24 March, 2014 by Greta Bertram

Tool Tales

The Tool Tales instant gallery.

On Saturday the Heritage Crafts Association held its fourth annual Spring Conference, and this year’s theme was ‘Tool Tales’. What better theme could there be for a craft conference? Almost every craftsperson needs at least one tool – and some need hundreds!

It was a very packed day, with five speakers, an AGM, awards and an instant gallery of delegates’ favourite tools to fit in. Some of my favourite quotes came from Professor Trevor Marchand, who spoke about problem-solving in bench-side learning – ‘craft is problem-solving’ and ‘hand work is intelligent work’ – and Dr Phil Harding in his appropriately titled talk, ‘Getting a Handle on Prehistory’ – ‘a tool with no handle is a useless tool’. And Grace Horne, knife-maker and corset-maker, who described herself as having an extra-marital affair with scissors, reminded us that scissors are so much more than ‘two knives attached by a screw’.

Phil Harding getting a handle on pre-history (which I initially mis-read as ’embroidery’ and was rather confused!)

Daniel Harris of the London Cloth Company made everyone laugh with his stories of spending his days transporting, dismantling and rebuilding large numbers of nineteenth-century industrial looms (there’s always a few pieces leftover – ready to form part of the next loom). And Roger W. Smith wowed us all with his incredible patience and precision – watch-making is a craft that involves 34 separate trades, all of which Roger undertakes at his workshop where they make only eleven watches a year!

Daniel Harris of the London Cloth Company – he’s addicted to rebuilding looms!

In July 2013 the HCA launched its own suite of Heritage Crafts Awards, building on existing awards, and the winners were announced on Saturday. They included local boat-builder Colin Henwood of Henwood & Dean, who won the ‘Maker of the Year’ award. Colin is based in Henley-on-Thames and specialises in the restoration, rebuilding and maintenance of classic wooden Thames boats – and he was recently interviewed by Phillippa, MERL’s Public Programmes Manager, for the oral histories element of the Reading Connections project.

This week I’m setting myself the challenge of getting to grips with social media – and there’s loads out there about Tool Tales. Why not take a look at the HCA Facebook page to see photos from the day, Pinterest to see photos of tools for the instant gallery, and Storify to see some of the tweets about the day.

21 February, 2014 by Greta Bertram

It’s all about the curling!

MERL 50/563/1-2. Our very own curling stones, made by the same company as those used in the Winter Olympics.

Curling is in the spotlight today – Great Britain will play Canada in the men’s Winter Olympic final in Sochi this afternoon. And this morning there was an interview on Radio 4’s Today programme with the Managing Director of Kays, a family firm in Scotland which has been making curling stones since 1851 (you can listen on BBC iplayer here at 2:41:00). We have two curling stones at MERL made by Kays (MERL 60/563/1-2), acquired from the British Council in 1960.

Kays make all of the curling stones for the Olympics. The stones are made from granite from Ailsa Craig, an uninhabited island off the coast of Ayrshire. I learnt this morning from the interview that they are made from two types of Ailsa Craig granite – common green is used for the body of the stone because of its insulating properties, keeping the running edge cool; while blue hone is used around the edge. The two stones at MERL are marked ‘No. 1’, weighing 30lbs, and ‘No.2’, weighing 38lbs.

Curling became an Olympic sport in 1998, and transformed the fortunes over the firm. In 1998 there were only 25 countries involved in the sport, but today that figure has nearly doubled. Kays produces 1200–1500 new stones every year, and also repair and upgrade existing stones.

And the stones aren’t the only curling-related material we have at MERL. We’ve also got a wonderful advert for Cooper’s Dip showing men in tweed dancing in delight as they celebrate a curling victory. Let’s hope that’s what Team GB will be doing later today (although without the tweed!).

Let’s hope it’s victory like this for Team GB this afternoon!

4 February, 2014 by Greta Bertram

MERL lunchtime seminar – Basketry skills as intangible heritage

If you happen to be in Reading today with nothing to do (4 February 2014) why not pop along to MERL at 13.00 for our lunchtime seminar? This series of talks, entitled ‘Untouchable England’, looks at how different forms of intangible heritage might help us explore and better understand rural England.

