Event 31: Fiona McLees & Lucy Wood! We will be in conversation for Gwen John: A curator’s tour of her Life and Work, on Saturday 29th November at 5.30pm

Offre d’emploi – Research Associate – MOWLIT: The Medieval March of Wales rmblf.be/2025/09/23/o...

Today we had an inter-departmental day at work and I went to a slug model-making workshop run by one of my natural history colleagues who is an expert in slugs and snails and has made various models for the galleries. Best bit of my day! The beauty of being in a museum of mixed collections…

Like his earlier work, 'The Large Turf,' Albrecht Dürer's 'Tuft of Cowslips,' (1526) is a masterpiece of realism, this is partly a matter of the attentive accuracy with which he paints each plant so they are seen in a state of natural disarray, confused, interleaved, entangled.

Claife viewing station, Lake Windermere. Originally designed in a Classical style but remodelled as neo-Gothic in early 19th c, with coloured glass windows to filter the landscape & enhance or simulate the seasons: light green for spring, yellow for summer, orange for autumn & light blue for winter

Sometimes incidental shapes seem to hold some kind of significance, especially when I’m over-tired, over-worked, or otherwise uneasy. This broken & folded twig on the pavement today seemed too specific to not record, its zig-zag lightning bolt too purposeful against the silver slab

If you're on LinkedIn, you'll probably want to switch this toggle to 'off'.

Then and Now The Little Street Delft c.1658, painted by Johannes Vermeer; now identified by archival research as 40-42 Vlamingstraat, Delft, photographed (right) in 2017. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Reform won a council by election last night here in Cardiff and very decisively too. It is a danger. But the turnout was 25%, we are simply not heating from the majority of the electorate. That's an even bigger danger. Giving folks hope, a sense that it's worth voting, is most important.

The marble fragments of Forma Urbis laid onto the printed map below bear some relationship - but what? - to Borges’ On Exactitude in Science. A short story which I think about at least once a week, as the junction or sometimes terminus of an exceedingly high number of my brain’s meanderings.

'The Researchers.' (1970) An interesting addition to this work by William Roberts' is the inclusion of the pink-ish cover of 'Blast,' the short-lived magazine of the Vorticist movement which was referred to by its editor Ezra Pound as the 'great magenta cover'd opusculus.'

Stuck at home editing some writing on Gwen John and trying to choose images from her huge series of watercolours depicting people in church. Each time I look I find more that are new to me. I like this lady in on a scrap of paper, studying her prayer book. (Amgueddfa Cymru, NMW A 15316)

Frida Kahlo's painting comes to mind en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_th...

Ceri Richards, foot in hospital, from his ‘Hospital’ sketchbook (Amgueddfa Cymru NMW A 13703)

Church yard. I see plenty but record less, especially the sprung types. Mainly those on cast foot gates.

These are great. I followed a slightly different course and collect pictures of gate counterweights. www.flickr.com/photos/84607...

Please do! We don’t have a wall of latches but we do have a wall of locks!

Actually I think this is one of my favourites. It’s so good.

I collect pictures of gate latches. The endless minute variations and human ingenuity appeal to me greatly, and the countless hands that have moved them. This one is between Near and Far Sawrey, Lake District and has a lovely combination of textures between the iron, wooden gate, and stone gatepost.

This month’s museum book club read, just started:

Never knew “whilst” was not beloved in America. Bye bye to all my whilsts.

There’s a great series of webinars about the preservation of newspapers currently underway by @britishlibrary.bsky.social Endangered Archives programme. Last week was a lovely succinct intro to the history & manufacture of newspapers, feat. the odd clip like this: youtu.be/wZV11BplbXw?...

This sight baffled me earlier. For quite some time I took it as a piece of interactive public art, but couldn’t see any signs nearby confirming this. People could pick up the small loose grey bricks and build towers, line them up to make letters, etc

Talking about object biographies made me think of this. It’s an Ever-Ready Razor, dates to the 1930s and like all the best most unimportant things you keep hold of, it has a story.

Dare I ask what a muscle-plum is…?

