To Have and To Hold - Philipp Blom

This book, subtitled An Intimate History of Collectors and Collecting, is the most thorough and gently intellectually interesting book I have found on the subject. It goes deep into the history of collecting, but rather than simply offering an overview it is also, as the subtitle suggests, a deeply intimate and personal book. 

Starting with Blom's own memories of his great-grandfather's collection, the book takes us on an oscillating journey from the early days of cabinets of curiosities, through to the foundation of early museums, to libararies, kitsch, the democratisation of collecting, psychoanalysis... But what I really loved was how rather than just the stories of objects, this book felt like an exploration more of the unknown stories behind such things. The memories objects trigger, the passion that drives the collecting instinct and how this can take over a life but also lead to great discoveries. How collecting has become intricately linked to the formation of knowledge and society as we know it today.

Part One starts with the 16th explosion of science in Italy and how this fueled people to collect specimens of the natural world. How collections became a way of exploring and representing the world - of seeking out new meaning and also of continuing the great works of Pliny and Aristotle. He talks of how the exploration of the wider world fueled this further, with wonderful stories of how sailors would bring back exotic objects from their travels knowing that someone might want to buy them. Both a personal and a world wide exploration seemed to occur. This happened particularly in the Netherlands, where by the 17th century even dolls houses had their own miniature cabinets of curiosities!

He goes on to talk about Philip II and Rudolf II and how these vast royal collections led to the existence of the Wunderkammer or "Chamber of Miracles". The sheer glorious decadence of these collections is almost unbelievable. There was no sterility like some associate with modern museums - these were places of magic. It was like these collections became their own world - an almost metaphysical manifesto to show the world in microcosm. It was almost a practical alchemy where collecting goes beyond object appreciation to an extraordinary quest for meaning. He also talks about how this links in with early botanical collections. These early collections seemed to then expand to contain any number of "foreign rarities" from plants, to beasts, to shoes from Russia, to relics and oddities like pictures made from feathers. There is a sense that these collectors are pioneers trying to own a little of the whole world - that they are travelling whilst staying still. He ends part one talking about the creepy world of anatomical collections such as that of Dr Ruysch who preserved human specimens - he had a skeletal garden of Eden and a child's hand which he surrounded by exquisite lace. I was fascinated by how what is now seen as a personal hobby was once at the forefront of scientific discovery.

There are so many names and collections discussed and explored that they are far too numerous to go into here, and far too interesting to simply list. But Blom does then go on to talk about how the Enlightenment changed collecting and how more scientific labelling and catagorising emerged. How this led to the foundation of museums as we know them today. But he also explores crazy personal ways of displaying collections such as vast painted landscape backdrops and life size dioramas. He explores how the French Revolution changed collecting and showed it as national ambition and acquisition. How in the 19th century the role of museum as educator really began to evolve. He gives both a very interesting history of relic collecting and of how book collecting can differ from other sorts in that books already contain stories - they have a voice that travels through time and lives. He also talks very interestingly about Camillo and Bacon and Theatres of Memory - the trend for allegorical imaginary museums. An idea I would love to explore more.

In the 20th century he explores mass production and the democratisation of collecting, and the emergence of the idea of having a complete set as opposed to collections being omniverous and open-ended. He talks to a man who collects everyday objects as a social history of modern society - collecting as a salvage operation - collecting as building an ideal world - of showing the character of the world. How collecting faulty objects can reflect the flaws in society.

