original panels together in Cardiff.

Today two halves of a medieval ivory diptych will be reunited thanks to a special collaboration between the Walker Art Gallery and National Museums Wales.

The diptych, which was made in the 14th century, portrays the birth of Christ, with the Virgin and Child flanked by Saints Peter and Paul, on the left-hand panel, while the right-hand side shows Christ on the cross flanked by Mary and John. Originally the leaves would have been joined together - you can see the holes for the hinges in the image above. However, over time they were separated and now the left hand panel is in the collections of the Walker Art Gallery, while the right hand one belongs to National Museums Wales.

The Walker's panel has been lent to National Museum Cardiff for a year-long display with the other half of the diptych, which starts today as part of National Archaeology Week.

When the original is returned to Liverpool visitors to Cardiff will still be able to see what the complete diptych would have looked thanks to a highly accurate copy of the left panel made by the Conservation Technologies team at the National Conservation Centre. Laser technology research scientist Annemarie La Pensee told me all about it:

"Last year Conservation Technologies was commissioned by Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales - to make a replica of the left-hand leaf of the diptych that we have here at National Museums Liverpool. Using 3D laser scanning and CNC machining we made an accurate replica from polyurethane resin that was patinated to make it look like the original.

Here in the laser technology team, we found the project really great to work on. The leaves are quite small, only 10cm in height. However, because of the highly carved surface we used our most accurate scanner to record the sub-millimetre details and the resulting dataset was as big as those we create for much larger objects. It is also interesting to see how different the two original leaves are in colour and texture because they have been apart and have been exposed to different environments."

Here's a quick update on the project to recreate missing bronzes for two of the Sefton Park monuments.

The clay models that Conservation Technologies are making for the reconstruction of the three missing relief panels from the Sefton Park memorials are now really taking shape. They will be used to produce the foundry cast bronze panels that form part of the memorials to William Rathbone and the Right Honourable Samuel Smith. Two of the panels have reached the stage where the fine detail is being sculpted and the third panel has been blocked out. Blocking out is the term the sculptors use to say that the main body of the clay shape is in place, before being fashioned into a more accurate form.

The sculptors are off at the moment so the clay panels have been wrapped in damp flannelette sheeting and are being sprayed everyday to keep them moist until work starts again. It's best not to disturb them while they are wrapped up like this so we don't have any updated photos to show at the moment.

Here's a reminder of what one of the clay plaques looked like a couple of weeks ago. You can see the rough shape of one of the figures sketched into the clay on the right, while other figures are starting to be 'fleshed out' in three dimensions. Further pictures of the early stages of the process are on our Sefton Park monuments Flickr slideshow and we will be adding more when they are available, so do check back in a couple of weeks to see the progress.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that the sculpture conservation team are recreating missing bronze relief plaques from two of Sefton Park's monuments completely from scratch using traditional techniques. As you can see from this photo, they are making good progress with some of the sculpted figures starting to take shape in the clay. Further photos are on our Sefton Park monuments Flickr slideshow and more will be aded as the project progresses, so do keep an eye on it. Kathy Wedge from Conservation Technologies has this update:

"The project to produce the clay master models that will be used to cast the bronze relief panels that will reconstruct the memorials to William Rathbone and the right honourable Samuel Smith is now well under way. As seen in the first pictures in the Flickr slideshow the wood supports were fixed into place to support the clay and create a rough shape. The clay has been applied and then the design was sketched out in the clay before building out the 3D contours. More wood and metal armatures have been added to support parts of the relief which are almost free standing, such as some of the arms, legs and the occasional head.

Whilst Christopher Dean and Samantha Sportun are sculpting some of the sculptures, elements which have more air around them are drying out faster than the other sections of the panels which can be quite critical to the working of the clay. For this reason both sculptors need to keep a careful watch over the condition of the clay in all areas whilst also concentrating on the area that they are working on. If it appears to be drying out too fast it is sprayed with water and when the work has to stop at night they are covered with a polythene sheet and a wet flannelette blanket.

Once Christopher and Sam are satisfied with the general shape of an area of the sculpture it can then be allowed to dry to leather-like consistency which will allow them to then develop and work on the fine detail of the relief.

So far so good, and for once we are grateful that the weather has not been too warm, but watch this space as the panels develop."

Here's a sight you don't see every day when you're waiting to cross the road! The Edward VII monument returned to Pier Head today after being conserved at the National Conservation Centre's sculpture studio.

The tall sculpture had to be carefully manoeuvred out of the building then lifted onto the back of a lorry with specialist cranes and equipment, watched by staff, the press and a growing crowd of passers-by. The operation went smoothly, despite a bit of rain. You can see photos of the move on our Edward VII monument Flickr slideshow.

The sculpture conservation studio has recently had to squeeze in one of the largest sculptures that has ever been cleaned in-house. The equestrian monument to King Edward VII was removed from its plinth at Pier Head for conservation last year and brought to the studio, where it only just cleared the ceiling.

Now fully conserved, the monument will be returned to Pier Head this week. Here's a sneaky peek of how it now looks. You can see more photos, including some of the statue from last year before it was conserved, in our Flickr slideshow of the conservation of King Edward VII. From these pictures you can see that our sculpture conservators have been very busy - compared to its blackened, dirty state last year the monument now looks as good as new.

Mary from Cleaning Services with the sculpture of King Edward VII

Every day thousands of cars travel through the Queensway tunnel under the Mersey. However, it is being reclaimed by pedestrians on Sunday when the traffic will be stopped to allow a special walk through the tunnel. 

This picture from the Metropolis exhibition of Stewart Bale photographs captures a rare moment of calm and solitude in the Queensway tunnel when it was still under construction back in 1931. I expect it'll be considerably busier on Sunday with 5,000 people expected to do the walk and the Liverpool Philharmonic Youth Orchestra playing in the middle.

Conservation Technologies are probably best known for the cutting edge work they do using laser technology to clean and replicate sculpture and other precious objects. However for their latest major commission they will mainly be using traditional techniques to hand sculpt missing elements of Sefton Park's monuments.

The memorials to William Rathbone and the Right Honourable Samuel Smith in Sefton Park both originally had four bronze relief sculptures on their bases. Over time the some of the bronze reliefs have been damaged and three of them have gone missing. The only record of the missing bronzes is a small black and white photo of each, so Conservation Technologies will be recreating them from scratch using these pictures as a guide.

The first stage of this process involves sculpting master models of the replicas in clay. As they are quite large pieces the process involved is quite a feat of engineering. The amount of clay used to provide the master models weighs a ton (literally) in weight, so special frames have been built to support that amount of wet clay and then enclose the finished pieces in order to transport them safely to the foundry for casting. The frames are shown below; the first is empty, the second has wooden supports in place to support the clay and the third has a layer of clay in place already.

As this is such a large and ambitious project two members of the team will be working to recreate the missing reliefs. Christopher Dean will be sculpting the two larger pieces, while Sam Sportun works on the third smaller bronze.

You can see further photographs in our Sefton Park monuments Flickr slideshow, which we'll be adding to over the next few weeks. At the moment there are also photographs of the damaged bronze relief of 'Charity' from the base of the memorial to William Rathbone, showing where the arm of a woman kneeling at the front has been broken off. This will be replaced as part of the conservation process.

We'll be bringing you updates as this ambitious project progresses, so watch this space.

The specially built wooden frames in the sculpture conservation studio

There's just a few days left to submit your application for one of the 10 Creative Apprenticeships on offer. A number of Merseyside-based cultural organisations, including National Museums Liverpool, are involved in a project to foster emerging talent and give young hopefuls a solid grounding in the arts and culture industry.

By the end of the year-long apprenticeship you'll have earned a Level 2 Certificate in Creative and Cultural Practice, and a Level 2 National Award in Community Arts Management, but perhaps more importantly you'll have developed the skills and contacts you'll need for a career in the industry.

More details are available on the Creative Partnerships Liverpool website.

In today's volunteer's tale, Margaret describes the various volunteer opportunities she has enjoyed during her 3 years with NML.

