Giving Everyday Objects the Importance they Deserve
- Tutor, Kate Measham
- Wednesday 21st October
- 10.00 – 11.30 am, Via Zoom
- Free as part of the HAS Art Club, £12 for visitors
- Video available after has finished (£12)
Cabinets full of the weird and wonderful for personal pleasure, and to display to friends and enemies alike. The classic cabinet of curiosities emerged in the sixteenth century, although more rudimentary collections had existed earlier. In addition to the most famous and best documented cabinets of rulers and aristocrats, members of the merchant class and early practitioners of science in Europe formed collections that were precursors to museums.
This class is taking the opposite approach – your museum pieces are to record, in detail, the everyday, the domestic and the overlooked. You will be recording objects referring to size, colour, material, use, where to find it and any history attached to the objects in general, and to the one in your ‘collection’ specifically. Or you could create a ‘new’ history for the object.
Materials
- Pencils
- ink/watercolour for any colour needed
- ruler
- heavy paper – smooth would be best
- an object, or two
If you don’t know the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford it is well worth a trip to see it. Full of extraordinary objects from around the world, it catalogues and details everything from fishing knots from Papua New Guinea to Haitian Voodoo dolls, totom poles to votive offerings.