I could go on but, as this review is probably showing, it seems futile to really explain the depths of this book in such a short space. I feel a little like I am too a collector trying to catalogue a cabinet of wonders but that it is losing its magic as I write down sterile worlds. I made pages of notes when reading as there were so many wonders that I didn't want to forget - my brain becoming its own depository for object facts - but now like a swamped curator I hardly know how to put them all together. Suffice to say that if you want to read a meaningful and fascinating in depth history of collecting, then this is the book for you. Having read it once I know that it is a book that I will revisit throughout my life, and that has given me a wealth of things to think about in terms of museeme and the meaning behind my own collecting instincts. It can be brought here

Perranzabuloe Museum, Perranporth

As a loyal museeme fan my mother went to Perranzabuloe (best name ever) Museum in Perranporth, North Cornwall the other day and decided to review it. It sounds to me, especially when I read their website too, that this is a great example of a true community museum and what can happen when dedicated locals who care about where they live and want to share its history come together. Here is what she had to say:

This small museum, in a room above the library (a lovely building refurbished with the help of volunteers in the '80s) in the surfing village of Perranporth, was an unexpected pleasure. It has been supported by a large network of financial friends and this shows in the large display screens which subdivide the space and look very professional - yet it still has the eccentric appeal of a private collection, with objects ranging from leather boots worn by the pony who mowed the golf course, to the earliest surf boards, which included old coffin lids from the local undertakers!

There is also a lot of information about Perranporth's mining history - I'd had no idea of the variety of minerals which were dug up - silver, lead, copper as well as tin and even arsenic! There was also information about the ancient chapel of St Piran, currently reburied beneath the sand dunes, and the local fishing industry. There is also information about the village during the war, farming history and the local railway. One thing that amused me was the quote from a 19th century ship's captain who had been wrecked in numerous places around the world, and who said that no where had he come across savages such as the natives of Perranporth! Luckily for me this is no longer the case, and the staff at the museum were charming, friendly and helpful!

There was also a delightful re-creation of a 19th century cottage interior, which would appeal to all ages, as would many of the other exhibits. Entry is free, but donations are invited. I would recommend this museum to all visitors to Perranporth.

Their website can be found at http://www.perranzabuloemuseum.co.uk/

The Williton Bakelite Museum

Yesterday I had the chance to visit a small museum that has always intrigued me, and that I was genuinely excited about in terms of its housing a collection of something I personally am very enthusiastic about - Bakelite. The Williton Bakelite Museum describes itself as the world's greatest collection of vintage plastics, and it certainly has a vast variety on display. Situated in a small village in North Somerset, nestled between Exmoor and the Quantocks, just finding the museum is an adventure in itself. You drive through the main village then up a twisting lane to park by a beautiful field with a stream running through it next to a lovely vintage caravan. The museum itself is housed in an old mill, with a lovely vintage cafe with great china tea sets in the main house. It costs £5 for adults, and after paying the lovely Gwenda who was working yesterday, I entered into the (slightly chilly!) mill and its magical realm of plastics.

One of the things I loved about the museum was how it was both a small museum and one person's collection - a real testament to a passion. Personal collections are always interesting in terms of display as they are displayed in terms of how their owner curates them rather than how an official museum person sees it as making sense. Near the entrance an old oven was sat with a random book of animal cigarette cards on top - nothing to do with Bakelite, but somehow it added to the whole retro feel of the place. There were then cabinets containing everything from bowls made of amazing marbled Bandalasta ware (also known as Lingalonga - what great names!), to napkin holders in the shape of animals, telephones, gramophone horns, records, typewriters, great clocks with sailing boats in them, model planes and cars, things from dollshouses - I could go on! After winding round the ground floor of the mill, I then climbed the rickety stairs to the second floor where there was a room with old hairdresser setting dryers, kitchen ware, heaters and things actually diplayed on the old mill wheel! There was also a very interesting display of really early 19th century plastics, and also really curious things like a case of early plastic teeth! There was also a display of houses made with Bayko - one of my Dad's favourite toys from his '50s childhood. It really was a feast of quirky delightfulness - really atmospheric, eccentric, but informative too. I loved it.