Day 4: Margaret

I became a volunteer with NML nearly three years ago, when I started my degree course in History of Art and Museum Studies at Liverpool John Moores University, and I love it! To begin with I worked in the staff library, tidying and sorting books and journals, cataloguing and generally looking after the library. After a while I also started helping the Manager of the National Conservation Centre in the office – admin duties such as answering emails and phone queries, using a database to log work, ordering stationery, filing and so on. Every week there is something new and interesting to deal with, from assisting with the delivery of exotic items to be quarantined in the Conservation Centre freezers, to helping design a poster to advertise a series of Sunday dances in the Conservation Centre café.

I found that the volunteering experience was very relevant and beneficial to my degree course and it enhanced an internship module which was part of my second year.  I’m now also helping the art handling team with the John Moores 25 Exhibition which is really exciting. Apart from the pleasure of seeing the competition entries close up I am learning how to handle and transport paintings, which again will give me invaluable practical experience.

Volunteering at NML is a great way to find out more about how galleries and museums really work and what goes on behind the scenes. 

Margaret at work in the National Conservation Centre

If you want to find out more about volunteering at National Museums Liverpool, please email the Volunteers Team or ring them on 0151 478 4775.

The eagle eyed amongst you may have noticed that there wasn't a May Name That Object competition. We were rather busy with the redesign for the main site (check it out if you've not already) and it kind of took a back seat.

Anyway, June's is now up with the first clue available here. As ever you need to figure out which object from our collections (and our website) the detail is from and email us the answer using the contact link on the competition page. There's a new clue every day this week.

We've had lots of enquiries from people wanting to buy the Art In The Age of Steam exhibition catalogue so that's this month's prize. Good luck.

Anne Gleave, our curator of photographic archives, has had an interesting phonecall from a sharp-eyed lady, who discovered a mysterious presence in the Stewart Bale photograph of the Anglican Cathedral under construction from the current Metropolis exhibition.

In the middle of the photograph there is a figure walking along the street, but only their legs are visible. Anne says this is probably the result of somebody walking past during a long exposure photograph.

Update 23/06/2008: After further examination of the image Anne has this update: "It could be that the figure was standing approximately in one place with the top half moving more than the lower half and a slightly long exposure only captured the lower half as the legs were more still. It is also possible that a dye may have been used on the negative to obscure a figure that was not wanted in the photograph; however, examination of the negative does not show any obvious signs of dye use. The detail of the image on the website does indicate a certain change of tone, as if a dye may have been used to remove the top half of the figure but then the question is if a dye was used, why wasn't it used to remove the feet; it does seem to be a bit of a mystery."

However there could be a more eerie explanation - after all, the mysterious figure is walking past the graveyard...

See what you think in this picture.

The camera never lies - but sometimes it only captures half the truth!

Our trading arm, NML Trading, is holding a Recruitment Open Day on Saturday 10th May. They're looking to recruit Team Leaders, Catering Assistants, Venue Supervisors, Chefs and Banqueting staff. They're looking for people who are passionate about catering for their daytime operation plus occasional evening work. You'll be working in Liverpool’s world class museums, providing high quality food and refreshments to over two million visitors each year.

To find out more about the roles on offer, bring your CV to World Museum Liverpool, William Brown Street, Liverpool between 10.30am and 4.30pm.

Some objects in our collection are so large that conserving them is a two-person job. A good example is the 'All you need is love' bedspread, which is currently being prepared for display is the upcoming exhibition The beat goes on - opening on 12 July 2008 at World Museum Liverpool.

To prepare it for display the bedspread has been stitched to a backing sheet on wooden stretchers, which support it and keep it in place. Today textiles and organics conservators Vivien Chapman and Anne-Marie Hughes have been strengthening the bedspread with supporting stitches to key areas - a delicate process which involves passing the needle through the fabric from one person to the other, without being ever able to see each other. These stitches are so small that you wouldn't know they were there when you look at the bedspread but they play an important role in supporting it when it's on display.

The bedspread was originally used in John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Montreal 'Bed-In For Peace' in room 1742 of the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, Montreal in 1969. It is just one of the fascinating pieces of memorabilia that will be on display in the exhibition.

There are more pictures in a Flickr slideshow of the bedspread being conserved.

Today is day one in April's Name That Object competition and here is today's clue. To win a copy of the rather nice catalogue that accompanies the Art In The Age of Steam exhibition all you have to do is identify the object in question (it's an artwork this month) from the clues given every day this week, and email us your answer using the link on the competition page. Best of British.

'King Eddie' just clearing the ceiling in the conservation studio

As you may know the Pier Head is undergoing a bit of a transformation at the moment, and that extends to the statues there. King Edward VII atop his horse has undergone a face lift, spending the last few months in a studio at the National Conservation Centre - he almost didn't fit in. Work to remove the grime is now finished (this photo was taken pre-conservation) and you are invited to come along and meet 'King Eddie' before all 16ft of him is hoisted back on top of a granite plinth at the Pier Head. There's a special open day this Thursday - 17 April - from 1-4pm when you can chat to conservators and see long-obscured features up close. Just come to the information desk at the main entrance on Whitechapel and you'll be shown through to the studio.

Here's the final blog post from Tom McConnell, our work placement student and Beatles fan, who has been lucky enough to see some rather special objects from the band's history.

Hi

On Tuesday and Wednesday I have been working on the Beatles stage that John Lennon played on when Paul McCartney first met him. I had to sand parts of it and help take it apart before it is fully constructed.

Today I have been in paper conservation where I found all the Beatles autographs!! and I also saw many other Beatles items such as a Beatles writing pad.. Beatles stockings.. Beatles tickets.. Beatles newspapers.. and much more.

Launch of the Mauretania II

There are many many reasons why the exhibition Metropolis: capturing modern Liverpool, which has just opened at the National Conservation Centre, is really rather brilliant.

Firstly the photographs, which all come from the Stewart Bale collection held at the Maritime Archives and Library, are all stunning. If you don't believe me, The British Journal of Photography (who know a bit about these things) described the name of Stewart Bale as being "associated with a quality of performance never equalled in the field of photography".

Secondly, they document a period of tremendous change and significant events in Liverpool's history, including the construction of the Anglican cathedral and launch of the Mauretania II at Cammell Laird to name just a couple.

Thirdly, there are lots of instantly recognisable local streets and landmarks in the photographs. Some of them have changed significantly, others are only subtley different now, but all of them make really absorbing images. I really like the view across the city's rooftops from 1934, which includes St Luke's church and the partially built Anglican cathedral. Since then the cathedral's tower has been finished but the church (known locally as 'the bombed out church') is now an empty roofless shell, so you still wouldn't get a completed view of both buildings today.

Need I say more? Do pop in if you have a chance, you've got until 10 August when the exhibition closes.

Can't believe no one's got this yet - thought it would have gone yesterday. The prize in this month's Name That Object game is still not won and today is the last day. This is today's clue - bit of a give away. All of this week's clues, plus the link to enter the competition, are on the Name That Object page. The prize is the catalogue from the recent Joseph Wright of Derby in Liverpool exhibition.

This month's final clue

The second of what will hopefully be a monthly feature (prizes allowing) begins on Monday. Name that Object shows a new detail from an object in our collection every day for five days. Could be from any venue and any collection.  To win the prize all you have to do is identify the object and be the first to mail us the correct answer (use the 'contact us' form link on the competition page). As there's only one prize - the rather excellent catalogue that accompanied the recent Joseph Wright of Derby in Liverpool exhibition - most of you will be 'playing for fun', and it is fun as you'll discover if you check out last month's game - bit of a warm up for you.

Hogarth in his new home

Here's a snap of last month's prize - a Superlambanana now christened Hogarth (I'll leave you to figure out why) - happily ensconced in his new home. His new owner got the answer right on clue one so you'll probably have to be there from kick off on Monday to be in with a chance. To make it a bit easier I'll tell you it is a painting and it is featured on our website.

You can also play via the rss feed so there's no chance of you missing a clue.

'St Bernardino Preaching' shown before conservation on the left and after on the right

Admit it - in your rush to get to see the portraits of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I at the far end of the Walker you've probably dashed past most of the other Medieval and Renaissance paintings without giving them a second glance. Which is a shame because there are some real gems on display.

