National Museums Liverpool Blog - Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Ricky Tomlinson meets Crackers

You might remember that a few weeks ago Ricky Tomlinson recorded the voice of Crackers the Crab - your guide to the Shipwrecked exhibition which opens next weekend. Ricky popped in to see progress on the gallery and to meet his alter ego in person. He said he felt like Sponge Bob standing next to Crackers and was looking forward to bringing his grandson for a visit.

There's a preview of the gallery and a sample of Ricky's vocal work here.

Meadow is an installation at World Museum Liverpool highlighting litter and recycling issues. Children have been working with artists to create flowers out of plastic materials that would usually be sent for landfill.

The partnership project is led by the National Wildflower Centre in Knowsley and is free to view at World Museum Liverpool until Thursday 24 August.

The meadow is still growing and there are events at the Prince's Park Carnival (5 August 2006) and Knowsley Flower Show (6 August 2006) allowing children to create new flowers for the meadow.

More information (including a teachers resource pack) is available from the National Wildflower Centre on 0151 738 1913.

Pete Carr's photo of the Pier Head from the Mersey Ferry

The latest in our series of online-only virtual exhibitions looks at the growing phenomenon of the online photo management and sharing service Flickr.

For Stewart Bale 2.0 - documenting Liverpool, we contacted Liverpool-based photographers who had come to our attention on Flickr and asked them to recreate classic photos from our archive of photos from Liverpool photographic company Stewart Bale Ltd.

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.

Atlantic grey seal

The weather wasn't great - overcast for a lot of the day - but I still managed to burn my face - not a good look.

Apparently on a busy day there can be up to 2000 visitors
to the island which is only about 500m long. Luckily, thanks to the early tide, there were only a few people on the island so there were plenty of quiet corners to watch the seals.

Another nosey seal

When the tide goes out the seals can be seen basking on the sand banks. We were there for the high tide so only saw their faces.

An audio recording of the talk is available to download online now (mp3/transcript/links).

The first talks available are:

• Dr Paul O'Keeffe on a Chippendale commode (mp3 file)
• Dr Paul O'Keeffe on 'Horse Frightened by a Lion', George Stubbs (mp3 file/transcript/links)
• Dr Paul O'Keeffe recreating John Ruskin's controversial 1851 lecture 'Pre-Raphaelitism' (mp3 file/links)
• Xanthe Brooke on 'Danaid', Auguste Rodin (mp3 file/transcript/links)

Ricky Tomlinson with staff Ellie Moffat and Paul Browne

Ricky Tomlinson popped into a Radio Merseyside studiotoday to record a voice-over for us. Ricky's alter ego is Crackers the Crab, who will be your guide in the forthcoming Shipwrecked exhibition which opens at the Maritime on 15 July. He will also be featured in a fab new section on the NML website so watch this space for details.

Our Learning department are looking for volunteers to help at Big Art for Little Artists during this summer's school holidays. There will be an open morning on 7 July, 10am at the Walker Art Gallery for those interested, please contact first to confirm your attendance. [Edit:21/06/2006 - there are no more places on this open day]

We run a large volunteering scheme at National Museums Liverpool, including work experience for schoolchildren and work placements for students.

Nope, just our director, David Fleming, lining up alongside Beatles tribute band, The Beat Beatles, and Mike McCartney - brother of Paul. The photo was taken at a recent event to mark the closure of the Museum of Liverpool Life. Special guests, staff, supporters and Beatles lookie-likies gathered to remember the successes of the old museum and to toast the forthcoming Museum of Liverpool.

The Beat Beatles, Mike McCartney and David Fleming at the Museum of Liverpool Life closure event.

Unfortunately Augustus John's painting of Lord Leverhulme, which hangs in the Lady Lever Art Gallery, didn't make it to the virtual wall of The People's Museum. It was beaten by the Kitchener Camp Review - a journal of the daily happenings in a Jewish refugee camp in Sandwich.

Remember the Lowry painting of the Liverpool skyline I mentioned a few weeks ago? (if not you can see the post here). Well it goes under the hammer today at Christie's and is expected to make half a million pounds. It is unusual as Lowry's go as it not only doesn't feature either Manchester or Salford but it also moves away from a purely urban scene, instead focusing on the river and its traffic.

Update: the painting was bought by an anonymous bidder who paid £1,072,000 for it, making it the second most expensive Lowry ever sold.