New home

I have moved my blog to a new home. All of my curating exploits can now be found here.

Object Number 21

Object Name: Silver Doc Martins
Accessioned: 2011
Donor: purchase
Notes: To add to my growing collection of Docs

Comments: Not huge amount to say about these bad boys. As you may have gathered from previous posts, I love me some Doc Martins - velvet or otherwise. These ones were decidedly easier to procure than their velvet companions, being advertised in Schuh on O'Connell Street on a giant two story high poster.
Recently I was back in my old college and it was brought home to me how associated I am with my boots. An old lecturer exclaimed "Where are your big boots?!" as I was wearing a very girly pair of ballet pumps. The truth was that I'm now worried about wearing out my different pairs of treasured boots. I rarely wear my velvet ones (what if they got wet?!) and my gold (not pictured) and these silver ones are starting to rub so the metallic finish is coming off. I know I can't have these boots forever and I'll get over that - but will I still be me if I had none of these foot adornments? I shudder to think what the answer is...

Object Number 20

Object Name: The Beatles - All You Need is Love tin
Accessioned: 2002 (?)
Donor: gift
Notes: A set of stackable tins inspired by the movie Yellow Submarine.

Comments: From about age 13/14 I was obsessed with the Beatles. I would slavishly save up the £15 or £16 to buy each of the thirteen original UK released albums, having to specially order the less popular ones through my local record shop. Predictably my first album was Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band but I think one of the last I got was the Yellow Submarine as this was a few years before it was remastered and re-released. I loved the movie and the soundtrack - it is pure 1960s psychedelia and was utterly bizarre. Travelling through a fantasy land the Beatles (voiced by actors, not the Beatles themselves) are on a mission to save Pepperland which is under threat from the Blue Meanies. The Beatles use their music (and happiness) to defeat these curmudgeonly evil-doers. This includes using the song All You Need Is Love that builds a tower of song lyrics to torment the Meanies.
My brother bought me this tin on the back of that love I had for renting these movies. I rented them over and over from the local video store on VHS along with the other three movies by the Beatles (A Hard Day's Night, Help and The Magical Mystery Tour).
Mostly the tin stores pins and buttons these days. It is a lovely (and suitably tasteful) reminder of that passion I still have for the Beatles - however over-rated some people claim them to be!

Object Number 19

Object Name: Platypus Soft Toy
Accessioned: early 1990s
Donor: gift
Notes: One of a number of Australian soft toys I own.

Comments: An aunt of mine was also lucky (?) enough to by my Godmother. As a Catholic this basically means that in the event my parents are incapable or lapse in their duty to raise me in the faith my Godparents should step up to the plate. In the absence of that need, Godparents send you presents! My Godmother is a nurse who spent a few years working in Australia in the early to mid 1990s.
Mostly she sent me soft toys as when I was little I loved all manner of stuffed animals. I used to go to sleep every night with all my soft animals arranged from biggest (at my pillow) which was a bear called Rupert, right down to the smallest of the animals at the end of the bed. It just so happens that the biggest bear, Rupert, was originally my Godmother's bear. When I had him as a child he was over 25 years old. He was a well loved bear who has now been returned to his original owner when she had her own family.
I think the funniest thing about this Platypus is that he is about twice as big as a real one and he looks like a furry sausage with felt ducks feet stuck on! He is eminently cuddle-able though, you can not fault him there. 

The Museumist

I was recently contributed to the "I'm a Museum Person" series on The Museumist.
My humble ramblings can be found here.

Object Number 18

Object Name: Sindy Badge
Accessioned: 2009
Donor: purchased
Notes: random purchase on Ebay

Comments: I have to admit this will not be the last Sindy item to appear on this blog. I was a Sindy girl my entire childhood, in my eyes Barbie just couldn't measure up to her. I grew up in the era of the Hasbro Sindy, which in a lot of ways mimicked Barbie in her penchant for pink and her figure. Although her feet and her chest were relatively flat in comparison to her American rival.
I'm not going to give you a biography of the Sindy doll as there are plenty of websites and blogs that do that already. I'll just tell you why I felt the need to buy this badge. As I said I grew up with the Hasbro Sindy but my sister had Pedigree Sindy - or as they are some times known "Big-headed Sindys". She had a whole doll house full of late 1970s to early 1980s furniture, complete with an orange kitchen and a blue bedroom. As I got older I was allowed to play with this doll house and my small headed dolls had their time renting this mid century gem. Now I feel the need to own my own, perhaps for myself or for a future family but part of me wants my own small plastic orange kitchen.
The second reason I bought this is just pure collecting. Growing up in the 1980s and 1990s I was like many kids and owned many collections. Stamps, coins, keyrings, fancy paper, pencils and pens, soaps, Puppy in my Pocket and badges. Although my old collection of badges is long gone, this represents them. Or maybe it's just a rusty old badge.

Object Number 17

Object Name: Agfamatic 2008
Accessioned: 2009
Donor: gift
Notes: My mother's old camera.

Comments: This is the camera my mother used from the 1970s until the 1990s. As a child it was the most satisfying camera to take a photograph on based on the mechanical action alone. The excited clockwork noise it made as you slide the mechanism to roll forward the film, which gave it the name "Ritsch-Ratsch-Kameras", was a delight to me and still is. Anything with a big red button like that has its own particular attraction anyway.
It was a follow on from the camera featured in Object Number 6, it's film came in a neat little cartridge and produced tiny thin strips of negatives. Mostly I remember my mother having to take pictures outside as getting the flash to operate was a little tricky. When she did use it though it made that wonderful high pitched warming up noise. Not only did the flash screw onto the side but it was hooked up using a cable to the body of the camera.
Looking through the view finder, a little yellowed and with the silver brackets to aid in centring, makes everything look like the 1980s to me. Everything look just a little vintage, as if the world is framed in the paler, round-edged photographs of my childhood.