Take 'St Bernardino Preaching' by Francesco di Giorgio for example, which is the Walker's picture of the month in March. It's being highlighted following recent conservation treatment, which has brought all of the vibrant colours and incredible detail in this busy scene back to vivid life. Have a look at our online feature about the conservation of 'St Bernardino Preaching' to see images of the painting before, during and after treatment, plus some fascinating insights into the techniques used by the artist.

There are also some gallery talks about the painting this month. Curator of continental European art Xanthe Brooke will be giving the first talk today at 1pm. Then Nicola Christie, the head of paintings conservation, will be talking about the conservation of the painting on Thursday 13 March, also at 1pm. See the Walker Art Gallery's What's On page for further details.

Today we've launched what will hopefully become a regular feature on the site - our 'Name that Object' competition. We'll be revealing a new detail of an object (it's an artwork this time - bit of a clue for you there) every day for a week with the answer at the end. This is today's clue. There's a prize of a miniature Superlambanana to the first person to correctly identify the piece and to email us the answer using the form on the competition page.

If you're as forgetful as me you can always subscribe to the rss feed to get updates, or just click backwards to see previous clues. And as a final hint I'll tell you that the object is somewhere on our website. There, I've said too much already...

The first clue in the name that object competition

The recent refurbishment of Sudley House gave our conservators the opportunity to spend some quality time with the paintings and objects on display there. A new online feature about the conservation of one of Sudley's paintings, Gainsborough's portrait of 'Viscountess Folkestone', reveals some interesting discoveries that conservators have made about the materials and techniques used.

Their analysis has shown that Gainsborough completely changed the composition of the portrait, painting over the initial landscape in the background to move the setting indoors. This may seem quite considerate for the elderly Viscountess, bringing her inside into the warmth (especially on a windy day like today). However, he also abandoned her initial seated pose and made her stand up in the finished painting, which is no way to treat an elderly widow if you ask me.

The study of the painting has also revealed information about the pigments and paint medium used. It's a great example of how conservators use modern techniques to study old objects in the collections and try to piece together information about their past.

Now it’s coming to the end of the year. Your reindeer antlers are drooping after the office Christmas party, the sequins on your party dress are fading and you’re wondering what happened to that pile of sprouts you hid behind the piano to avoid eating them (and avoid upsetting your host). So while you consider if you can stomach another mince pie, why not have a think about your favourite National Museums Liverpool exhibition from 2007 and vote in our online poll!

Did ‘Doves and Dreams’ inspire you way back in Spring of this year? Or did you enjoy getting an intimate glimpse of The Beatles with Michael Peto’s revealing photography exhibition? Have your say and come back to find out the results in January. Once you’ve voted, you can also check out our program of events for 2008 here…

Note: Now These Days Are Gone, Victorian Visions, Magical History Tour and Merchant Palaces are continuing into 2008.

Textile conservator Anne-Marie Hughes has been preparing this 2000 year old Egyptian shroud for display in the new Egyptian gallery at World Museum Liverpool, which opens next year. I was privileged to see it in her studio while she was working on it.

The shroud was framed in the 19th century and had been glued to the back board, so Anne-Marie has had to remove it, which was quite a job, before remounting it on silk. You can see photos of the shroud with the backing board and the silk backing on our Flickr page.

The pink paint on the shroud is going to be analysed to see if it's from Rio Tinto in Spain. Recent research by the Brooklyn Museum has revealed Spanish paint on one of their mummies.

Head of Antiquities Ashley Cooke told me more about the shroud itself:

"This is a small fragment from a large painted linen shroud that once was wrapped around a mummified body. It dates to circa AD 100 - 200, a time when Egypt was a province of the Roman empire. Mummification continued to be practiced during the Roman period but the techniques employed were inferior to those of earlier periods. It was common for greater attention to be devoted to the external appearance of the wrapped mummy. Shrouds were painted with portraits representing the deceased in poses adapted from Hellenistic Greek repertoire. The Liverpool shroud depicts the transfigured dead person who has assumed the identity of Osiris, appearing in mummy form in frontal pose. Osiris is wearing the Atef crown with a plume on either side and a small disc and uraeus at the centre. His hands clasping across his chest hold the flail and sceptre of Egypt.

The shroud was found in Egypt in 1870 but other information about the excavation was not recorded. The museum acquired this piece from the collection of the famous pharmaceutical entrepreneur Sir Henry Wellcome in 1973.
 
Funerary shrouds such as this offer an interesting conjunction of Greek, Roman and Egyptian forms of representing the individual. Over the next year the museum will be carefully studying the iconography and artistic techniques used to further our understanding of this fascinating and beautiful object."

Noticed that tomorrow night (Tues 23 Oct) at 11.20pm BBC2 are showing a documentary looking at the making of the Beatles' second film, 'Help!' If you've not already seen our exhibition, 'Now These Days Are Gone' which is also based on 'Help!', the programme might whet your appetite for all things Fab Four.

The replica FA Cup

Football seems to be a bit of a touchy subject today for some reason. So here's a story about a major trophy that isn't in any danger of leaving England, in case that cheers up a few football fans out there.

In 2005 the oldest surviving FA Cup (produced in 1896 after the original trophy was stolen) was up for auction and in danger of going overseas. Luckily businessman David Gold, director of Gold Group International and chairman of Birmingham City Football Club, saved it for the nation and gave it to the National Football Museum in Preston on a long term loan basis, so that it could be seen and enjoyed by all football fans.

At the invitation of the National Football Museum, he then commissioned Conservation Technologies to produce an accurate replica of the trophy for his private use. They worked with silversmiths BDG Manufacturing Ltd and the Jewellery Industry Innovation Centre to produce the replica shown here, using a combination of cutting edge laser scanning technology and traditional skills.

David Gold was delighted with his replica trophy and the National Football Museum is ‘over the moon’ with the original. Find out more in a case study about how the FA Cup was replicated on the Conservation Technologies website.

Rachel Swift has spent the last 12 month on an internship at the National Conservation Centre (NCC) in the Ceramics and Glass section. This is a review of her final major activity - a conference in Slovenia.

Rachel Swift with her poster entitled 'Interned?'

The 4 September was my last day at NCC as part of a 12 month training partnership between National Museums Liverpool (NML) and Icon (Institute of Conservation) funded through the Heritage Lottery Fund Training Bursary Scheme.  Having just spent all of last week, 27–31 August at a fantastic conference I am now all inspired and eager to share my experiences. The conference was an ICOM-CC (International Council of Museums – Conservation Committee) Ceramics and Glass Working Group Interim Meeting, held in Nova Gorica, Slovenia which is on the border with Italy. The last working group meeting was six years ago in Finland so it was a great opportunity for a range of professionals involved with ceramics and glass conservation to get together once again and take part in this information sharing forum made up of sixty five delegates from twenty one countries.  In particular it was an opportunity to meet conservators and museum professionals from Eastern Europe who may normally find it difficult to attend such events. 

Twenty three speakers provided a broad range of interesting presentations on technical, practical, scientific and education related topics.  Complementing these presentations were a display of five posters about specific ceramic and glass conservation projects or related work, which provided a colourful and interesting backdrop to the proceedings.   One of these posters (shown) was about the work I have been carrying out in the Ceramics and Glass Conservation section with Lynne Edge over the last 12 months.  My overall aim was to highlight the benefits of work based training by displaying the range of opportunities availed whilst at NCC in terms of bench-based experience, scientific research and internal and external collaborative projects.  The poster was well received with an hour set aside on the Wednesday afternoon to enable authors to answer questions and discuss the projects displayed. 

The hospitality and the welcome we received from the Slovenian people was astonishing with organised receptions virtually every evening at museums across Slovenia with traditional food and locally produced wine.  The museum hosting the event in Nova Gorica, Goriski Musej, had even re-displayed an entire gallery especially for the event.  From a professional point of view attending conferences such as this one is a highly valuable opportunity to learn, to network and to get to know peers in more sociable surroundings.  I would also highly recommend visiting Slovenia.  As a country the size of Wales with a population of 2million everywhere within Slovenia is easily accessible and from what I saw mainly remains truly beautiful and unspoilt. 