I also want to thank Gwenda who was so lovely to chat to. I had a great cup of tea and some cake afterwards in the cafe. Any vintage enthusiasts would love its 1930s feel. There were also lovely postcards for sale. It was a truly brilliant experience, and I loved the way I felt like I was visiting a special place as well as a museum - seeing into someone's passion for collecting and being absorbed in the whole environment of the old mill and its beautiful setting. Below are some photos I took (on my phone so not great quality I'm afraid). You can visit their website at www.bakelitemuseum.co.uk

Thought for the day...

"Every passion borders on chaos, that of the collector on the chaos of memory." Walter Benjamin, Ich packe meine Bibliotheck aus.

The Porthcurno Telegraph Museum

This week I got a chance to visit a museum that has always intrigued me: the Porthcurno Telegraph Museum. Lying in the wild far west of Cornwall - one of my favourite areas of the country as it feels like a different world and is where I spent a lot of my childhood - the museum is housed in a large building and tunnel network that used to be the hub for a cable network stretching all across the world. I have always loved the idea that this tiny village in such a remote part of Cornwall was for a period of time the communications hub of the world. Somehow how remote and quiet its setting feels now makes this fact even more amazing and special - you drive down a tiny twisting road not far from Land's End and after a few scattered houses there is this big white building on your left simply saying Museum in big letters on the facade.

After walking up some steps you enter this main building to buy tickets - it is £7.50 for adults and there are concessions for OAPs and children. There is a shop and cafe and good loos (important for the discerning visitor!) in this entrance area. I was greeted by a really lovely elderly man and as I bought my ticket and chatted, another man immediately came over to chat and I was offered a free talk and introduction. I followed this man out of the main building wondering what to expect and immediately noticed the entrance to the tunnels carved out of the camouflage painted cliff face. We entered in and walked past an old bomb that was found locally towards a large gas and bomb proof door that had been fitted when the communication centre was a legitimate war time target. I don't know what I was expecting - maybe just to walk through some tunnels and see some displays about the jobs people used to do here - nothing could have prepared me for the wonderful surprise. We pushed through the heavy door and into another world...

Immediately I was hit with the clicking noise of hundreds of old machines like the sound of an office of ghost typists. I have never been to another museum where there was such a sudden change in atmosphere and sense of place - the only way I can best describe it is that it was like a children's book where you enter a door to another place or time - I was transported. It is the Narnia of small museums! My guide led me through this initial long room full of machines, some in glass cabinets, clicking away as if in some strange steam punk laboratory, and continued on to a further room to where a few benches were placed in front of a table of machines. My guide then proceeded to tell me about the history of the Porthcurno Telegraph Centre from the 19th century to its current status as a museum. He demonstrated telegraph machines and technology in chronological order and I was able to get up close and see how everything worked. There were some really beautiful machines too, like an early single needle galvanometer and a stunning five needle telegraph that wouldn't have looked out of place in an elegant period parlour. I was really struck by how often in machines of the path the visual design was important as well as the functional design. I also saw how morse code was transmitted and visualised by light and later punched out paper tape so that no communications were missed. I learned about war time in Porthcurno, saw wonderful old cable maps of the world and held early telegraph cables that went under the sea and learned how they were laid by ships such as the SS Great Eastern. I saw early machines utilising electricity and heard about how wireless technology threatened the hard investment of decades in cable communications. There was also a video available to watch after the talk and demonstration.

After this brilliant talk my guide left me to wander around the rest of the museum at my leisure. There were photos of old workers and costumes providing an interesting social history angle and I also got to have a really good look at the machines I'd seen clicking away on the way in. There were some magnificent interpolators and other machines that almost looked like strange vintage robot pets. I spent a long time just wandering and looking and soaking up the atmosphere. There were also windows in the wall looking out on the cave walls of the tunnels, reminding me that I was underground in this strange bunker - there's even steep steps out the back that were an escape route leading out onto the cliff top, that I didn't climb up but I think visitors can if they wish. As I left the tunnels I again had this feeling that I was moving between realms. I walked out into the Cornish sunshine and back into the main building where I bought some postcards and a very reasonably priced at £2.50 book about the story of Porthcurno. As I reached my car a few moments later I really felt like I had spent the last couple of hours absorbed into a whole new world of discovery - surely what all the best museums should do. I really couldn't recommend this museum more.

