2024 Friends' Talks

I'm pleased to have all the talks for 2024 in place and am already planning talks for 2025, so thought I'd advertise them on the blog. They are all on the website, but you can't have too much advertising when it comes to what's going on.

I aim to write up all talks on this blog, there's a record going back 13 years of what all our talks were about, and some of them have been recorded when they were on Zoom and appear under 'videos' on the website. We've already had three talks this year which have appeared on the blog, In January Michael Gray talked about repairing an Oxford College; in February Barbara Swann talked about archaeological sites in Sweden and Denmark and last month's talk was by Swindon Museum's Manager, Frances Yeo talked about the museums in Swindon, particularly Museum and Art Swindon.

This month's talk is next Thursday, 25 April at 7.30pm in the Council Chamber when we will welcome tattoo artist Gavin Jones who will talk about The Art of the Tattoo. Gavin works at a tattoo studio called 'Sinking the Ink' with a neat logo:

Friends are invited via email to come along to the Civic Offices from 7.05pm for a 7.30pm start. Tickets will be £6 on the door for Friends and those who aren't yet Friends are welcome to come and join us for an entry fee of £8. Payment by cash or card reader and there will be refreshments.

The talks for the rest of the year are as follows:

30 May Melanie Vandenbrouck, Chief Curator Pallant House Gallery

13 June Dee Ferris in conversation with Katie Ackrill

25 July Wilfrid Wright on the Elisabeth Frink exhibition

29 August Harriet Still on Hardy’s Wessex exhibition

26 September Philip Dearden researching Harold’s life and work

31 October Ann-Rachael Harwood on Edward Adrian Wilson Antarctic explorer

28 November Dr Gill Clarke curator of Purbeck artists exhibition at Russell Cotes

5 December AGM

30 January 2025 Flis Tattersall talking about her Shouting Softly project based in Swindon

Information about where each talk will be held will be sent to Friends and appear on social media.

With Frances Yeo in the Council Chamber

 For our March talk, we were really pleased to meet Frances Yeo in the Civic Offices in the Council Chamber at 7.30pm to hear the latest information about Museum & Art Swindon. We gathered in the Civic Offices from 7pm for drinks and nibbles and looked round the exhibition downstairs called 'Landscape and Longing' thoroughly enjoying meeting in person and chatting to each other. I didn't take any photos sadly until Frances had started talking, so there's only one rushed photo of some of the 60 people in the audience:

When I sat down, I was left of the screen with slides Frances showed so was unable to take decent photographs, she talked about the new members of staff who will be employed, such as community engagement officer and visitor experience officer who I'm looking forward to meeting

The most visible things we have noticed are the rebranding. This has involved changing the name from Swindon Museum and Art Gallery or SM&AG to Museum & Art Swindon or MAS and a perky new logo has been developed with layers representing many different things, including layers of paint or geological strata. The five aspirations or aims: Discover, Enrich, Celebrate, Inspire and Share are laudable. It seems like a good idea to rethink the direction the museum and gallery are travelling in after not being open to the public for 4 years. The website is very attractive. 

This is another way of showing the logo and name. 

With this in mind, we changed our written logo to reflect the fact that our name has changed.

We have had to abandon the blue door watercolour painted for us by Tim Carroll which we formerly used as a Friends logo and are using the photograph of the Civic Offices door until something else is produced.

A reminder of the floor plan of the first floor:

Apologies for my hands casting shadows. The presentation was followed by questions which included the opening date, which is Spring 2024, opening hours, as before, a cafe which is not in the current plan and the whereabouts of the gharial and when will it make an appearance. It has returned from being repaired and restored and has a new eye, and is being stored somewhere and will be released after the museum has opened when some visitor experience will be conducted around the gharial: it's origins, its diet and life.

I'll end with a lovely quote which has lost an 'e' in a 'the', but is great all the same.

"The opening of Museum and Art Swindon is such an exciting eve"Th opening of Museum and Art Swindon is such an exciting event for Swindon. The fascinating exhibits and engaging temporary exhibitions housed in an impressive historical venue provide a new opportunity for people to learn about Swindon’s origins and its stunning collection of art."nt for Swindon. The fascinating exhibits and engaging temporary exhibitions housed in an impressive historical venue provide a new opportunity for people to learn about Swindon’s origins and its stunning collection of art."

A Preview of Museum and Art Swindon

 The preview afternoon on the first floor of the Civic Offices on 18 March gave those who were fortunate enough to be invited a wonderful glimpse at what the new Museum & Art Swindon in the Civic Offices in Euclid St will look like. The afternoon started in the Council Chamber with speeches from Sarah Troughton, Lord Lieutenant of Wiltshire and Marina Strinkovsky,  Cabinet Member for Heritage, Art and Culture and was followed by a tour of the first floor of the Civic Offices led by Frances Yeo, Swindon Museums Manager.

I didn't take any photos, but Connor Mountford, Communications Executive in Media Relations for Swindon Borough Council took the following photos and kindly sent them to me. I'll start with this one taken just before we left the Council Chamber:

l to r: Leader of the Council: Cllr Jim Robbins, then Sarah Troughton, Linda Kasmaty (me) and Cllr Marina Strinkovsky

We started looking at the History of Swindon Galleries , it looks very quiet because I think Connor must have gone round before we arrived.