Grateful acknowledgements to: Lynne Edge, Dave Flower, NML design department for assistance with production of the poster and The Zibby Garnett Travelling Fellowship, Icon, and the North West Federation of Museums and Art Galleries for funding the visit.

Our conservators are highly trained intelligent people who do serious scientific work. Most of time anyway - the other week they spent the day playing with toys. David Crombie explains that it was all in the name of science:

Baby Annabel as you've never seen her before!

"On Friday 24 August, staff from the National Conservation Centre hosted an ‘x-ray your toys day’ as a fun way of showing children how science can be used to examine things and look inside them.

Children turned up with a variety of toys, and we saw Minnie Mouse, Wilma the teddy, and a little lion from the World Museum Liverpool shop amongst others. Some children who hadn’t known about the day had their toys with them anyway, and joined in the fun.

Apart from finding the squashy stuffing inside the lion, (“I think he’s full of beans!” said his owner…) we found that the inside of the head of a Baby Annabel doll was a complicated mixture of wires, mechanics and such like that gave the x-ray image a very surreal ‘android’ look that wouldn’t have been out of place in an episode of Doctor Who!

Inside a little musical bear, meant to hang on a baby’s cot and play a little tune, we could see the tiny clockwork music-box about 6cm long, with its pegged cylinder ready to turn against the tuned metal prongs.  We could even see the word ‘JAPAN’ in tiny letters on the case.

You can see a Flickr slideshow of x-rayed toys from the event here.

We used the new Konica Minolta Regius 190 digital x-ray reader to look at the items, and the digital plate technology means that the process is quick and easy, with no wet chemical processing of x-ray plates needed. This kind of equipment is more usually seen in hospitals, and has been a very valuable asset to the new Reveal laboratory at the centre.

Everybody had a lot of fun looking at the toys, and we hope to run another one in the future, so look out for the National Conservation Centre What's On listings."

Do you ever get the feeling that you've picked completely the wrong week to go on holiday? While I'm away next week it looks like I'm missing loads of fun here in Liverpool.

Tomorrow the famous ship from the Pirates of the Caribbean films, The Black Pearl, will be visiting Liverpool and docking opposite the Maritime Museum. Sadly Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom wont be there, but I'm sure it'll still be worth seeing.

Then of course the International Slavery Museum opens on Thursday. Being a nosey type, I had a quick look round this week and even though the displays were still being finished off it already had the wow factor.

To top off the week, visitors are invited to bring in their toys to be x-rayed in the Reveal gallery of the National Conservation Centre on Friday from 12.30-3.30pm. At last, the chance to discover the inner workings of your favourite playthings - don't pretend that you're not even the tiniest bit curious to see what makes your teddy bear growl. See the full details on the Conservation Centre's What's On pages.

For many years the Richard Ansdell painting The Hunted Slaves was a familiar sight above the grand staircase of the Walker Art Gallery. However, sharp eyed visitors will have noticed that the painting is no longer there.

Although it hasn't been on public display, the painting has still been the centre of attention behind the scenes at the National Conservation Centre, where our conservators have examined it and prepared it to go to a new venue.

This morning the painting was taken to the Albert Dock, where it will soon be going on display again in the new International Slavery Museum. As you can see, moving such a huge painting is a big operation as it takes several people just to lift it. It was in safe hands with the museum's specialist handling team though, who soon got it inside.

Four fab photos of the fab four (try saying that quickly) waiting to be hung on the wall. All photographs in the exhibition © University of Dundee.

Lucy Johnson has been keeping us posted about the installation of 'Menagerie' at the Walker. She's not the only exhibition officer who has been busy lately though. Linda Brizell has sent over this sneaky peek of the next exhibition to open at the National Conservation Centre this Saturday, which she reckons fans of a certain band will love:

"Last week I was on gallery for the installation of Now These Days are Gone, an exhibition consisting of over 40 fantastic photographs taken by Michael Peto during the filming of Help! The photographs range from filming on a very cold Salisbury Plain, having tea at the Antrobus Arms to at home with Ringo, Maureen and their pet dog, Tiger. The exhibition will be of great interest to any Beatles fan as it gives a glimpse of the famous four off-guard and relaxed.

This will be the first time the photographs have been shown in the North West, they have previously been on shown in London, Dundee and Ireland.

Now These Days are Gone opens on Saturday 18 August and runs until Sunday 2 March 2008."

Last year textile conservator Anne-Marie Hughes helped prepare some of the best looking mannequins ever to set foot in a gallery, with the Inspiration - forty years of designer fashion display at the Walker. Last week she brought that touch of glamour to the Battle of the Atlantic gallery in Merseyside Maritime Museum, with a quick makeover for one of the mannequins on display.

The mannequin, inspired by the photograph of a WREN on this web page, needed a new wig as her old wig was looking a bit worse for wear.  You can see a few photos in this Flickr slideshow of Anne-Marie at work replacing the wig. She describes how the job took an unexpected turn below.

"The mannequin makers had stuck the wig on with some serious epoxy adhesive and had stuck some of the hair to its face, I assume in error.

This job was a bit of a departure for me, I have to say I'm not usually called upon to remove facial hair from mannequins mainly because they don't usually have it (particularly female ones), but I do think the mannequin looks refreshed after her makeover."

It's all go down at Merseyside Maritime Museum. The Transatlantic Slavery Gallery in the basement closed on Sunday, as part of the preparations for the new International Slavery Museum, which opens upstairs on the third floor on 23 August.

With less than 2 months to go before the opening, staff have had to work fast. When I popped in today it looked as if at least half of the objects had already been taken out of their cases. Most of these are now being checked and treated in the National Conservation Centre before going on display in the new museum.

I was just in time to see curator Angela Robinson removing an ivory anklet from a former display of artefacts from West Africa. If I'd been any later I would have been photographing an empty case!

The new displays will include familiar objects from the old galleries, which will be joined by new acquisitions, items that are currently in storage and specially commissioned artworks, such as the Freedom! sculpture that is currently on tour.

Everyone has been talking about the two new exhibitions at the Walker, Out of this World and Unnatural selection. However, for the staff at the National Conservation Centre, those shows are so last week. Paintings conservators David Crombie and Rebecca Kench are already preparing paintings for the Walker's next big exhibition about Joseph Wright of Derby, which opens in the autumn.
 
I popped in today to see them conserving two of the Walker's portraits by the artist, of Fleetwood Hesketh and his wife Frances Hesketh. You can see a Filckr slideshow of the partly-conserved paintings here.

David updated me on the progress so far:

 "When these paintings were hanging in the gallery they appeared to be in good condition, apart from their slightly discoloured varnish. However nobody expected how discoloured the varnish and dirt layers would turn out to be.   Once the varnish and dirt were removed, we could see the bold areas of colour and Wright's distinct subtle purples that were somewhat obscured until now. It's remarkable just how bright the paintings really are.
 
The yellowing of the varnish is a result of the gradual oxidation and degradation of natural resin varnishes over time. Underneath, the original paint is generally in very good condition and these portraits are good examples of a sound oil painting technique. Wright painted them in a very consistent manner and didn't use any particularly radical techniques, unlike Sir Joshua Reynolds for example, who could be more experimental. 

One interesting thing that we noticed in another portrait being lent to the exhibition from a local collection is that the lady in the painting appears to be wearing a similar blue material wrap and wristband to the ones worn by Frances Hesketh in the Walker's portrait. The wrap is even tied in a similar way at the front. This may mean that they were studio props given to sitters by Wright. However, we'll have to check to confirm this when the loan painting comes in and we can examine them properly together."

Image courtesy of Elizabeth Hawkins

In December 2005 you may remember that Blackie, the much loved rocking horse from Blackler's Department Store and Alder Hey Children's Hospital, went on display at the Museum of Liverpool Life for the first time after being kindly donated by the hospital.

This image of Blackie been ridden in the children's clothing department shows how much pleasure he brought to generations of Liverpool children.

