National Museums Liverpool Blog - Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Just seen a new activity pack we've put together and the illustrations alone are inspiring me to grab a pencil and get drawing, which is quite impressive when you consider I've two left hands.  Liverpool's Biggest Big Draw Activity Pack (you can download a copy) is full of good ideas to get your creative juices flowing, and the artist, Sally Pankhurst, has done a fab job. Some of the ideas, like 'draw your dreams as soon as you wake up' are pretty cool, while 'draw yourself thirty years from now' are definitely the stuff of nightmares.

The pack links in with Big Draw month (the last few activities are this weekend) but I guess is also Find Your Talent - I'd be really envious of anyone who discovered that their hidden talent was drawing. If the pack inspires you let me know and we might feature your masterpiece.

I'd seen the preview photos of the new 'unfolding' exhibition at Sudley House, but seeing the sculptures in reality was still quite a surprise! The sheer size of each piece was much bigger than I had imagined, which gave them real impact. Seeing them in situ at the house allowed you to see how they fit in with the building and its rooms. Each sculpture has subtle details that link them to each room - whether this is its furnishings or the original use of the room. At the same time, each piece has been designed to represent different aspects of the mind. 

Below is the 'Shell' sculpture that is in the morning room (also known as the study), which you can see has a floral pattern on the inside. This is inspired by the wallpaper that is in this room.

The red pointy creations seen below are laid out on the dining room table of the house.You can see that the darkest shades match the red upholstery on the chairs.

These sculptures represent the industrious self (left) and the social self (right).

It is as if the sculptures are almost chameleon-like, taking on a feature of the room but still standing out as they are so contemporary in comparison.

It makes you wonder what the Holt family might have thought if they came downstairs for breakfast and saw these sculptures on their dining room table!

Think this is the lamest title we've ever used for a blog post, but in true alliterative tradition I've gone with it anyway. Saw two unrelated but interesting bits today:

1. The Incoming Passenger Lists for 1878 - 1960 are now available on www.ancestry.co.uk. The records of around 16 million immigrants, business travellers, tourists and returning ex-pats and their descendants are available for you to peruse. This is good news for those of you researching your family tree as you can search by port of arrival, name of vessel, shipping line, port of embarkation and date of arrival. And as well as passenger names, you can discover historical information such as the date of birth, occupation and, from 1922 onwards, intended UK address of each passenger. 

2. The boston.com website has some fabulous photos of Sun activity including close-ups of magnetic structures, a sunspot, an erupting solar filament and a solar eclipse. Fascinating and beautiful and well worth a look.

Image courtesy Liverpool Daily Post and Echo

Looking at this masterly portrait, I have to admit a certain liking for Captain Hugh Crow.

He was very much a man of his time and did what he did efficiently and well despite condemnation in his own day and now. Of course he was wrong in his actions and, with all his charm, personified the end of an evil era.

Captain Crow stands wearing his top hat and clutching a cutlass, sporting a billowing white linen shirt and blue trousers with matching necktie – a man at ease in retirement. At his feet are other relics of his prime - a pistol and a megaphone used for enforcing orders on a sailing ship ploughing across the ocean.These are subtle clues to the former occupation of this distinguished-looking man in a finely-observed watercolour portrait painted by A R Burt in 1820. 

Captain Crow was the last of the slavers.

The picture is among exhibits at the International Slavery Museum in the Merseyside Maritime Museum building.

Crow (1765 – 1829) is best known as the captain of Kitty’s Amelia, the last British slave ship cleared for sailing from Liverpool in July 1807 just before the trade was outlawed. Crow was master on six other slaving voyages. On retiring from the sea he wrote his memoirs – an engaging, rare first-hand account. He remained a staunch supporter of the slave trade.

Crow claimed he treated both the crew and enslaved Africans on his ships comparatively well. However, like other ships’ masters, it was in his interests to keep the captives healthy so they would fetch a better price. The voyage of the Kitty’s Amelia was eventful – she caught fire and they also rescued the crew of another ship that had been wrecked.

Another exhibit is the original account book of the Liverpool slave ship Enterprize for a voyage in 1794-5. The accounts reveal that the ship’s carpenter Daniel Small was perhaps considered the most important person on the ship – he was paid £5 10s (£5.50) per month. He could save the wooden ship if she sprang a leak or was damaged. Surprisingly, the captain, William Young, was paid less - £5 a month. However, a captain was entitled to commission on slaves he sold plus one or two privilege slaves he could sell himself. This was probably worth up to an additional £200 per voyage.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

Art attack: brightening up Ropewalks Square

It was Saturday. I had just finished watching ace band, Long Finger Bandits (painted faces, blues guitar, trumpets) at the Atelier Bow Wow Rockscape, when I saw these pavement artists at work. Taking over the whole of Ropewalks Square (that bit between Bold St and FACT) they were using pastels to create colourful masterpieces, despite the rather rubbish weather.

It turns out that this was part of something called the Carling Pavement Art Competition, named after a 19th century pavement artist called James William Carling. He used to 'screeve' chalks and pastels onto the pavements of Liverpool to earn money.

There were quite a range of artworks, from contemporary to more classic styles. One artist was doing an interpretation of 'Portrait of Mrs Catherine Smith Gill and two of her children', byTissot, (pictured here) which we have here at the Walker Art Gallery.

