June Talk: Dee Ferris and Katie Ackrill in Conversation

 We used to hold regular 'in conversation' sessions with artists in our collection, so when putting together this year's talks, I thought I'd bring back the format with Dee Ferris if she was available because two of Dee Ferris' works were acquired for the Swindon Collection through the Contemporary Art Society. The two works have been on display in the space where works were shown on the ground floor of the Civic Offices before Museum & Art Swindon opened on the first floor. Here they are:

Above 'Sleepy Hollow' 2014 and below 'The Places We Go' 2022

There's also rather a good photo of both paintings with Cllr Marina Strinkovsky in between which gives you a good idea of their size.:

There was an article in the Advertiser said about the works in March 2023

We held the in conversation in the Council Chamber and photos taken from the large screens don't look too good, but I'll add them because they are a record of the event.

Above Katie Ackrill, Collections and Exhibitions Organise at MAS and on the left, Dee Ferris

Above on the left, This England, and on the right a photo of the first show at Corvi-Mora in 2004.

A very enjoyable in conversation, thank you Katie for interviewing and Dee for agreeing to go through the process.

Museum and Art Swindon opened 9th of July 2024

 Museum and Art Swindon, the former Swindon Museum and Art Gallery, officially opened its doors today at 10.30am. This is great news for all who have missed being able to visit the museum and gallery over the last 4 years. There was a preview yesterday and I was privileged to be able to look round, although I must say I was so excited, I didn't really take much in. The new museum and gallery are now situated on the first floor of the Civic Offices in Euclid St; the conversion is really good, and the space and general ambience of the site is perfect. This is what the Adver said about the opening last Friday: Swindon's museum and art gallery to open in new location | Swindon Advertiser

I didn't take many photos, this one taken before the ribbon cutting was taken by Friends committee member Martin Newman, thank you Martin. Back row, Frances Yeo, Museums Manager, Cllr Jim Robbins, Leader of the Council then front row, right to left, Cllr Strinkovsky , the Mayor, Cllr Imtiyaz Shaikh and me: 

I looked on social media and found Wessex Museums had taken some excellent photos, these are courtesy of them; I hope they don't mind my sharing them:

Above a view of the shop with the Origins exhibition which looks at the history of MAS from 1912 until the present day.

The Elisabeth Frink exhibition is a highlight, a travelling exhibition made possible by Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation funding through the Wessex Museums. Above ;The Risen Christ' Maquette and on the right, 'Green Man' part of the Swindon Collection.

Above and below different views of the Frink exhibition. We are holding a Friends' talk by Wilfrid Wright on Elisabeth Frink on 25 July after a celebration of the opening.

It's quite interesting that Swindon had an Elisabeth Frink sculpture outside WH Smith. It was a running man and was sold about 20 years ago. Money raised reputedly paid for new signage.

I also included a photo of the ceramics and jewellery cabinet, there's lots of fabulous stuff to buy in the shop with a high standard of displays both with things to buy and also with the other displays. 

There are quite a few talks and tours, so check out the What's On section of the website.

Great to have Museum and Art Swindon open after 4 years and looking forward to seeing more of the Swindon Collection of Twentieth Century Art on display soon.

Museum and Art Swindon Opening on 9 July

 Not a long post, just to say that we at the Friends of Museum and Art Swindon are thrilled to announce that the museum and art gallery will be opening in the Civic Offices on Tuesday 9 July at 10.30am.

This is how the news was shared on social media this morning:

Great news. Looking forward to visiting.

The Power of Art with Caroline Campbell

 We were very pleased to see that Swindon Festival of Literature was taking place this year after a suggestion last year that 30 years of organising literature festivals was enough for Matt Holland. However it was back this year, and much appreciated. The Friends of Museum and Art Swindon were very pleased to be asked to contribute to a talk by Dr Caroline Campbell on her book: The Power of Art. She asked: 'What has been and is the role of art in the past, the present and the future? What constitutes art? What does it do for a town and its people? What has made art so significant, so inspiring, and so provocative to some, and so irrelevant and meaningless to others? What is the future role of art?