The following is just one of the happy memories in the comments book from the display. "Blackie was a childhood friend to us kids - to us he was real!" L.F., Old Swan.

I noticed on Liverpool Blogs this morning that Mark McNulty now has his own blog.

Mark was one of the two photographers featured in our Street Life exhibition at the National Conservation Centre last year. His blog promises to 'include news, recent photographs, published work and selections from the archive'.

Don't set off too quick kids, Gerry didn't bring the Pacemakers

The Walker Art Gallery played host to a musical icon this afternoon as Liverpool legend Gerry Marsden joined local school children for the launch of Merseyside Walk to School week. Pupils across the country are taking part in this national initiative aiming to cut down on pollution caused by the daily school run. It seems no matter how small the feet there’s no escaping those carbon footprints. Gerry got some practice in for Athens and gave us a quick blast of ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ - let’s hope for more triumphant renditions next week.   

If you’re still not convinced of the merits of shanks’ pony head over to the National Conservation Centre and check out The Long Way Home. Bernard Fallon captured many of the Liverpool images featured in this exhibition on his walk to Art School. Documenting the changes to Liverpool’s landscape, both physical and social, Bernard’s photographs capture the essence of the city. Something that can be all too easily missed as we race by.   

Emily Tinne © courtesy of Dr Alexine Tinne

For Museums and Galleries Month I've been asking which everyone to nominate which people from the past related to our collections they would bring back if they could, so it seems only fair that I should share my suggestions. It has taken me a while to think of somebody, mainly because there's so many to choose from, I just couldn't decide.

It'd be interesting to talk to any of the sailors from past centuries related to the Merseyside Maritime Museum's collections - the people who set out to sea during an era when they were never really sure if they'd make it home safely again. I'm sure they'd all have some great tales of their adventures on the ocean wave, but I can't narrow down my choice to just one.

I'd also like to talk to the person who did some rather strange things to a 15th century painting of St Michael and the Dragon, which were discovered by our paintings conservators recently, as I'd like to know how they could treat a work of art that way.

I'm tempted to have stern words with the questioning soldier in the painting 'And when did you last see your father?' and tell him to pick on someone his own size, but I realise that he's not real so doesn't really count.

So in the end I've decided that the person I'd bring back would be Mrs Emily Tinne, whose enormous collection of clothing was the focus of the exhibition A Passion for Fashion last year. I'd love to take her shopping to see what she thinks of all the designer shops springing up in Liverpool now. Today's clothing may be a bit too daring for her tastes, but I'd love to get her to at least try on a colourful new pair of shoes, as the shoes from the Tinne collection tend to be more practical than glamorous. I'm sure I could convert her to the joys of bling footwear!

The themes for Museums and Galleries Month this May are 'People: Who Are We?' and 'Night of the Museum'. To combine the two, the organisers are asking for nominations of a person, featured in a UK museum or gallery, who you would bring back to life as in the 'Night at the Museum' film.

Kay Docherty, assistant curator at the Museum of Liverpool has two great suggestions, the regal Statue of Liverpool that once graced the roof of the Walker and Leasowe Man, the oldest surviving skelton from Merseyside, who was conserved at the National Conservation Centre for our former exhibition Living with the Romans.

"I would love to see the huge Allegorical Statue of Liverpool, at the National Conservation Centre, which was on top of the Walker Art Gallery from 1877 until 1993, come to life. I'd ask her about the many Liverpool events she must have witnessed from high up on the roof and what she thinks of Liverpool today? Also does she like her new home and what does she think of the copy of herself now on the roof.
 
For Leasowe Man I'd ask him what life was like in Merseyside at the time of the Romans, what his name was and what it was like to live in a Romano British round house. From analysing his skeleton archaeologists believe that he was muscular and was used to heavy labour - I'd ask him what he did."

Panorama of the Liverpool waterfront, 1952, by Stewart Bale Ltd

Next week St George's Hall in Liverpool will reopen to the public after a major refurbishment. The week-long celebrations will include special Son et Lumiere displays in the evenings, with 800 years of the city's history projected onto the side of the building.

I don't want to spoil the surprise too much, but one of the images used in the displays will be this panorama of the Liverpool waterfront from the Stewart Bale archive held at Merseyside Maritime Museum.

We are highlighting the fantastic photos from the Stewart Bale archive in a series of themed online exhibitions this year, starting with the current Waterfront, docks and shipping one. Look out for a new one each month throughout the summer.

Our very own sculpture conservation team laser cleaned the relief sculpture on St George's Hall and the cenotaph on the plateau outside. Find out how they use cutting edge techniques to conserve historic monuments on the conservation technologies web pages.

Poster accession number RD00042.0012

The Easter holidays start this weekend, and as you'd expect, we've got lots of free activities at our venues to keep the kids entertained while they're off school.

In the spirit of the season, the National Conservation Centre are holding five Easter craft afternoons from Wed 4 April, which include card making and egg painting. You could also take part in an Easter rummage at the Customs and Excise Museum over the next 3 Sundays. Please check the What's On listings for the times of each session.

It's a busy time so if you are travelling into town, this poster from the Museum of Liverpool collections has some good advice, which still rings true sixty years after it was printed. The poster is number 13 in a series produced by Liverpool Corporation Passenger Transport in the late 1940s, aimed at passengers to help reduce queues and peak time travel for workers.

Head of sculpture conservation Sam Sportun gives Pomona a quick clean

Most people decorate their garden with a nice pot from the garden centre, or maybe an ornamental bird bath or fountain. The gardens at Het Loo Palace in the Netherlands are pretty spectacular however, so they have commissioned a specially made replica marble sculpture from conservation technologies at the National Conservation Centre to grace their lawn.

The replica is a life sized copy of a 17th century marble statue of the goddess Pomona, part of the Royal Collection, that's on display in the Orangery of Kensington Palace, London.

The original statue was laser scanned to produce an accurate 3D computer model. As it is such a large sculpture it had to be divided into 8 pieces that were machined separately out of Carrara marble. These were then carefully assembled, rather like a huge 3D jigsaw puzzle that weighs around 400 kg. The joins are cleverly hidden in the sculpture, so you would think it was carved from a solid piece of marble.

You can see a Flickr slideshow of photos of Pomona being carefully packed into a crate ready for the trip to the Netherlands. 

Update: see pictures documenting the replication of Pomona and read more about the process in a new case study on the National Conservation Centre website.

Digital, 35mm or good old pinhole, pick up your camera, I’m declaring 2007 the year of the photograph.

We've got Bernard Fallon’s atmospheric images of Liverpool going down a storm at the National Conservation Centre and the images of Merchant Palaces at the Lady Lever Art Gallery provide a fascinating insight into the way the other half lived.

If you fancy a shot at photography and are lucky enough to be aged between 12 and 16 there’s a Victorian photography workshop at the Lady Lever on Thursday 12 April. Places are limited so call our learning department on 0151 478 4178 to snap up a place. 

Never fear oldies, there's also opportunities for those of us old enough to remember when Polaroid’s were cutting edge to develop our skills. Shoot Liverpool is an interactive photographic treasure hunt happening in May and promises a fantastic day of creativity and camaraderie on the streets of Liverpool. Sounds like a reel good time.

If your photographic thirst hasn’t been quenched by that fine lot I visited the BALTIC in Gateshead last week to see the Vik Muniz exhibition. Check out a chocolate Elvis  and Che Guevara reborn through the magic of black beans. Definitely the best exhibition I’ve seen all year – apart from our own of course.

Bernard Fallon's Crosby babes

As if you would! If you do find yourself stranded without a card though, you could always send your mum a beautiful Mother's Day e-card from our collections. It's free, it's environmentally friendly and it's more original than a bunch of flowers or box of chocolates. What more could she ask for?

For a nice day out, you could take her to see Pedeamun the mummy at the National Conservation Centre - and pop in to see The Long Way Home exhibition while you're there.

Karen's blog has reminded me - it's Mother's Day on Sunday, and as you'd expect, we have a range of fabulous free Mother's Day e-cards for the occasion.

