Visit to Gallery Oldham 09/02/12

Chameleons & Shape Shifters II
Michael Shaw

On arrival at the middle glass-walled gallery curator Shaun Baggaley introduced us to the artist who had created these sculptures, Michael Shaw, who stayed with us during the duration of our visit which was a great treat.
The first item we looked at was the huge inflatable which took up the whole of the space of the gallery and was suspended from the lighting gantries so it moved freely when touched. The sculpture looks like a pair of lips or maybe a doughnut in bright orange and a long snake-like dark blue tube entwined itself around the outside and finally through a central aperture like a snake's head. The air was pumped in by a fan and because the sculpture was created from material used in parachutes and stitched together the air escaped slowly, creating what could almost have been a living, breathing thing.
Michael Shaw had created the sculpture with the aid of computer 3D software and this he also used for the other shapes displayed in the gallery. One of the materials was a plastic acrylic; one surface fragmented and the other smooth, and these had been vacuum pressed onto the mould and then sealed onto a stainless steel base to enable it to be fixed to any surface for display.
There were a number of shapes which had been lighted creating a sense of movement as the fragmented surfaces reflected the lights of the spectrum. Another set of three different shapes were smooth and merely reflected the light as it changed during the day when both dull and sunny.
Ann Hornsby gave us an inspirational description of all of the sculptures we looked at and must have spent a great deal of time researching the exhibition in order to portray the images created by the artist.
We had an opportunity to look at each item closely before we adjourned to the education suite where Dinah Winch and another member of staff were waiting to give us hot drinks and biscuits. It had been a tad chilly in the gallery due to the glass walls and we all clasped our drinks to our bosoms in order to thaw out!
Michael Shaw joined us again in the education suite and gave us the opportunity to handle some of the prototypes of his work in progress and it was fascinating to learn how these forms could be created with the use of computer software.
As well as a water-based and a powder-based sculpture we were able to handle some fragmented acrylic shapes and a number of the ladies in the group said they would love to have one of these as a lampshade cover on their wall. It was fascinating to realise how today's artists were able to avail themselves of new technology and materials to create beautiful, tactile and pleasing shapes.

Many thanks to Michael, Shaun, and Dinah for helping us to enjoy the handling session and to Ann for bringing the items to life with her descriptions. Mary as usual had done her sterling job of gathering together her willing volunteers to take us to and from the gallery. Many thanks to everybody involved for giving us a remarkable day out.

Visit to Platt Hall Gallery - 19/01/12

Intervention: 62 group review of fabric and textiles.

The learning and education curator Kate Day had helped put together the items we were to look at during our visit to the gallery but was unfortunately unable to join us because she was attending a conference in India.
However, we were shown various displays and given an audio description of each one by Naomi, and then Rosie gave us the artists explanation and interpretation of what had inspired the artist during their research of items held in the gallery.
One of the displays was of what appeared to be thigh length boots or stockings in a cobwebby material displayed by being hung from the ceiling. These were free moving and their shadow also create a part of the display. Another item was a parasol, again suspended and free moving with various texts added to it and indicating a modern take on young people and their activities in the 21st century. We were able to handle some items of the most intricate stitching which created what appeared to be a checkers board and draughts. It must have taken hours to create such perfection.
After looking at a couple of other displays we had the opportunity of handling some items of the early 20th century in the education suite. There were corsets with the most decorative lace creations and of the very tiniest waist size which must have been torture to wear. Also, two pairs of ladies boots which were tiny in size, probably a today's size 3, and very narrow.
Adam who was helping us with this handling session showed us a card with shoe buttons, sets of up to as many as 40 being used on a pair of ladies boots. We also had a look at some hats; one looked like what could have been a school hat but was defined by some feathers and a ribbon. Also, a most delicate lace child's bonnet which could have been a part of a party outfit. A fun hat probably used for dressing up had a face and ears and a hole at the back for a ponytail.
We were able to hold a dainty parasol which was intricately embroidered, and a piece of fabric with different textiles stitched onto it in various patterns which displayed the various arts of stitching and embroidery.
The gallery furnished us with hot drinks and biscuits at the end of our visit which were most enjoyable and we thanks Mary and her volunteer drivers for taking us to this exhibition and guiding us during our tour.