Caroline Campbell is a former fellow of the Centre for Curatorial Leadership in New York and female Director of the National Gallery of Ireland. She was also an excellent and fascinating speaker and Cllr Marina Strinkovsky offered to show her the outside new premises where the new museum and gallery will be housed and she was suitably interested and impressed by the Civic Offices building.

Above Caroline talking about the importance of everyday items like mugs, her walk to work and a painting she sees everyday at work. The art in everyday things which enhances our lives.

Although you can't really see this, we were very proud to be able to do our bit to help bring Dr Caroline Campbell to Swindon. I'm looking forward to reading her book

Visit to The Stradling Collection in Bristol

 We visited the Stradling Collection on 27 April and were give a guided tour of the three floors by Curator Tanya Martin seen here below on the first floor. We last visited as a Friends group 10 years ago. Here are the links to our previous connections with the Stradling Collection.

We had a fantastic time and I would thoroughly recommend a visit at the least, but a tour gives you so much more insight into the man behind the collection, Ken Stradling and the collections

I loved this glass vase made by Timo Sarpaneva one of Finland's most celebrated designers in 1991

Here Tanya is holding up the famous Rooster dish by Nicholas Vergette

I loved going into the cellar where the treasures are stored when not on display. Above I spotted a piece by Sam Herman who came to talk to us in 2018.

I have taken photos of some of the amazing things stored down there

I can't remember much about these two but they made the tour very interesting

Below Rosemary looking at many ceramic pieces

And below a couple of ceramic pieces by Kate Malone who has also been to talk to us

What an amazing visit, thank you once again Tanya for your fascinating insight into the collection of Ken Stradling. Sad to see after 113 years, The Guild where Ken spent so much of his working life closed last summer.

Tattoo Art

 For our May talk we were pleased to welcome tattoo artist Gavin Jones from Sinking the Ink tattoo studio. I mentioned to a friend that we were having Gavin to speak to us and she said she thoroughly recommended him and has two tattoos by him. What better recommendation? The talk was held in the Council Chamber at the Civic Offices where we haven't sorted out the acoustics but will persevere.

Taking photographs was difficult because the screens were either to the right or left of me. I'll intersperse them with some notes I took on the night. Gavin talked about the procedure of tattooing where ink is inserted with a needle below the skin. It sounds obvious, but I hadn't realised that it has to go quite deeply into the dermal layer if it's to be permanent.

Tattooing is an ancient art; tattoos were found on a 4000 year old man who died from battle wounds. The marks we were shown were quite rudimentary marks compared with those which were found on less old bodies. Above you can see some of the more complicated patterns employed. People also applied dye to the skin with an Otzi needle in 3500 BC and the women in the top picture probably had woad applied to their bodies. I'm uncertain how much body paint was used to decorate bodies, or frighten other people away.

I took a photo of Gavin talking, he had to sit at an awkward angle to speak into the microphone. Roman soldiers got tattoos and between 100BC and 200 AD tattoos were widely accepted. In 400 AD during the Islamic invasion of Europe, Christian children were tattooed with a coptic tattoo which gave them kinship with other Christians. By 700 AD when the Vikings were around, there was no evidence for them having tattoos. Tooth filing was employed at one stage of history with soldiers having notches to remind them of battles they had fought in. In the Crusades of the 9th and 10th Centuries, soldiers had tattoos while they were away fighting.

Above is a photograph of the amazing Razzouk Tattoo shop in Jerusalem where tattooing has taken place for the last 27 generations of tattooists in the Razzouk family. In 2007 Wassim was persuaded by his father Anton to carry on the business. Do click on the link to find out more; they possess stencils 700 years old. On Facebook, the page is called Razzouk Tattoo - since 1300 and very interesting, Wassim has quite a rock star image and travels around the world to tattoo conventions.

Gavin ended his talk with some examples of tattoos on bodies and reminded us that Captain Cook didn't 'discover' tattoos in the 1750s, they had been around long before that.

And here are some of the audience with drinks before the talk

Looking forward to our next talk, Dee Ferris in conversation with Katie Ackrill on 13 June at 7.30pm in the Civic Offices.

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.