New designs this year include 'The Fairy Tale' by James Sant, pictured above, from the Walker's collections. Or if your mum doesn't scare easily (and lets face it, most mums are made of pretty stern stuff) you could always send her the 'Mummy of Pedeamun' from the National Conservation Centre.

'Grain barge', copyright Bernard Fallon

If you missed Bernard Fallon when he briefly returned to Liverpool to open the exhibition of his photos The Long Way Home at the National Conservation Centre, then don't worry. A podcast of Bernard giving a guided tour of the exhibition is now available on the website. Yes, we do spoil you.

For further proof of how much we spoil you, there have been extra talks added for our other photography exhibition, Merchant Palaces at the Lady Lever Art Gallery. Exhibition curator Joseph Sharple's talks about Merchant Palaces have been so popular that 2 more dates have been added on 27 March and 16 April. Full details are in the Merchant Palaces events programme.

Bernard Fallon finds himself on the other side of the lens

Photographer Bernard Fallon's exhibition, which opens at the National Conservation Centre on Saturday, is called The Long Way Home, and he has travelled a very long way to come home for the opening this week. Although he was born in Liverpool, Bernard now lives in Los Angeles, where I bet it's raining much less than it is here today.

His incredibly atmospheric photos of Liverpool 40 years ago are a world away from the Californian sunshine. However, his humourous reminiscences in the exhibition show that it's clearly a time he remembers with great affection.

This afternoon Bernard had a role reversal when photographer Tracey O'Neill took his picture for the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo. He has a packed schedule of press calls and catching up with friends and family over the next few days, but has promised to return to to give a free public tour of the exhibition on Saturday 3 March at 1pm - see the National Conservation Centre What's On page for details. If that's busy he says he'll do another one afterwards as well. Do try to pop along if you can.

One of the perks of this job - other than the obvious joy of working in a museum - is flexi time.  We always get back the hours we work which is very convenient when you fancy an early dart to the pub on a Friday or a Monday morning in bed. Not everyone is so blessed though - apparently we (sorry, you) give your employers £23 billion in free hours every year. So the TUC is running its annual 'Work your proper hours day' this Friday to encourage the UK's workforce to leave on time, take a proper lunchbreak etc.

One of the suggested activities is to pop to a museum in your lunchtime, so the 24 Hour Museum has put together lunchtime trails for several cities, including Liverpool. The Walker Art Gallery, World Museum Liverpool and National Conservation Centre are all close to the main shopping and business districts, all have cafes and are all more fun than sitting at your desk praying for home time.

The awards season is upon us, so in honour of the Baftas and the Grammys and in anticipation of the Oscars and the Brits (anyone else think Russell Brand, alcohol and live TV spells a pre-watershed disaster worse than Sam Fox and Mick Fleetwood?) I couldn’t resist awarding gongs to my favourite pieces from our collections. 

First up Best Newcomer and it was a photo-finish between Reveal at the National Conservation Centre and the brand new Titanic, Lusitania and the Forgotten Empress gallery at the Merseyside Maritime Musuem. For me Reveal just edges it in this tightly contested category, where else can you see dirt-busting lasers and look under a mummy’s bandages? 

Best Actor in a leading role goes to David Garrick as Richard III by William Hogarth. David’s in such high demand that he’s currently away from the Walker Art Gallery starring in Tate Britain’s blockbuster Hogarth exhibition running until 29 April, definitely worth checking out if you’re in the big smoke.

Personally I think there could only be one winner of Best Animated Short, Crackers the crab. This vivacious yet vertically challenged inhabitant of the Shipwrecked exhibition, voiced by Ricky Tomlinson, beat off strong competition from Big Arts Little Artists to claw his way to the top of the pile.  

Forget Pirates of the Caribbean and Superman Returns, our Planetarium which scoops the award for special effects, is nothing short of spectacular. My personal favourite show is the Sunshine Show to which I’d also like to award Best Soundtrack.

Sitting resplendant at the Lady Lever Art Gallery, hair with more volume than a gaggle of teenage girls at a Justin Timberlake concert, Anne Duchess of Cumberland painted by Thomas Gainsborough takes the coveted Best Hair and Make up. The fact I’ve got hair as flat as a pancake and thus have extreme volume envy may have slightly influenced this result.

Finally Best Picture goes to the Walker Art Gallery’s Harmony in Green by Dan Hays, for the simple fact that it’s my favourite and I love it.

Harmony in Green by Dan Hays

How long would you spend getting ready for an evening event at the Walker Art Gallery? A few hours perhaps? How about thirteen years? That's how long it has taken to conserve the huge and intricately detailed Lutyens cathedral model pictured here. However, everybody who attended the preview of the exhibition The cathedral that never was yesterday evening agreed that it was time very well spent, as the model is truly breathtaking.

I managed to pin down four of the conservators who worked on the model, David Parsons, John Whitehead, Chris Moseley and Bernie Morgan, at the end of the evening for this photo. You can see the whole team of ten conservators involved in the project and behind the scenes pictures of them at work in the Lutyens cathedral model image gallery.

The exhibition looking at art and climate change finishes this Sunday, 28 January 2007.

I must confess, I was a little tired this morning after dancing, singing myself hoarse and generally getting over excited watching Kylie perform the last date of her Showgirl Homecoming tour in Manchester yesterday. Words couldn't describe how thrilled we were that the postponed concert was rescheduled, so I'm expressing my joy through this suitably antipodean picture of a black-footed rock wallaby, photographed in the wild by Clem Fisher during her Australian adventure last year.

Fans of Ms Minogue have another treat in store, when Kylie - The Exhibition opens in the V&A in London next month. Is it sad that I'm looking forward to seeing Charlene's overalls from Neighbours almost as much as her designer frocks?

Did you know that Kylie performed at the Liverpool Empire quite early on in her career? The occasion was captured by Echo photographer Stephen Shakeshaft, who showcased some of his best celebrity pictures in the exhibition Shooting Stars at the National Conservation Centre a few years ago. Read his entertaining reminiscences on the exhibition website.

We might not have any of Kylie's fabulous clothing here in Liverpool, but you can see designer clothing from the last forty years in the Inspiration display at the Walker.

The frond under UV light

A couple of month ago I told you about a monster of a 50 year old palm frond we had just acquired. Plans are to put the frond on display at World Museum Liverpool but first it needed some TLC in the form of treatment at the National Conservation Centre. This primarily involved removing the enhancing layer of acrylic paint to expose the original fossil (it's much paler).

This image shows the frond under UV light before work began. The purple areas are the acrylic overpainting and retouches. Images of the conservation work in progress and the finished article can be found on our Flickr page.

Update 23.01.07: apologies, that should have read 50 MILLION year old palm frond.

Here's one I caught earlier! Taxidermist James Jackson with a mounted specimen of a Tarpon

I was interested to see in the news this morning that taxidermy is considered very fashionable at the moment. The art of the taxidermist has of course been used to great effect by the artist Damien Hirst in the 1990s. More recently Kate Moss bought artist Polly Morgan's work 'To Every Seed His Own Body', which features a mounted specimen of a blue tit on a prayer book.

Like many things, taxidermy never out of fashion at National Museums Liverpool. You can read more about the work that our staff do to preserve and display our important collections in the taxidermy department page on the website.

Above is one of my favourite pictures from the department, showing taxidermist James Jackson with World Museum Liverpool's mounted specimen of a Tarpon. The photo was taken a couple of years ago when the Tarpon had just been conserved after it had returned from a long term loan to Poole Aquarium. The specimen is a particularly large and good example of this species, also known as the Silver King, which can grow up to 8 foot long and weigh 300lbs.  In the wild it is found in the warm coastal waters and estuaries of North and South America and on the other side of the Atlantic on the coast of West Africa. It is a popular sport fish and is much sought after by anglers because of its fighting capabilities and bony mouth, which makes it difficult to hook.

The display includes work by André Courrèges, Jean Muir, Bill Gibb, Yves St Laurent, Vivienne Westwood (Buffalo Girls and Anglomania), Tommy Hilfiger, Stella McCartney, Juicy Couture, Hardy Blechman.