Today’s seminar will be given by… me! And I’ll be talking about basketry skills as intangible heritage, examining the idea of heritage craft, exploring values that basketmakers ascribe to their work, and looking to the future of intangible craft skills. After the talk there’ll also be an informal pop-up exhibition of baskets in the Museum’s mezzanine store and a chance to talk more about MERL’s current Stakeholders project.

3 January, 2014 by Greta Bertram

Happy New Year

P TAR PH3/2/13/3/24. John Tarlton Collection. Black and white photograph entitled Great Frost – as the sun breaks through on New Year’s day the ice glistens on every blade and branch, Exmoor.

Happy 2014 to all of you MERL Projects Blog readers!

I can’t believe how quickly 2013 went (or how long it is since I last did a blog post). The start of a new year is always a good time to look back at what you’ve achieved over the past 12 months, and to look ahead to what you want to achieve in the coming months. Yesterday was my first day back in the office after a lovely break, so I took the opportunity to write a January-February 2014 To Do list – and there’s an awful lot on it!

A Sense of Place: We just managed to enhance 9000 records at the end of 2012, and our current total at the end of 2013 stands at 15805 records. This progress is largely thanks to Laura, who was working on the project for several months over the summer while Felicity and I moved on to other projects (although we did manage to fit in some cataloguing too). This means that there’s only another 3000 records to go until every record has been enhanced – something I’d really like to see done! I’ve also been starting to tidy up (and hopefully massively reduce) the list of object names (and their numerous variants) when I have a spare moment or two.

Countryside21: This has been a bit of a stop-and-start project, and we’ve made really good progress on some elements and virtually none on others. The positives include nearly finishing the Time Based Media survey (I’m aiming to have it signed off by the end of January), renaming thousands upon thousands of files and restructuring the way they’re organised (all Felicity’s work), revising the MERL Classification, rationalising our use of subject keywords in Adlib, and finally beginning to implement the new Classification and the associated keywords (I’ve already managed to do this for 3400 records in the space of two weeks). We’ve also updated the ‘Geographical Keywords Manual’ and will be putting together guidelines on how to use other types of keywords in the coming weeks. The ‘To Do’ list includes selecting and keywording images for commercial purposes, and arranging the technical side of the project such as the Digital Asset Management software and the e-commerce.

Reading Connections: While we don’t blog about the Reading Connections project here (it has a separate blog) this has been occupying a lot of mine and Felicity’s time throughout 2013. We spent the summer photographing 600 of Reading Museum’s Historic World Objects, and since then Felicity has been spending several days a week at Reading Museum researching and writing detailed descriptions of these objects. Meanwhile I’ve been working on cataloguing craft here at MERL and have enhanced/tidied/cross-referenced all of the records for clay, leather, metal, stone, straw and textile crafts, leaving just wood crafts to go in 2014.

Stakeholders: We had a hugely successful two day study visit from ten basketmakers at the start of December to kick the project off. We’ll be photographing all of the baskets we studied in a couple of weeks, and then it’s a case of adding all the new information that we gathered to Adlib, commissioning pieces from the participating makers, and putting together some banners for a pop-up exhibition in the future.

Our Country Lives: While not officially one of Felicity’s and my projects, we’ve both been involved in the plans for the re-development of MERL over the last couple of months of 2013. It’s been a really eye-opening experience and we’re very much looking forward to how it progresses.

Miscellaneous: And as ever, we’ve been working on lots of other bits and pieces too. Our volunteers have continued to scan the 60-series negatives and add them to Adlib. 3000 negatives were scanned in 2013, leaving only another 5 boxes (out of a total of 23) left to do. I’ve been adding any existing colour photos to Adlib which for some reason weren’t already on there – I’ve done the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, leaving just the 1950s and 1960s to go.

So, all in all, a very busy year just gone (with much more than I’ve managed to mention), and another busy year to come (again, with much more than I’ve managed to mention)! But, at least I can say that I’m really looking forward to 2014 here at MERL and all there is to do. Wishing everyone all the best for 2014!