Lord Bute was born on this day in 1847. I've restored an old photo from my collection and shared a few book recommendations to learn more about the 3rd Marquess of Bute. castellcoch.com/2025/09/12/l... #Cardiff #CastellCoch #LordBute

Entrance to St Fillan’s cave, Pittenweem. A very satisfying visiting arrangement in that one has to collect the key from a local chocolate shop in order to gain entry. £2 plus free descriptive leaflet. If you also leave having purchased a bar of cardamom milk chocolate, that’s your own lookout.

Still-Life with a Group of Muffs, a Pair of Gloves, and Two Kerchiefs Wenceslaus Hollar, Antwerp, 1647. (Art Institute Chicago)

Not sure what exactly this is - chimney pot? - but it is an example inside Cardiff’s Pierhead building of some of the terracotta decorations made by JC Edwards & Co, Ruabon. Ruabon was found to be a source of Etruria Marl clay in the late 19th c, its high iron content resulting in a rich red colour

However, his attempt to not only amend but smash entirely the traditional dividing line between the National’s collection and Tate’s collection is potentially quite alarming. Until now, the NG has displayed art up to around 1900. Sometimes this has been gently breached, but >

Deleted my earlier post in case it was undiplomatic. I would love to see museums & galleries outside of London thriving to even a small percentage of this extent, but too often they face funding cuts, reduced services, and even closures, with few avenues to garner this level of funding

🔺 Exclusive: the National Gallery announces new wing and move into modern art as director Gabriele Finaldi unveils his plan to expand the gallery and its collection ⬇️

Oh I wish this was my life

Another sign to entice

Impossible to resist

Alexander Cozens, 22. Half Cloud Half Plain, the Clouds Lighter than the Plain Part, and Darker at the Top than the Bottom. The Tint Twice Over in the Plain Part, and Once in the Clouds, #artbots #tate https://botfrens.com/collections/14375/contents/1132949

Fantastically long and uneventful corridor bridge across the M6 at Hilton Services, with spiral staircase to the now-locked viewing tower @liminalplaces.bsky.social

Madonna & child by Hew Lorimer in the chapel at Kellie Castle. The influence of Gill is evident in the pared back forms and emphasis on purity of line (and perhaps in Hew’s conversion to Catholicism too). The Castle’s chapel also houses furniture designed by Hew’s architect father Robert Lorimer.

In 1507 Giovanni Damiano de Falcucci (“John Damian”), an Italian friar at the court of James IV of Scotland, having failed to impress at both medicine & alchemy, attempted to fly from Stirling Castle using wings of his own invention … #WyrdWednesday 1/2 strathardheritage.org/archive/stir...

One of the earliest faxed images, made by Shelford Bidwell ca 1890. The image was scanned with light, line by line. A selenium photocell transmitted the light as electricity, burning marks onto chemically-treated paper; or the image blocked it (no mark). Et voilà, "distant electric vision."

Love this in Dylan Thomas’ story The Peaches, about his bedroom door at night when staying with relatives in a rambling ageing farmhouse: “I liked the door locked at night, because I would rather have a ghost in the bedroom than think of one coming in…”

Coats left hanging as if he might return to work

The studio of Scottish sculptor Hew Lorimer at Kellie Castle, Fife. He studied at Edinburgh College of Art & with Eric Gill. Lorimer & wife & baby moved into the castle during WWII & he stayed until his death in 1993. @nationaltrust.org.uk recreated his studio to look as if he has just stepped out.

#WorldLetterWritingDay ✒️ Here's the story of love letters I discovered in the Amgueddfa Cymru collections 💌 Sarah was 20 years old when she received these letters. She fell in love with a butcher, and they kept a public house together 🍻 hellohistoria.substack.com/p/my-dearest... #Wales #History

More effective Laura Ford sculptures: Weeping Girls at Jupiter Artland

“Plated Meals”. What a formal microwave.

There’s a confusion of saints called Fillan; however the most significant St Fillan was said to have had a luminous left arm by which he saw to read and write. He also persuaded a wolf to take the place of an ox which it had just killed, and pull a plough so that farm work could continue.

Beatrix Potter’s doll’s house - look bottom left for a very recognisable ham which made two bad mice very cross. At Hilltop House @nationaltrust.org.uk