Christmas 2011

To any one who happens to tune in to this zoomers site!
I wish you well this Christmas time.
And wish you new year greeting for 2012.
Bye for now with Christian greeting. Bu-cket.

Visit to Manchester Gallery - 01/12/11

Ford Maddox Brown
Pre-Raphaelite Pioneer

This artist is renowned in Manchester for the murials he painted in Manchester Town Hall and only just managed to complete this particular work before he died. There is also a huge murial painted by him which was exhibited extensively but which is now owned by New South Wales and is one of their permanent exhibitions.
Although he and his parents were English, he did grow up in France and started his career as a painter in Paris and other European cities before returning to England and coming to Manchester because he had found it difficult to exhibit and sell work on the Continent.
The curator of this particular collection of paintings, ............... , took over 2 years to gather together many wonderful paintings, obtaining them from private collections and also many art galleries throughout the world.
Meg Parnell gave her usual unstinting support to Mary Gifford and Henshaws to enable our group to enjoy a smooth and very pleasant visit to the gallery. We looked at 6 different paintings, all of which showed the greatest detail that an artist can portray on a canvas. One of the paintings was of his wife and baby standing outside in a landscape with sheep and lambs. He was one of the very first painters to depict people in natural environments and landscapes.
Ann Hornsby enhanced our visit with her vivid and detailed audio descriptions of all of the paintings we looked at and enabled us to visualise what the artist had portrayed. The curator also had some postcard replicas of some of the paintings we looked at which was a great assistance to those of us with some vision to see in greater detail the painting itself.
At the end of the tour we adjourned to the gallery cafe and enjoyed being waited upon by the gallery staff, giving us a choice of tea or coffee, and Mary had provided mince pies all round as a parting gift from her group budget to celebrate our Christmas break.

Many thanks to Mary and her volunteer drivers for once again ensuring that we were safely taken to and from the venue which we might not otherwise have been able to visit.

Our thanks to Elaine

Well once again we owe Elaine a big thanks for her report on the latest visit to the Lowry a little while ago.
If this piece of nonsence gets through the system it will a laugh as I could not get through on the comments section!
So here goes bye Don.

Visit to Lowry Galler - 10/11/11

Adolphe Valetee: A Pioneer of Impressionism in Manchester

The gallery had put on a very extensive display of Valette's paintings and drawings together with those of his student L.S. Lowry. Valette worked in France as both a teacher and a commercial artist for a number of years before moving to Manchester where he met Lowry. He considered Lowry to be a talented artist and begged Lowry's father to allow him to become a professional. However, this request was denied.
Valette married one of his students, Gabriella, who unfortunately died at a fairly early age. In the exhibition there is a beautiful portrait of his son who also sadly died at the early age of 14.
Brian Dunk, the curator of the exhibition, has displayed the same subject painted by both the master and student side by side and it is intriguing to see the development of talents as time went by. There are examples of Valette's undefined impressions of landscape and industrial scenes and we see that Lowry's impressions interpreted figures of people as stick people. The portraits and drawings show industrial, rural scenes together with self portraits, family portraits, still life, nude figures, and every interpretation that an artist could imagine.
The film archives in Manchester supplied us with a 3 minute film showing a busy Manchester junction. There were horse-drawn carriages, automobiles, and trams. Also many very busy pedestrians scurrying about their business in the 1930s. Also very interesting it showed very large burly policemen blowing their whistles, directing traffic, and shooing traffic away from the tram lines.
Valette married for the second time and his wife was a teacher at London University and he eventually returned to France where he enjoyed a comfortable and accommodating relationship with his housekeeper for a number of years.
We had the opportunity to spend an extra half an hour looking back over the portraits that we most enjoyed and then went to the restaurant bar for drinks and biscuits, the cost of which has caused quite a large dent in Mary's group budget.
Ann Hornsby gave us some wonderful descriptions of the artwork as we enjoyed the visit and we would like to thank her for her dedication.
Mary as usual gathered together her volunteer drivers who took us too and from the gallery and we would like to thank them all for their help in guiding us around the exhibition.
A most enjoyable visit