6 December, 2013 by Greta Bertram

Stakeholder success!

Hard at work

We followed up the success of the first day of the Stakeholders workshop visit with an even more successful second day. Working in pairs throughout the two days, our expert makers looked at over 45 baskets and recorded incredibly detailed information about each of them. I was really pleased that we managed to get through all of the ‘high priority’ baskets, and made a good start on the ‘medium priority’ ones – as well as giving everyone the opportunity have a look at anything they were particularly interested in. The recording forms have all been scanned and I will hopefully be attaching them to the records next week. I won’t get a chance to do the proper cataloguing until the new year but in the meantime I will endeavour to post about some of the baskets that were looked at and share what we’ve learned about them.

One of the most fascinating elements of the visit was listening to the conversations that were going on and the questions that everyone was asking of each other – ‘what would you call this?’, ‘have you ever seen anything like this before?’, ‘is this typical of English work?’ and so on. The main focus of the whole project is the sharing of skills and knowledge, and it was wonderful to see this in action.

As well as the rich information recorded during the visit, I’ve also gathered various tips and pointers on places to look for further information, which books to look in, well-known names to look out for and that sort of thing.

We were all pretty exhausted by the end of the two days – a lot of concentration on behalf of the makers, and a lot of to-ing and fro-ing on our part getting all the baskets out and putting them away again. I hope that everyone went away feeling satisfied and inspired! It will be interesting to look at everyone’s work in a year or so to see if it has been shaped or influenced in any way by the things that everyone saw at MERL. A huge thank you to all the makers!!!!

3 December, 2013 by Greta Bertram

One day down…

Just a very quick post to say that we’ve had a really successful first day of the Stakeholders workshop visit to MERL. Our basketmakers have been great – so enthusiastic, and so knowledgeable! We’ve probably looked at about twenty baskets so far (good thing I prioritised them) and everybody’s written such detailed notes, and it’s been wonderful listening to everyone sharing their expertise. We’ve looked at some truly amazing baskets – and some truly hideous ones too! We’re all looking forward to another basket-packed day tomorrow.

MERL 78/48 A Victorian work basket avoided by everyone…

… MERL 70/196 And a folding post office basket which packs down to about 4 inches in height. This is a to-scale model, but the full sized version was never made.

29 November, 2013 by Greta Bertram

Not long to go….

MERL 64/200. This is one of the High Priority baskets. Although we have some information on the materials it’s made from, we have no details about its construction. It is thought that this basket may have been used for samples by the Water Board.

We’re nearly ready to welcome the ten basketmakers to MERL next week to take part in the two-day study visit as part of the Stakeholders project. I’m very excited that it’s finally happening – it seems an awfully long time since July when we heard the project was going ahead!

I’ve nearly completed all the preparations for the session. I’ve finally managed to organise the baskets into high, medium and low priority categories, and I’ve created a recording form which I hope is easy to use and reasonably consistent with forms that have been used in the past. For each basket, I have printed out the current Adlib record and photocopied the form onto the back – this way, we’ve got ready access to the information we already know about each basket and can easily identify the gaps that need filling. There are still a few remaining bits and pieces to do – like making sure there’s room in the Museum store for us all, getting the first few baskets out, and making sure we have enough pencils – but I think we should be good to go on Tuesday morning! I think it’s going to be a very busy two days, but hopefully I’ll find time next week to blog about how it all went.

Although it’s going to be very intense, I think that in some ways the study visit is the easy part of the project. I think the challenging part will be inputting all the information we’ve gathered into the catalogue in a logical, consistent, searchable and user-friendly way (which will hopefully tie into the work I’ve been doing with thesaurus terms as part of the Countryside21 project). I’m also hoping to do some follow-up research in the MERL Library and Archives where necessary. Then there’s the commissions aspect of Stakeholders still to think about, arranging photography of the baskets which currently have no photos, and putting together some form of exhibition from the project – be it online, or in the form of banners for a pop-up or temporary exhibition. But challenging or not, I’m really looking forward to getting stuck in!

13 November, 2013 by Greta Bertram

How do you read a basket?