To find out more visit their website http://www.porthcurno.org.uk/

The Museum of Witchcraft, Boscastle.

As soon as you mention a museum of witchcraft people bring their judgements as to what that would be - a quirky novelty, a serious pilgrimage, something to celebrate, something to fear. For me The Museum of Witchcraft in Boscastle is always somewhere I've wanted to visit ever since a friend told me about their very west country glass knitting needles for knitting spells - I loved the idea of a museum filled with such strange objects that no where else would have, and when I visited the museum last week it didn't disappoint. The museum has had its troubles in recent years - not least the devastating flash flood that wrecked its way through Boscastle in 2004, but it has recovered and it now a very popular tourist attraction in Cornwall.

Situated in a lovely old and suitably witchy looking building near the strange twisting harbour at the bottom of the village, the first thing that struck me when entering was how friendly it was . As I paid my £5 entry fee (well worth it to support a small museum) the lady behind the counter welcomed us warmly and directed us through the door that would lead to the exhibits. Straight away we were plunged into a feast of strange objects and pictures. The room was quite dark but that added to the atmosphere and I loved how, like my favourite museum The Pitt Rivers in Oxford, there was a variety of cabinets and small labels giving the space an intimate home-curated feel, whilst still being informative. I loved how there were display cases like glass fronted holes in the wall framed like an old picture, containing all together toffee tins, soap and statues: how looking one way I could read Keats's "Meg Merrilies" and looking another see a figurine of the Russian folkloric child eater Baba Yarga. I also loved how along with objects the museum diaplayed things such as old vintage adverts depicting witches - my personal favourite was for Textron blouses (1950s?) and showed witches in blouses on their brooms, but like strange mermaids their bottom halves were made of grass and reeds! There was also a beautiful Arthur Rackham cat illustration, a bizarrely cute witch made out of a fir cone, as well as a petrified teddy bear from Mother Shipton's cave, whose mysterious water can turn things to stone! The first long room being arranged like this means that anyone who visits the museum will find something to interest them - later on the museum becomes much more thematically arranged, but this entrance acts as a delightfully eccentric taster session to welcome the visitor and tug at some string of everyone's potential interest.

As one continues through the museum there are a variety of different types of displays - from a life size model of an old village wise woman's room complete with recordings where one can peer in through a glass window, to a wall of jars of herbs in the section on healing. There are displays on the links between witchcraft and Christianity, moving displays on past persecutions of witches including a memorial list of those who have been tortured and killed through the ages, displays on curses, labyrinths and all sorts of wonderful curios. Some, like the mummified cat, I found a little hard to stomach, but some, like the aforementioned glass knitting needles and the jars for catching spirits (fill a glass jar full of interesting things for said spirit to do and seal it) were a real delight. Inevitably there were parts of the museum that weren't so interesting for me - the modern ritual stuff doesn't really interest me in the way the history and artifacts do, but all in all by the end of the museum I had discovered lots of new and fascinating things - from the expected like herbs, wands, mandrakes and poppets, to the completely unexpected like the strange vintage adverts and spirit jars; from the quirky like the fir cone witch, to the moving, like the memorial and a wonderful display on WW1 and the trench art dolls and charms soldiers made for luck.

Coming out the other side of the darkened chain of rooms I felt a bit like I'd returned from a strange visit to a different realm, but this is no bad thing - I think the best museums should transport us in this way - be their own little worlds of discovery. Suddenly I was back in the shop (where you can buy glass knitting needles!) with the friendly people who work there, but this was nice as it highlighted to me the dichotomy at the centre of the history of witchcraft - an ancient set of beliefs that has both a dark and a light side. I thoroughly recommend a visit and a potter round Boscastle in general.

More information and images of the museum's collection can be found on their website here.