Visit to Gallery Oldham 6th October 2011

Urban Traces - Ceramics and the City

Senior curator Dinah Winch introduced us to the various exhibits and gave us detailed information about the artists who had created them. One of the artists had trained as an architect and created items found in the construction of buildings and urban towns. Rachel Grimshaw, as an architect, created sculptures utilising a combination of materials in order to construct shapes and art forms which did in fact relate to an industrial setting.
Ann Hornsby had her work cut out describing the various sculptures for us because so far as i could see, with my limited vision, they just appeared to be blocks and columns.. Another of the items on display was a fortress by Stephen Dixon, this consisted of a number of houses in segments joined together to form a circular compound which was indicative of a place of safety during a time of war. The outside of the fortress does bear pictures of arms and wounded soldiers and seems to have been created at the time of the Kosovo War. We had in fact seen this exhibit before during a previous exhibition relating to war caused by the endeavors of nations to secure oil supplies.
After a very interesting tour of the various sculptures we adjourned to the Education Suite. After being fortified by drinks and biscuits we were given the opportunity to play with a lump of clay. We had a rolling pin, a template which was a guide to the shape we were trying to achieve, and various tools with which to cut the shape we needed. I ended up with a slightly dodgy, almost round receptacle which could by described as a slightly wobbly pen holder, a distinctive toothbrush holder inscribed with my brand new great granddaughters name 'Bella', or alternatively could be used as a leaky vase.
It was all great fun and I know have a pot sitting on the top of my wardrobe which will hopefully become hard as it air-dries.
Our sincere thanks to Glynis Walsh for all of her hard work in assisting Dinah and setting up and guiding us in our pottery endeavours. Ann Hornsby must be applauded for her innovative descriptions of what could otherwise have been very difficult to interpret. Many many thanks to Mary and her wonderful volunteer drivers who collected us and safely returned us between our homes and the gallery, and to Gallery Oldham for the extra mile they go in order to accommodate our group of visually impaired visitors.

Frustration

Just spent ages replying to Elaines latest report! only to be denied entryinto the system.
Thanks for your report Elaine

Visit to the peoples history museum 08/09/2011

Exhibition of banners by Ed Hall
The artist who created these banners started work as a qualified architect, but by chance fell into making banners after creating one for a college and was then recommended on by word of mouth. He taught himself how to use a sewing machine and used appliqued materials for letters as well as painting. He made a workshop in his garage and worked closely with the people requesting the banner to include the important points they wished to make for a procession or a protest march and also a Trade Union. He has become the main maker of banners in the UK and was approached by the well known artist George Durrel to make a special banner for one of his art exhibitions. The two men have become great friends and work closely together. Kate Chatfield the curator of this particular exhibition gave us a very detailed tour and information about Ed Hall. Because of the height of the building, which was originally a pump house, the acoustics made it difficult at the beginning when we were gathered in the entrance lobby for a number of our group to hear what was being said. When we moved further into the building we didn't have this problem. We finished our visit in the restaurant where a charming young man served us tea, coffee and biscuits.
Our thanks to Ann Horton who gave her usual vivid descriptions of everything we saw and also to Mary and her willing volunteers who collect us from and deliver us to our homes so that we are able to enjoy these visits to the museum. The number in our group exceeded the 20 people that the museum accept on one tour and so we would like to thank them for making us an exeption. Also we appreciate the extra lighting turned on for us to enable us to enjoy the beautiful banners.
Posted by Elaine

Here we go again

Well this is my third attempt at typing this piece. To be quite honest I have lost the train of my thoughts since my last attempts. any way I know that I could not match our Elaine and her grapic accounts of the various visits the groups go on, I am slowly (very) coming to terms with this new computer! one reason being that everything on the computer dissapeared. so it is a case of back to the drawing board,
So folks keep smiling God bless .
Bucket

Things lost

We have had to have a new computer ! but we have lost all the imfo on it. Such as email addresses. plus quite a lot of other imfo, well it brings home to me how I have forgotten how to do a number of progammes. So it is back to the drawing board( with a rubber).
So by for now take care. Bucket