The amazing array of baskets we got to look at and (very unusually for people who work in a museum) handle freely!

Life at MERL is a little bit manic at the moment as Our Country Lives has somewhat taken over all of our lives, and finding time to make progress on all of the other projects we’re working on isn’t easy! However, while everyone else spent Monday battling with storylines, themes, subthemes and object selection, I spent the day at Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse in Norfolk learning how to read a basket – all in the cause of Stakeholders of course! The training was hosted by SHARE Museums East and run by Mary Butcher, President of the Basketmakers’ Association and font of basketmaking knowledge, who will be joining us at MERL next month for Stakeholders. The training was intended for museum staff and volunteers to help us identify the basics or our basketry collections, such as key materials and techniques.

Mary talked us through the six key basketry techniques – coiling, twining, plaiting, netting/knotting, stake and strand, and assembly – and then set us the challenge of grouping the baskets she’d brought in from her own collection of world basketry. There were some spectacular baskets and it was quite a challenge in some cases.

Next up was materials. Willow, cane and rush are the most common materials used in British basketry. There are three ‘types’ of willow – white willow (cut and then peeled between April and June – the fancy stuff), buff willow (boiled and then peeled – the everyday stuff) and brown willow (cut and dried with the bark on – the rough stuff). Cane is a general term for rattan, and is identified by the distinctive ‘nodes’ where the leaves had once been. Cane can be used as whole cane, split cane, and centre cane. We also touched on some of the different materials used around the world – Mary had examples of dockage (dock leaf stalks – Shetland), birch bark (northern Scandinavia, Russia and Canada), esparto grass (Spain), pine root and orchid root.

Basketmaking tools are quite simple.

Mary also gave us some tips on how to spot an English basket. For example, the way the handle is fixed is a key indicator – English baskets often have a ‘cross’ handle while Eastern European ones are lapped. Another difference can be seen in the way the stakes are positioned in the base of an oval basket – in English baskets they poke directly into the base at right angles to the edge whereas in every other country they are bent to the side so that they are parallel to the edge (I think!).

Mary also showed us the range of tools used in basketmaking (all fairly low-technology) and I was pleased to know that I recognised most of them from last summer’s cataloguing work. She also gave us a demonstration of making willow skeins – splitting the rod into three with a cleave, and passing it repeatedly through a shave to remove the pith and make it thinner and thinner and thinner.

The best – and most unexpected – bit of the day was the hands-on element. We got to make some rush rope in the morning, and in the afternoon we made a Catalan serving tray. I’ve seen these made a few times so it was really fun to finally have a go myself. As Mary said, having a go with the materials is the best way to understand them!

Some of the Catalan serving platters we made on the day – mine is middle left.

25 October, 2013 by Greta Bertram

Introducing the makers – Part 2

MERL 90/43. A military shell basket, for protecting artillery shells, dating from World War I.

Following on from last week’s post, I’d like to introduce the remaining five participants of Stakeholders.

Karen Lawrence started her basketmaking with a variety of short courses. She then took the Creative Basketry course at the City Lit, and is now part of a group called The Basktery Collective. She works in willow, rush and cane.

Sarah Le Breton is a willow sculptor and tutor, who creates life size or larger willow animals and teaches sculpture workshops for adults and children. Recently Sarah has started to develop her artistic skills and knowledge by studying and exploring the craft of basketry and in doing so has discovered her passion for preserving the skills and heritage of the craft.

Annemarie O’Sullivan took the Creative Basketry course at the City Lit, and in 2010 was part of the Emerging Makers Programme run by the Crafts Council. She has a deep respect for ancient crafts, and is attracted to the sturdiness of agricultural baskets. Her studies have included coracles, split wood basketry, frame baskets, living willow structures and bamboo structures. Annemarie is passionate about all things woven, knotted and netted, and transfers the traditional skills of basketmaking into larger woven forms, working mainly with willow and coppiced ash. She also works in schools and teaches traditional basketmaking skills to adults.

Maggie Smith became interested in basketry in the 1980s and she later went on to study Creative Basketry at the City Lit. She is passionate about traditional craftsmanship and her work, both traditional and contemporary, is rooted in the traditional basketry techniques. Her more traditional work includes functional baskets and garden structures, while her contemporary work focuses on using materials in new ways, often starting with a found object.

