And also, to give you a flavour of a small part of my time as a curatorial trainee, here is a recent picture of me and Wolverhampton Art Gallery colleagues dressed as Steampunks for a Steampunk day which I helped to organise. It was great fun and I learnt all about a new vintage style that I knew nothing about!
In the course of my time at the Art Gallery I have also learnt a lot about Victorian Wolverhampton, which has been really fascinating. I unearthed some terribly interesting photographs of the town which inspired the Steampunk day itself. The below photographs are only two of the many amazing photographs that are held at Wolverhampton City Archives.
Copyright Wolverhampton Archives and Local Studies
This photograph, taken in 1885, is a view of Queen Square in Wolverhampton, with the Art Gallery and a penny farthing present! I find looking at these photographs incredibly fascinating and feel very lucky that my job involves researching my local heritage. These photographs show the beauty and elegance of an area of England that is often derided and scorned as less than wonderful.
I have also learnt that Wolverhampton was once a centre for bicycle manufacture including the creation of some rather stylish penny farthings. And that there were legendary bicycle races in the grounds of the Molineux House. It's photographs like this that excite me so much as a historian and create that abiding connection with our past.
Copyright Wolverhampton Archives and Local Studies
Inspired by this local industry, I therefore decided to create some Steampunk penny farthing badges and children had the opportunity to make their own, along with creating a Steampunk passport, and getting the chance to get dressed up, have a dance, watch some silent film clips- which I had a great time compiling, including Steampunk inspired clips, such as Georges Méliès A Trip to the Moon (1902).
Still from Georges Méliès, A Trip to the Moon (1902).
The Art Gallery's penny farthing was bought out from the stores and put on display and I used this as inspiration for a kids craft. An activity I had fun devising was these Penny Farthing Badges, using small watch parts, these are the prototypes I created and they seemed to be a hit with children! It's the combination of local history and fun crafts that I wanted to contribute.
I'm having an amazing time at the Art Gallery and feel very privileged to be able to learn more about local heritage and think of fun and exciting ways to impart this knowledge to children. If you want any information about upcoming events at the gallery- https://www.facebook.com/WolverhamptonArtGallery or http://www.wolverhamptonart.org.uk/ And there is a great post about local bicycle racing, on the incredibly informative historywebsite- http://www.historywebsite.co.uk/articles/Molineux/part4.htm
Finally, this is a collage of images of the event which included performances by Queen Victoria in the Victorian gallery space and Swyron the Steampunk revolutionary!
I hope your weekend was not as soggy as mine turned out to be and I promise to write another blog post soon!
Best,
Evalily Harlow xxxx
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