Gallery Oldham 9th June 2011

The Language of Flowers
We were introduced to the new Natural History Curator Patricia Francis who presented the exhibition to us. Thw audio description was given byChris Berry and Jennifer Vickers helped us as well during the talk.
There was a wax sculpture of a red poppy in a glass case together with a pressed flower and a book opened at an illustration of apoppy.
Another exhibit was of Honeysuckle and a platter in percelain decorated with the flower , again together with a pressed flower and ab ilustration.
Chris described a model of daisies which had bees pinned to thepetals and looked quite real from a distance.
When we adjourned to the education suite where we enjoyed drinks and biscuits. Patricia passed around an orange poppy for us to handle and also a poppy seed.
There was also an illustrated book but unfortunately I was unable to see it well enough to appreciate it.
Our thabnks to Patricia, Chris and Jennifer for organising a visit and to Mary and her volunteers for collecting us from home and making our viit possible
posted by Elaine

Visit to RNIB Library - 19th May 2011

History of Braille

This was our second visit to the RNIB library in Stockport and alchamist Philip James had prepared a full range of artifacts for us to handle which took us through the history of fingertip reading. In 1826 Braille had produced the system of dots which we now read, but this was strenuously denied by other leading powers that be in control of the access to learning aids for the blind. However, by 1840 many of the blind who had continued to use the Braille system won through, and it was accepted as the international system to be used thanks to the endevours of Dr. Armitage.
We had a go at using a writing frame and learned that if you write Braille manually you have to do it backwards which was quite a surprise. We then moved on to the Braille typewriter and learned that people could type more quickly in Braille than a sighted person using a querty typewriter. Phillip handed out some Braille cards showing the alphabet in Braille and explained that the system of dots used for A to J was then used for the next group of letters of the alphabet by adding another dot in front and then the next group of letters had another dot added at the end.
The last 4 symbols are shorthand for 'and', 'for', 'of', and 'the'.
Some older people have less sensitive fingertips and what is called 'The moon system', which is a series of curves, is found to be easier for them to identify although it is not used anything like as much as Braille. Philip discussed with us the huge freedom and quality of like which now the blind were enabled to enjoy because of this wonderful system, but of course we have now moved into the 21st Century and electronics are taking over. Now a blind person can learn to touch type on a comupter and have a system of talking back to enable them to both write and read documents.
We were helped to experience the artifacts made available to us by Philip's volunteers; Astrid, Mike, and Jeff, who we would like to thank. The library kept us sustained during our visit with hot drinks and biscuits which were much appreciated and our thanks to Mary and her volunteer drivers for ferrying us to and from our homes and Stockport. Many thanks to everybody involved.

Anish Kapoor - Flashback Exhibition at Manchester Gallery 14/04/11

The curator of this exhibition, Natasha Howes, told us a little of the background of this artist; he was born in India and then came to live in the UK in 1973. His sculptures are constructed from widely differing elements. There was one made from stainless steel, a huge sphere with what appeared to be an infinite aperture descending into it's centre. Another was called 'When I am pregnant', and was a fibre glass shape appearing to grow out of the wall and resembled a pregnant stomach. I was unable to see this because the sculpture was more or less the same colour as the wall and there were no contrasts to enable me to define it.
There was a huge rectangle of stone, again with a rectangular aperture towards the top of it, and then there were a series of small sculptures in primary colours red, yellow, blue, and black, each covered in colour pigment. Each item within this sculpture being of varied height and construction. Natasha told us that the technicians and artists working with Anish took up to 2 weeks to install each sculpture having to carefully cover each one with the pigment. Apparently this has to be done whenever the sculptures are moved to a different exhibition venue. There were also sculptures made in wax and another appeared to be growing out of a wall at shoulder height.
Some of the items bore a definite resemblance to a body part and no explanation is given by the artist about such items. He obviously intends the viewer to place his own interpretation on his work. Ann gave us her usual exciting audio description of the sculptures we were lucky enough to see, and I think it must have taxed her imagination considerably in order to be able to come up with the vivid descriptions of the shapes and colours that we saw.
Meg Parnell and Kate, who job share at the gallery, worked hard to make sure that our visit went smoothly and that as a disabled group we were well accommodated.
At the end we went to the education suite and had our usual cup of tea, coffee, of juice and a delightful biscuit, and in all a most delightful morning was spent at this gallery visit.