Above I think there are fossils found in Swindon in the cabinets

The Mayoral robes from 1920s, I think

This is the more recent history maybe with examples of art pertaining to Swindon on the far wall

Above we have the Corner Gallery which was showing an exhibition entitled Pieces of Me

Above this is the West Gallery with an example of work done by a group in response to a sumptuous  painting by Yolanda Sonnabend, artist and stage designer, seen below:

Below here's a picture of the shop with some really enticing items in it

There are also some more photos with people in them:

People in what will be the Museum Reception, shop and Origins Gallery, and below in one of the Museum Galleries

Aled Thomas News reporter at the Swindon Advertiser wrote up the event and captured the excitement of the afternoon really well.

This all makes more sense if I add a plan of the first floor, apologies for the shadows of my hands when taking it from a sheet of paper:

I'm sure there are few things to sort out, but it's lovely to see that Museum & Art Swindon are very nearly ready to open and looking so very good. Thank you to everyone who has been involved in getting us to this point.

Archaeological Sites and Museums in Sweden and Denmark

 Barbara Swann gave us a tour of places she recently visited in Sweden and Denmark for our February talk which was held via Zoom. The talk was recorded, here's a link to the talk. Many of the slides had information included so I will add them here.

Above setting the scene for when the great Ages were and a map showing the areas visited. Note the Viking Age  is characterised by rampaging Norsemen travelling across Europe.

Above can be seen the similarities between the helmet above and the Sutton Hoo helmet

There are many similarities between the carved stone figures as seen above right and the ones carved by the Picts. There was also a wine strainer very like the Roman wine strainer in the Swindon Collection which the Friends paid to have restored at the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre in Chippenham.

Thank you, Barbara for a fascinating talk.

Repairing an Oxford College

 We started the year by welcoming Michael Gray to our monthly talks in January when he gave us an insight into considerations made when repairing an Oxford college. The college in question being All Souls College Oxford whose foundations were laid in 1438.

The building is Grade 1 listed and although it looks dirty because it's on a bus route and exhausts emit bituminous deposits which can be seen to affect the lower part of the building.

I have lost the ability to delete pictures, so this window appears twice. What we're looking at is horizontal cracks appearing, seen near the bottom of the photo.

Below you can see the erosion on these 4.5m tall chimneys, decisions have to be made about whether to make replicas and insert them into the chimney or try and repair them in situ

In this case, as can be seen below, it was decided to make a new section to fit into the chimney

When All Souls College was 700 years old, in 1835, the facade was rebuilt, local stone had run out in 1825 and stone was sourced from Lincolnshire

Above you can see where stone has been replaced, joints are 2/3mm and this makes for a very tight fit.

Below you can see the after on the left and before cleaning on the right. Cleaning is achieved with 1mm jet washing at high temperatures. Another method is to put clay onto the stone and cover it with clingfilm and leave it to absorb the bituminous deposits.

While the work on the building was being done, it was covered in scaffolding, guests at the £430 per night hotel opposite weren't impressed with the view of the scaffolding.

This extremely interesting talk by Michael Gray was not recorded because of the difficulty of obtaining permissions for the photographs.

In the Process of Renaming Ourselves

 With the museum and art gallery expected to reopen on the first floor of the Civic Offices this spring, it was decided they needed a rebranding. This involved a small name change which has had quite an effect on everything the Friends have named after the museum.

A reminder, the former name was Swindon Museum & Art Gallery, shortened to SMAG or SM&AG. We, the Friends were Friends of SM&AG or FSMAG and this blog was called FriendsofSMAG.blogspot.com now renamed www.friendsofmas.blogspot.com 

There's still quite a lot to do, I think X formerly known as Twitter has been sorted, we are now @FrMASwindon Facebook hasn't yet been sorted, or the website.

Logos and photographs of the inside of Apsley House, the former home of MAS have to go, but since we haven't got photos of the galleries yet, we have to make do with photos of the Civic Offices door.

We need a post on MAS rebranding, it's very impressive, love the logo:

Latest on Swindon Museum and Art Gallery Opening

Swindon Museum and Art Gallery closed on 18 March 2020 because of Covid restrictions, and in July 2021 it was announced that all art and museum collections would be put into storage until the Art Pavilion was built in the Cultural Quarter with access to Collections through Art on Tour and Museums without Walls. The Friends objected to this as can be seen by reading blog posts from June 2021; it meant waiting at least 10 years before we would have a museum and art gallery in Swindon. Following an outcry from the Friends about the lack of physical space for a museum and art gallery in Swindon, a proposal was made to convert the first floor of the Civic Offices in Euclid St into Swindon MAG, and now it seems that four years on from the initial closure, it may open this spring on the first floor of the Civic Offices.

There have been various collages of photos on social media and on the council's website of work continuing at the Civic Offices.

The Art Deco fireplace will be kept

Photo of ceiling above. Below a Facebook post from Councillor Strinkovsky, Cabinet member for Heritage, Art and Culture who has got the work underway posted just before Christmas.

I like to include Advertiser articles as well, there have been two on the opening date. The most recent published on 28 December is sounding very positive: 

Museum opening soon 

This article published a month earlier is less accurate, it has Apsley House reclassified as a Regency building rather than a Georgian one and the Civic Offices as built in the 1920s rather than the 1930s. It is also suggested the Friends and some Labour councillors were opposed using the Civic Offices which wasn't the case: Museum open in spring 

We eagerly await the opening of Swindon MAG, it will be wonderful to have this facility back again with added advantages of accessibility and 40% more exhibition space than before.