Angie Tavernor is a vet, and teaches veterinary anatomy at the Cambridge vet school. She has a passion for 3D crafts – having tried anything from welding to felt-making – and had her first go at basketmaking eighteen months ago when she attend Sue Kirk’s summer school (Sue is also joining us in Stakeholders). Angie has continued to attend Sue’s workshops, and makes baskets and garden sculptures at home.

I mentioned in last week’s post that I was going to the Basketmakers’ Association AGM on Saturday 19 October. It was a really interesting day, and it was great to meet some of the people taking part in Stakeholders, as well as many other basketmakers. The theme of this year’s AGM was participation and there were talks from Prue Thimbleby, Debbie Hall and Caroline Gregson on their work in basketmaking in the community/community basketmaking. I also met a basketmaker who is trying to make a military shell basket – a basketwork casing for an artillery shell. It just so happens that we have one of these at MERL – and it’s one of the baskets that we’ll be looking at in Stakeholders.

18 October, 2013 by Greta Bertram

Introducing the makers – Part 1

MERL 86/147/2. A lipwork basket made by Alec Coker and Doris Johnson – two craftspeople who were experts in straw work. We have a few lipwork baskets that might be examined during the Stakeholders study visit. However, these baskets are nothing compared to the impressive lipwork chairs I saw at St Fagans.

Apologies for the absence of a Stakeholders post last week. We’ve all been kept very busy with the Our Country Lives project (for the redevelopment of MERL) – although I did escape on Tuesday to visit St Fagans National History Museum in Cardiff, where I was lucky enough to have a guided tour around the basketry collection (lots of amazing lipwork chairs, beautiful cyntells, and some thought-provoking lobster pots). I do, however, have some good Stakeholders news – all of the participants have now been confirmed! So today I’d like to introduce you to five of them.

Bunty Ball is Vice-President and Past Chairman of the Basketmakers’ Association, and was given a lifetime achievement award this year by the Worshipful Company of Basketmakers in recognition of her contribution to and support for basketmaking – as an art, a craft and a trade. She specialises in and teaches chair-seating – in cane, rush, willow and skein willow.

Hilary Burns originally trained as a fabric weaver, before taking up basketmaking in the 1980s. She works mainly with willow and hedgerow materials, producing both functional and sculptural pieces inspired by her study of traditional basketry techniques. Hilary is a co-founder of Basketry and Beyond, a voluntary organisation in the South West which promotes the use of natural materials and sustainable construction, and visited MERL as part of the organisation’s preparation for their Festival in May this year. She also teaches basketry to adults and children.

Mary Butcher is President of the Basketmakers’ Association. She was awarded an MBE last year for her services to basketmaking, and became a ‘Crafts Skills Champion’ at the Craft Skills Awards in May this year. Mary started out as a willow specialist, learning local traditional work from apprenticed makers, but now makes traditional and contemporary work in a wide range of materials, and using a wide range of techniques. She is committed to the transmission of basketry knowledge – researching the history of basketry, writing on the craft from both a historical and practical perspective, and teaching and mentoring. Mary has also curated and exhibited in innumerable exhibitions (solo and collaborative) and installations.

Sue Kirk describes herself as an ecological basketmaker. She works in willow, using a mixture of organically home-grown willow (she grows over fifteen varieties) and Somerset willow, making traditional and contemporary baskets and sculptures. Sue also teaches and runs workshops for beginners and improvers.

John Page began his basketmaking career with a City & Guilds course in creative basketry at the City Lit, having been greatly impressed by the Crafts Council’s Contemporary International Basketry exhibition. He now teaches rushwork at the City Lit and coordinates the course, and brings his students to MERL to view the basketry collections. He also edits the Basketmakers’ Association newsletter, and repairs harps.

I’m off to the Basketmakers’ Association AGM at the Artworkers’ Guild in London tomorrow, so hope to see some of you there! If you’re in Reading tomorrow, don’t forget to come along to Apple Day at MERL, 13.00-17.00.