Our thanks to Mary and her volunteer drivers for making this visit possible and we look forward to our next trip!

Visit to Platt House - Thursday 17th March 2011

20th Century Costumes

Our tour of the exhibition started with a description of Platt House, which was originally owned by a Cromwellian soldier named Platt. Over a period of time after having been used as a family home it was occupied as a college and then finally bought by Manchester City Council.
We started a tour of the gallery looking at fashions in the 1920s and 30s; one particular flappers style dress was described to us by Kate Day and Rosie Gnatiuk and had been designed by William Hartnell. He was also responsible for designing our present Queen's wedding dress in 1946. We then moved on to have a look at the 50s and 60s costumes and in particular a two-piece suit which had been designed by Christian Dior and it showed the great changes that had taken place during the 60s, in particular the mini skirt and more brightly coloured clothes.
We had a look at a display of hats made and worn during the 20th century, and also various boots and shoes covering this period. After looking at the items on display in the gallery we returned to the education suite and had a very interesting period of handling certain items with the help of Andrew Hunt and Adam Quinn. There was a top hat from the 1920s and then bowler hat which was worn widely in the 1950s and 60s.
We saw a little felt hat trimmed in ribbon which was reminiscent of a school uniform hat worn in the 1950s. There were a pair of 8 inch platform black leather shoes by Vivienne Westwood which were quite amazing and also a very mini mini skirt. After our handling sesison we were treated to tea and biscuits which we all thouroughly enjoyed.

Our thanks to the museum members who looked after us so well on our visit, and we understand that our group was the first of its kind to visit them and they were all very anxious for our feedback so that they could ensure that future visits would be as successful as ours.
Many thanks to Mary and her team of volunteer drivers who so kindly pick us up from home and deliver to our destinations and thus giving us a unique opertunity to visit a museum.

Visit to Gallery Oldham - 10/02/2011

Collections

There was a very wide variety of different types of items collected by Francis Buckley and given to the Oldham Gallery. We were introduced to these items by Shaun Bagguley who described the various interests of this wealthy man. Buckley had a great interest in social history and collected glass items and meticulously investigated the origins and uses of the many items shown.
He was also a JP and was a lay preacher at his local Saddleworth church. He was from a very wealthy family trained as a barrister in London but after the first world war returned to his native Saddleworth and set about his interest in collecting ancient items.
He served in the First World War in the trenches in France and one of his fellow officers introduced him to the art of looking for and finding flint arrow heads and tools which were exposed as a result of the earthworks in making trenches. As well as relics and glass he also collected buckles, Chinese porcelain, watches, 14,000 year old Chinese tomb relics, and there was even a collection of love tokens which we believe were made by a local jeweler.
He was married during the First World War and had two children; one of them died in 1948, a year before his own death, which was a great tragedy to him. Apart from his collections he docketed the area where items has been found and wrote many articles and published some books detailing the social history of many of his collected items. He also wrote a column for the Oldham Chronicle, never owned a motor car and travelled around his local villages in a pony and trap. Sadly his remaining son emigrated to New Zealand and so the family no longer resides in their manor house.
Whilst we had a cup of tea and biscuits in the Education Suite, Shaun handed round some items for us to handle; there were various flint, arrow heads, and axes. A stone glazed green bottle 14,000 years old from a Chinese tomb, the statue of what appeared to be a Chinese traveller with a load on his back, also 14,000 years old, and a vessel with the handle depicting a snake but there is some doubt as to it's authenticity as a number of fakes started to find their way onto the market when there was big financial gain for artifacts.

Our visit was organised by Jennifer and we were helped on our way around the exhibition by Maggie who is a post-graduate helping out at the gallery. Anne Hornsby gave us some vivid descriptions of the items we looked at and we would like to thank everybody for enabling this visit to take place.
Mary did her usual gargantuan organising effort gathering her volunteer drivers together to enable us to enjoy a very interesting morning. A grateful thanks to everybody involved.

