National Museums Liverpool Blog - Friday, July 14, 2006

Museum staff can find themselves doing all sorts of funny things in the name of making a living. Take for example the people who have been furiously working away this week to get the Shipwrecked exhibition ready in time for the opening tomorrow. When I popped in yesterday, somebody was hoovering what looked like a sandy beach. I suppose even desert islands need to be kept neat and tidy.

The people with the most unusual job however were probably the shipkeeping department. Normally they earn their living by conserving and caring for the ships and historic vessels in the collections. However, they were asked to make a wreck as a centrepiece for this exhibition.

The wreck has been beautifully constructed from scratch - to paraphrase the movies, no historic vessels or animals were harmed in the making of this production. A very fine wreck it is too, as visitors to the Merseyside Maritime can see when the exhibition opens, from 15 July 2006 to 20 May 2007. 

An Atlantic Grey Seal

Remember a couple of weeks ago I told you about my trip to Hilbre Island to see the seals there? Well, if you don't fancy the 2-mile walk across the sand and a leisurely cruise is more your thing, then you might be interested in the wildlife cruises we are running in conjunction with the RSPB and Mersey Ferries.

Enjoy 3 hours in the company of our knowledgeable staff who will be pointing out all the wild inhabitants of the Mersey estuary (there are more than you think). There will be telescopes and binoculars available to borrow on the day so don't worry if you don't have your own.

More details, including how to get your ticket, are on our main website.

This morning there was a presentation for the three winners of the Stubbs exhibition label writing competition at the Walker. The youngest winner, Frances age 6, is pictured proudly holding up her copy of the label she wrote. Could she be a future curator at the Walker Art Gallery?

You can now read all the winning labels in the exhibition or on the Stubbs exhibition website. The website also includes some of the highly commended runners up.

County Session House Image © English Heritage

Yep, we're on TV again. Just as well you can't get enough of us. This time we're on Channel Five's 'Buildings That Shaped Britain' at 8pm tonight. In the spotlight will be the County Sessions House which, in case you don't know, was once a court and now houses staff from the Walker Art Gallery. It's been used as the set for a number of court room scenes on film and TV.

Apologies to our overseas readers who miss these televisual treats.

The Bug House at World Museum Liverpool's latest outreach project gives schools the opportunity to run a series of experiments with stick insects. All of these experiments fit into the key stage 3 curriculums for Science, Maths and English.

Schools are given all the equipment to care for their stick insects and run the experiments.

The species of stick insect used is Carausius morosus - the Indian or laboratory stick insect. It is an easy to keep, hardy species that will feed on a wide variety of food plants. The lifecycle is completed fairly quickly enabling the schools to witness every stage in the insect’s development.

A Bug House demonstrator visits the schools and helps set up the stick insects vivarium and run through all the experiments. The schools are also given a detailed pack explaining how to care for the stick insects as well step by step instructions on how to run the experiments. This includes student and teacher handouts and answer sheets.

Interested schools should contact Jenny Dobson, Bug House demonstrator.

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.