Sam's already blogged about the arrival of the mannequins, a visit from Ian Silverberg and a hole in  the Vivienne Westwood dress; there's also a flickr set showing the mannequins in the textile conservation studio.

See this painting at the Stubbs exhibition at Tate Britain

They say that wherever you go in the world you'll meet a scouser. I'm not sure if paintings and other items from scouse collections count, but I certainly encountered a lot when I was down in London at the weekend. It was starting to feel like a home away from home.

I saw a familiar pair of cheeks at the Hockney exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, which features Peter getting out of Nick's pool from the Walker. If you go then have a look at the painting from the gallery opposite, as it's beautifully framed by the arched doorways - a really nice touch I thought. Next door the National Gallery are featuring another Walker painting, The Murder, in their Cézanne in Britain exhibition.

There are no less than 9 (count them!) works from the Walker and Lady Lever Art Gallery in George Stubbs: A celebration at Tate Britain, an exhibition that you may have seen at the Walker earlier this year. Another popular painting, the Walker's Henry VIII, is also there in the Holbein in England exhibition.

In the Imperial War Museum you can read the story of canine hero Jet and see a painting of him from our collections in the exhibition The Animals' War. The beautiful sculpture Danaid that visitors to Sudley House will remember is currently on show in the Royal Academy's Rodin exhibition. 

It's not just works of art that have made it down to London either. The exhibition The Great White Bear at the Horniman Museum includes photographs of every taxidermied polar bear in UK collections, which were taken by artists Bryndís Snaebjörnsdóttir and Mark Wilson as part of the project nanoq: flat out and bluesome. Our polar bear is featured, although its circumstances have changed since the artists photographed it in storage a couple of years ago. Since then it has been conserved at the National Conservation Centre and is now back out on display again at World Museum Liverpool.

The good news is that there's still lots to see in our galleries in Liverpool - well we are the capital of culture for 2008 after all! With such an embarrassment of riches up here it's only fair that we share them with the Londoners when we can.

Chris Moseley, the head of ship and historic models conservation, is shown relaxing after what must have been quite a nerve racking day. Chris and his colleagues have been conserving the model of Lutyen's unbuilt design for Liverpool's Catholic Cathedral for more than a decade. Today the finished pieces of the model were assembled for the first time, to make sure that everything fitted together. Luckily they did!

There isn't enough room to fully assemble the huge model in the sculpture conservation studio, so it had to be put it together in the nearby paintings conservation studio. The model is being photographed there this week, then it will be taken apart again and transported to the Walker Art Gallery, ready to go on display in the exhibition The cathedral that never was in January 2007.

Update 22 November 2006: you can now see a slideshow of photos of the model being assembled on flickr.

You can find out more about the exhibition in our advance news release or read how you might be able to help out with an exhibit.

Today is the 99th anniversary of the liner Mauretania's maiden voyage from Liverpool. On 16 November 1907 she sailed from Liverpool for New York, arriving safely on 22 November.

Above is a picture of the Mauretania (II) from the Stewart Bale archive. You can find out more in the Revelation database at National Conservation Centre's Reveal gallery or online.

On Merseyside Maritime Museum's collection pages you can also view the Mauretania in a painting by Burnett Poole. She is depicted in dazzle paint - a camouflage technique used by the Royal Navy during the First World War.

Of course the Mauretania’s sister ship was not so lucky. The Lusitania was torpedoed by a U-boat during the conflict with the loss of 1,198 lives including 291 women and 94 children. You can find out more about the Titanic and Lusitania in our collections highlights feature.

Update 5/12/06: An eagle-eyed blog reader spotted that this particular picture is actually of Mauretania (II) and not the Mauretania as originally stated. Sorry about that!

After all the excitement of an evening out with Yoko Ono and Loyd Grossman at the official launch of plans for the Museum of Liverpool, we didn't have the heart to put our Liver Bird back into storage again. So the sculpture has gone on display in the National Conservation Centre as part of the Museum of Liverpool 'on the road' project.

'On the road' is a scheme which displays some of the iconic objects from the Museum of Liverpool's fantastic collections in unexpected locations around Liverpool City Cente.

The Liver Bird is the third item to go on the road and more are planned, so keep an eye on the 'On the road' webpages for updates.

When textile conservator Anne-Marie Hughes was still at school she saw a documentary that made a big impression on her. The programme featured a suitcase of clothing that had survived the sinking of the Titanic. She was fascinated to see how specialist conservators cleaned and preserved these delicate objects full of history.

She probably never imagined at the time that one day she would get to work on actual objects from the Titanic herself. However, Anne-Marie is currently preparing a number of items for a new display due to open in the Maritime Museum next year, including the Titanic lifejacket shown here.

Ian Silverberg from Silverberg Opticians was faced with a tough customer today. This fussy client only wears the finest vintage designer clothing and was looking for a fine pair of glasses to match. They don't even have bad eyesight - they really only want some spectacles as a fashion accessory.

The customer in question is actually one of the mannequins in the textile conservation studio that are being prepared for a new display of designer clothing in the Craft and Design gallery at the Walker. The display is due to open in December, watch this space (with or without your glasses) for more details nearer the time.

Cape Farewell, due to finish at National Conservation Centre on 26 November 2006, will now continue until 28 January 2007.

Related Cape Farewell displays at the Walker Art Gallery will still close on 26 November 2006.

Mannequins under wraps in the textile conservation studio

The textile conservation studio currently resembles the dressing room of a Paris fashion show, with tall glamorous models haughtily waiting to have their hair and make-up done before donning fabulous designer clothes.

We haven't been invaded by Kate Moss and her mates though, these are actually mannequins that textile conservator Anne-Marie Hughes and curator of costume Pauline Rushton are preparing for an upcoming display at the Walker.

The new display in the Craft and Design gallery will feature designer clothing from our collections spanning the last four decades, including outfits by Andre Courreges, Jean Muir, Bill Gibb, Yves St Laurent, Vivienne Westwood and Stella McCartney. You can't put frocks like these on just any old clothes horse, so the mannequins have been specially made for the display, each with the right hair and make-up to suit the era that their clothing is from.

If they look this good now I can't wait to see them properly dressed. The new display will open at the Walker in December.

It doesn't seem that long ago that Crewe and Nantwich's Britannia sculpture was having a lie down and some TLC in the sculpture conservation studio. 

Following Britannia's departure a heavenly figure has taken her place, in the form of the sculpture from the war memorial at Blackley, near Manchester.

Sculpture conservators Simon Cottle and Lottie Barnden are pictured hard at work cleaning the angel's wings. The bronze panels from the base of the memorial are also being conserved in the studio.

Their work will be completed in early November and the memorial will be reassembled in time for Remembrance Day.

Lion head casts in the sculpture conservation studio

While sculpture conservation are best known for their work repairing large monuments, they also do a lot of smaller scale, more delicate work. On a recent visit I saw this batch of cast lion heads in the studio. The casts have been made as part of a scheme to restore some of Liverpool's historic drinking fountains, funded by United Utilities and the Liverpool Culture Company.

Children hold an original lion head spout from a fountain, with a new jaw made by conservation technologies

Conservation technologies have replicated the lion head spouts from the fountains, which was quite a challenge as only the only remaining original head had a broken jaw. A new jaw was modelled, based on old photos of the fountains, then the casts were taken from this.

The original head is shown on the right, held by children from local primary schools at the launch of the project in July. An education programme has involved Liverpool children in a range of projects about the fountains, with some even composing their own 'water music'.

The new casts should be appearing on fountains near you (if you live in the Liverpool area) soon. The Woolton Road Melly fountain is the first of four that are being considered for renovation.  The others are located at East Prescot Road, West Derby Road, and Chapel Street.

Terry Chapman of United Utilities said: "When these fountains were first introduced in the 1850s it was a tremendous breakthrough in public health - and these are beautiful civic monuments in their own right which deserve to be restored."

The project has been supported by the Libraries and Regeneration Departments of Liverpool City Council, National Museums Liverpool, The National Trust and Friends of Liverpool Monuments.