Visit to Imperial War Museum 13/01/2011

Life at Sea During World War

We had the opportunity to look at the damaged section of a war ship which had obviously been hit by a shell or torpedo and it was amazing to feel the thickness of the steel and jagged edges left behind by what must have been a terrible explosion. The Battle of Jutland was depicted in a very large portrait, and this showed injured seamen lying on the floor with medics attending to them. Some of the injuries appeared to be very severe and was an indication of the terrible dangers our seamen experienced every day whilst we were at war.
There was a mine which had been cut in half so that we could see how it was made up and how it operated. There were horns on the outside and if these came into contact with a vessel the glass file within the horn would break and release acid into the mine, and it would then be detonated. There were many photographs of young men and women seamen together with the medals they had won and at times very sad letter which had been written home by these young people who sadly did not themselves survive the war.
One of our group Ken Seaman is himself an ex Royal Navy man and he was able to explain how the Dicky was worn by the sailors as a part of their traditional uniform and he told us that they were originally designed to protect the rest of the seamen's uniform in the olden days when they had pigtails covered in tar which fell down the back of their shoulders. The curator who was explaining this particular part of the uniform to us had not been aware of this information and she assured us that it would enhance her future talks when showing people around the exhibition.
There was a huge shell on display and also a very large gun which would have been mounted on one of our battleships. The exhibition is very extensive and it would have taken us far longer than the time we had to fully explore it.
After the tour we went to the dining room and were served biscuits and hot drinks and had the opportunity to thank Charlotte, Caroline, and Helen for their vivid descriptions of the sections that they each individually took us through. Thanks to Mary and all of her volunteers we were able to make this visit to the museum and enjoy a lovely morning out.

Visit to Lowry gallery-Thursday 2nd December 2010

Welcome to the ballet


When Margaret and I arrived at the gallery with our driver Alan, we were greeted by the gallery manager Ed Daniels who escorted us to the seating area in the bar to wait for the rest of our group to arrive.
We started our tour with Brian Dunk, a gallery assistant, telling us the story of the beginnings of the Royal Ballet which received it's charter in 1956. Ninette DeValoire started the formation of a ballet in 1920; she had joined a ballet school at the age of 12 in County Wicklow and went on to devote her life to the formation of our national ballet. There were many photographs showing the history of the development, and there were many photographs of the ballet touring in Europe. They had to make a hasty retreat from Europe in 1940 at the onset of the Second World War.
In 1950, Lowry submitted some portraits to the Royal Academy, and amongst them was a portrait of a young woman whom he called Ann Hilder. This portrait was so uniform that it could have been the face of a puppet. Possibly Lowry, with tongue in cheek, showed this young woman as his measure of poking fun at the public's unwarranted interest into his personal life and he told various stories about who she might be and what his association with her may have been.
There were three portraits of young women shown in a puppet style with a slightly pornographic edge to them, and I feel that this was Lowry, again, poking fun at the courts of Europe's initial titillation by ballet performances showing young women scantily dressed and male dancers in exceedingly tight trousers.
We moved on to look at the mock up of what Margot Fonteyn dressing room might have looked like; there were a couple of photographs of her and the various paraphernalia you might expect to see in a ballet dancers dressing room: various ballet shoes, shawls, a mannequin dressed in a beautiful tutu and headdresses. In fact, quite a messy looking room. There was a considerable display of costumes from various well known ballets; for example some headdresses from the ballet 'Check Mate'. We were given the opportunity to handle some of these beautiful costumes and I was surprised at the weight of some of these which the stars would have had to perform in.
At the end of the tour we went back to the restaurant area where we had a hot drink and the choice of a selection of biscuits. I had to send for the cavalry to gain access to my very nice banana flavoured crunchy biscuits.
We then braved the icy elements to make the journey back home.
Our thanks to Anne for her usual, very detailed, descriptions of everything that we saw, and her very skilled description of the mildly pornographic portraits by Lowry. Brian Dunk had taken a lot of trouble to sketch and emboss the portrait of Ann Hilder and had given us a very detailed history of the formation of what finally became the Royal Ballet.
Mary, as usual, came up trumps with her dedicated volunteer drivers to take us to this very interesting visit and return us safely home in the very adverse weather conditions.
Our thanks to everybody involved.

If at first

Well it seems I have after numerous attempts landed on a blog page .
one of the hiccups was that the modem was not working properly(which as you will know make's a lot of differance). I am pleased that weather permitting we can look forward to another in depth account from our Elaine on tomorrows visit Thursday the 2nd December.