I can hardly contain myself. I am in a state, somewhere between excitement, panic and terror. You see, AC/DC concert tickets go on sale tomorrow and I will be frantic until I have acquired my little piece of heaven. (Why on earth am I telling anyone this? I should be keeping it secret ... more tickets for me). I’ve been waiting 8 years for them to tour again and it is 20 years since I first saw them – I’ve been there, done that and bought the t-shirt (infact I’ve still got the 1988 t-shirt but it’s got moth holes in it). I even called my little boy Bon after the legend that is Bon Scott. So you could say I consider myself something of a fan.

But even I was surprised to see an image of AC/DC bass player Cliff Williams in The Beat Goes On exhibition at World Museum Liverpool. What could these hard rocking Aussie / Scots (with a Geordie twist) have to do with Liverpool?

Well, the story goes that Cliff (who was born in Romford) moved to Liverpool at the age of 9. His first band were based here and ironically named ‘Home’. (Even more bizarrely, his next group Bandit featured eighties crooner Jim Diamond and Bucks Fizz drummer Graham Broad – but that’s another story). I’m really intrigued as to which school Cliff went to and which area of Liverpool he lived in, so if anyone remembers him or better still has photos, I’d be very interested. Maybe he has even been to the museum … perhaps the new single Rock N Roll Train is about Lime Street  … my mind is positively buzzing with the possibilities!  

Anyway, if like me you cannot wait for Monday’s release of ‘Black Ice’ you can listen to it for free at AC/DC’s official site. But there’ll be none of that new-fangled downloading as AC/DC only release ‘real’ albums. Perhaps next time they tour Cliff could schedule a gig on his ‘home’ turf. (Of course, there may not be a next time. Angus is 53, despite the school uniform).

Cliff Williams – we salute you!

PS - We have recently added a fanatstic musical resource to our website. You can find out more suprising information about Liverpool's rich musical heritage at The Beat Goes Online.  

Despite being an Evertonian through and through, last week was quite a week for me in terms football encounters of the red variety.

Ben Johnson helps Rafa Benitez draw his square for the People's Panorama

First we had ex-captain and coach of Liverpool FC Phil Thompson attending the press launch of our new UEFA exhibition Only a Game? at World Museum Liverpool, and then I was lucky enough to meet some other famous LFC faces for a completely unrelated project.

This month’s national Big Draw campaign is aimed at getting people across the country to uncover their artistic abilities through a variety of creative projects, and in its 2008 Capital of Culture year Liverpool is having its Biggest EVER Draw.

Teaming up with a number of cultural centres around the city, NML has put on a programme of events which included a return visit to the Walker Art Gallery from Liverpool Cityscape artist Ben Johnson at the weekend.

Ben has worked with NML to encourage people to take part in an exciting project to recreate his Liverpool Cityscape as The People’s Panorama; dividing it into 400 squares and inviting Liverpool’s people - including Liverpool Manager Rafa Benitez! - to each draw a square…

So, in the name of art I swallowed my blue-pride and accompanied Ben Johnson on a trip to Liverpool FC’s Melwood training ground last week to get Mr Benitez to draw his square. Stepping into his office I couldn’t have gone any further into the heart of the ‘enemy’ if I’d tried, and the disloyalty to my team felt almost too much to bear. This feeling quickly vanished however on ‘bumping into’ Sammy Lee and the legend that is Kenny Dalglish as they left Rafa’s office. So, feeling quite overwhelmed, I resolved to enjoy the encounter…and help complete the mission to get Rafa to draw his little piece of Liverpool!

Rafa's drawing of North Western Hall on Lime Street

Rafa’s artwork can now be seen in the Liverpool Cityscape gallery at the Walker, alongside that of the Lord Mayor’s and 398 other people of Liverpool!

Just seen a Black history interactive on the Guardian site that's worth a look. It's a timeline that runs from AD43 and the arrival at Hadrian's Wall of an African auxiliary unit from the Roman Army, to Barack Obama securing the Democrat's nomination. There are also links to Guardian articles of relevance and a guide to key Black figures - not unlike our own Black Achievers Wall at the International Slavery Museum. Have a look. It's been produced to coincide with October being Black History Month - we've a full schedule of events to link in as well.

It now seems but a dream, but I'm told that the other day it was sunny. These latest snaps of the Museum of Liverpool construction seem to bear that out. Check out the Flickr set - you can almost feel the heat! 

We're still looking for Flickr snaps from the public - there are some beautiful efforts in this group.

The build is progressing well. The cladding is still going on, the window frames are going in and internal walls are going up.

If you have you ever wondered what the North West was like millions of years ago then get yourself down to 'From coal to carnations', the new exhibition at the Grosvenor Museum in Chester, which runs until 30 November 2008.

The exhibition tells the story of plant evolution starting more than 500 million years ago, when the local area was positioned on the equator on a dense forest-covered plain. The displays include fossilised evidence of the ancient plants that thrived in this environment, including material from a recently discovered fossil forest near Wrexham.

A number of items from National Museums Liverpool's Science collection are on loan to the exhibition, including seven Brendel plant models from the Botany department which are shown in this photo. The Geology department have also loaned nine fossil plant specimens, the oldest of which is around 370 million years old, and a replica of an ancient Argentine arthropod called Megarachne, that lived in forests during the Carboniferous age.