Big Draw is the national drawing campaign that runs throughout October annually. Our first event for is at World Museum Liverpool tomorrow, 7 October, an art workshop with artist Karl Eversley. Further events take place next weekend at World Museum Liverpool, the Walker Art Gallery, Lady Lever Art Gallery, National Conservation Centre and Merseyside Maritime Museum.

• Big Draw events at National Museums Liverpool
• Big Draw events nationally

Britannia on her way back to Crewe after a year in conservation

Yet more objects on the move (see previous posts), this time the statue of Britannia that Sam blogged a few weeks ago. When she saw it it was laid out and being conserved by a team from the National Conservation Centre. Yesterday it was hoisted onto the back of a flat bed truck (an operation that took two hours) and taken back to Crewe where it forms the centrepiece of the war memorial.

Even though I work in a museum I still love behind-the-scenes pictures and objects, so this one of Britannia gliding imperiously through Liverpool city centre, despite all the padding and ties, caught my eye.

Check out the Crewe and Nantwich website for more details on the statue.

Lion railway locomotive

A new feature on the Museum of Liverpool website is the Land transport collection top ten, with a variety of vehicles from across the ages. Most of this popular collection is currently either in storage or on loan to other museums. However, it is hoped that we will be able to put some on display in the new Museum of Liverpool when that opens in 2010.

In the meantime you can see the AER motorcycle in the Reveal display at the National Conservation Centre (look up when you go in) and the famous Lion railway locomotive at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester.

Cape Farewell: Art and Climate Change opens this Saturday, 16 September 2006, continuing as part of Liverpool Biennial until 26 November 2006.

The exhibition is spread across several venues. Of our venues, the Walker and the Conservation Centre are participating, displaying works by Heather Ackroyd & Dan Harvey, Alex Hartley, David Buckland, Gautier Deblonde, Gary Hume and Nick Edwards.

Other works are in the Anglican Cathedral, Albert Dock and the Liverpool School of Art and Design, Hope Street (map).

Something I love about popping into the sculpture conservation studio at the National Conservation Centre is you get to see all sorts of monuments and sculptures up close and from angles that wouldn't normally be possible. Earlier this year I got to look up Queen Victoria's skirt (probably not something I should admit to - I'll be sent to the Tower). Yesterday I got to see the Britannia sculpture from the war memorial at Crewe and Nantwich from above, which only the birds get to do usually. The sculpture is currently being cleaned by conservator Marisa Prandelli.

The public don't usually get to go behind the scenes like this. However, conservators will be holding special tours of their studios in a series of open days on 5 October, 8 November and 5 December 2006. Places are free but numbers are limited so please book in advance by ringing 0151 478 4999. For more details please see the What's On pages.

Up close you can see the horses decorating the Britannia sculpture's helmet

Anne-Marie Hughes working on the Vivienne Westwood dress

Today textile conservator Anne-Marie Hughes showed me two Vivienne Westwood outfits that she has been working on.

The first, a knitted woollen dress from the designer's Buffalo Girls Collection of 1982, has quite a few small holes that need repairing. Just finding wool to match the original colours was quite a challenge.

In better condition is a tartan suit, complete with bondage trousers, from Vivienne Westwood's Anglomania Collection of the early 1990s. The suit, which used to belong to Holly Johnson, has just needed surface cleaning to make it ready for display.

These items and more are currently being prepared for a new display in the Craft and Design gallery at the Walker that will open at the end of this year.

Holly Johnson's Vivienne Westwood suit

'Street Life: Liverpool in Fashion', featuring photography by Mark McNulty and Victoria Spofforth, ends at the National Conservation Centre this Sunday, 20 August, 2006.

Image copyright Mark McNulty

• Exhibition review at Art in Liverpool
• Exhibition review from Nerve Magazine
• Mark McNulty interview in Liverpool Echo
• Mark McNulty and Victoria Spofforth interviews in Liverpool Daily Post
• Mark McNulty website

See works of art up close in the conservation studios

Have you ever wondered exactly what goes on behind the scenes at the National Conservation Centre? Do questions along the lines of "just how the blazes do you clean a priceless fragile antique or work of art without damaging it?" keep you awake at night? If so then clear your diary next Wednesday and head over to the open day.

Throughout the day on 16 August eight different departments at the centre will be inviting visitors behind the scenes for guided tours.

Please note that for safety and security reasons places are strictly limited on each tour and must be booked in advance.

If you can't make it on a tour then you can see information about the work of our conservation departments on the website. There's also a recently updated gallery of case studies of projects by conservation technologies and sculpture conservation.

This afternoon I popped into the National Conservation Centre's felt making workshop.

The participants all assured me that they were complete beginners who had never made felt before, which was hard to believe when I saw their colourful creations.

One lady was enjoying felt-making so much she told me that she would have a go at making more at home with her granddaughter.

If these pictures have inspired you to get creative you'll be pleased to hear that the National Conservation Centre runs a variety of different free afternoon workshops, including calligraphy and mosaic making.

Have a look at the what's on listings for details of future workshops. No experience is necessary and materials are provided, but you might need to book in advance for some sessions.

Felt making can be a messy business when done properly!

For many people summer means just one thing - the opportunity to dance yourself silly to some top bands in a big field, hopefully in the sunshine but more often in the rain and mud.

Nostalgic ravers may be interested to see memorabilia from Liverpool's Creamfields 2000 festival on display in the Reveal permanent exhibition in the National Conservation Centre.

Were you at Creamfields 2000? Or have you been to any major music festivals since then? Your memorabilia from these events could be featured in our new online gallery about the 'objects of your affection'.

Find out more about the unusual objects in the Reveal gallery and the challenges that they poses for conservators in the Revelation database, which is now available online.

See this teddy in the Reveal display

Sad news this morning from the Wookey Hole Caves Teddy Bear Museum in Somerset. More than 100 teddies were damaged last night by a guard dog, including a rare Steiff bear that used to belong to Elvis Presley. Hopefully the teddies are made of stern stuff (and stuffing) and will be able to pull through with a few well placed stitches.

Caring for objects that have either been damaged in incidents like this one, or are just suffering from age and normal wear and tear, is all in a day's work for the staff at the National Conservation Centre here in Liverpool. Our conservators are often asked about the care of treasured objects like teddy bears, photos and other family heirlooms. If you would like advice you can ask them in the opinion service.

You can see another well worn Steiff teddy bear in the Reveal display, which explains how conservators use science to unlock the stories hidden in everyday objects.  If he reminds you of your own teddy bear or another favourite toy, then we'd like to hear about those special memories. Tell us about the object of your affection and we might include it on the website.

For more cuddly fun have a look at the website for the old Teddy Bear Story exhibition, held at World Museum Liverpool a few years ago.

The telescope being carefully removed from the gallery.

It's been a bit of a slow week news-wise in the web office, so I'm reduced to posting an interesting photo that was taken some weeks ago now. It's a rather large telescope being permanently removed from what was then the Conservation Centre (now the National Conservation Centre). The telescope is a replica of one used by William Lassell, a Liverpool astronomer. The original was the first telescope mounted equatorially to allow tracking of the stars over long periods. Lassell is famous for having discovered several planetary satellites including Triton, moon of Neptune (1846) and Ariel and Umbriel, satellites of Uranus (1851).

Actually, while the night skies are so clear it might be a good time to get out there and see what you can see. Our Nightwatch section will help you identify what you spot.

During Architecture Week, which finished yesterday, I took the opportunity to go behind the scenes and see an incredible architectural model that is currently being restored at the National Conservation Centre.

The partly-assembled model in the conservation studio.

The model, built in 1933-34, shows the original design for Liverpool's Catholic Cathedral by Sir Edwin Lutyens. If it had been built this cathedral would have been much larger than St Paul's in London and only slightly smaller than St Peter's in Rome.

The vast scale of the project is clear from the huge model, which dominates the conservation studio. No wonder the actual cathedral was never built - only the crypt was completed before the money ran out.

Inside the model - the tiny white specs on the floor are scale models of people

Conservators have been working on the model for a decade to have it ready for display in a special exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery next year. Fully-assembled it takes up too much space, so it will now be dismantled while the final preparations for the exhibition continue.