Manchester Gallery Visit 4/11/2010

Exhibition by Raphael Lorenzo entitles 'Recorders'

This exhibition reflects a 21st century take on perceptions of art. All of the exhibits are interactive and some of them very complex in the way they respond to various types of interaction. A ceiling of lights pulse at different rates and this is stimulated by multiple participants whose heart beats are recorded by sensors.
Another exhibit was a circle of microphones set at various heights, visitors were able to speak into the microphone which then gave a random response from previous messages left. For instance; one person recorded 'God Bless the Pope' and a random response came back with 'Down with Papacy!'
There was a huge screen shown on a white wall which reflected shadows, and it was possible to place your shadow inside that of another with you, so that one was dwarfed by the other. A lot of the visitors spent a long time playing with the reactions of the cameras and the different sizes and angles of shadows which could be obtained.
Meg Parnell and Kate Day had organised this visit for us, and Fiona Corridon explained each of the exhibits to us in great detail, some of which were very complex and had been created by the artist and his large team of fellow workers. So many electronics were involved that the gallery had had to install a mini sub station in order to provide the considerable increased power required to mount this fascinating exhibition.
Readers of the Hello newsletter might sometimes wonder what the Zoomers group gets up to and they can catch up with our goings on by logging onto our blog at http://zoomers.blogspot.com/
We post a record of our visits to various museums and galleries organised by Mary Gifford and also posts by anybody with new information on the aids to helpful computer tips.
After a most enjoyable visit of interaction and participation in this exhibition we adjourned to the education suite for our usual yummy biscuits and cups of tea and coffee.
Our thanks to Ann Hornsby for her detailed descriptions and to Mary and her volunteers for getting us there.

Manchester Museum 7/10/10

A Taste Of China

As we entered the exhibition the first thing we saw was a bronze bell presented to Manchester by its sister city in China, Wuhan. The bell was between 18" and 2ft tall, and the Chinese bells tend not to have a clapper but are stuck by a mallet, and the mallet was a beautiful lacquered black.
The curator Peter Brown described the other items in the glass cases as we moved around the exhibition. I found it a little difficult to see all of the detail because of some of the low lighting but Ann Hornsby who gives us our audio descriptions brought the items to life for us with her vivid details of what they looked like. There were even some 2000 year old biscuits shown on the beautiful porcelain plates and dishes, and the ability of the Chinese craftsmen centuries ago to create these wonderful items is absolutely amazing. We saw both ancient and modern examples of dishes and pots, and the most ancient were even more beautiful than the more up-to-date items.
After our tour of the exhibits we had the opportunity to handle various items assisted by Andrea, one of the curators, and volunteers Michelle, Collete, and Neil. Neil, who also helps out at Henshaws, was a young men who passed items to me and he described them to me as we looked at them. There was a Buddha which had been in a private collection in either Tibet or Burma which was made of bronze, and the Buddha was seated in the 'lotus' position. One of the oddest items was a teapot which was quite small, round, almost flat, with a very fine long spout and not handle. We were trying to guess how it would have been poured and can only imagine that it would have stood inside a bamboo holder. There was a most beautiful writing set complete with all of the brushes, ink pot, ink cake, seal, and wax. Peter told us that calligraphy was regarded as the very finest art practiced in China. There was a Chinese calender and I learnt that I was born in the year of the dog.
One of the exhibits in the glass case had been a most beautiful porcelain abacus with symbols on each bead, and amongst the items we handled was a wooden abacus commonly used by the Chinese even today.
A most fascinating item was an ancient Chinese compass; the pointer was in the shape of a small teardrop with a pointer on it, and the compass was divided up into various sections. It worked by allowing the compass to point North as we turned it to the right position. This was invented centuries ago and we learnt that the Chinese had been sailing the Oceans tens of thousands of years before we took to the sea.

After a most enjoyable morning we adjourned for a cup of tea and some yummy shortbread biscuits and would like to thank Peter and Andrea and all of the volunteers for their hard work in making our visit such a success. Thanks to Ann for her usual dynamic descriptions, and to Mary and all of her volunteers for getting us to the Museum and looking after us whilst we were there.