The photographs in the exhibition Liverpool People by Stephen Shakeshaft have struck a real chord with visitors and brought back a lot of memories, as the comments made during reminiscence sessions in the exhibition have proved. Some of these comments have been included with the photos on the exhibition website now, and there are more below.

If you would like to take part in a reminiscence session there are a few more planned, with the next one taking place tomorrow afternoon. Full details are in the exhibition events programme on the website.

And don't forget that there are just a couple more days left to enter the caption competition and win a signed copy of Stephen Shakeshaft's book 'No Illusions' - so get your thinking caps on if you haven't entered yet!

"One thing which stands out is the expression of resilience mixed with hope on the faces of the people in our great city."

"We seem to have grown up in poverty but children always seemed to be laughing. The photographs made me realise this."

"The photo of the clothes rack reminds me of sitting at the kitchen table with wet clothes dripping into your dinner."

"The photograph of the lady with the washing rack reminds me of my gran's house. She always had the kettle on and cake in a tin."

"My son can't believe some of these photos. Why have an indoor washing line?"

"I love the photograph of the lady with the gas mantle. Looks like she's just come in from the wash house, is so pleased with her washing all done and is ready for that cup of tea. I can almost hear her sigh."

"The photograph of the carters reminded me of my dad and brother who used to be carters. They would dress up the horses with brasses and ribbons and go to shows. We used to take the horses back to the stables in Whittle Street."

"I'm reminded of the rag and bone man with his goldfish. Where did he put all those goldfish on his cart?"

"The photograph of the carter reminded me of having our milk delivered by Mabel in her pony and trap in West Derby in the fifties. Sometimes she'd give me a lift to the Saturday cinema in the village. I couldn't tell whether the smell was Mabel or the horse."

"The shop with the children reminds me of shops always having a bell that rang whenever the door opened."

The Newseum educates the public about the value of a free press in a free society and tells the stories of the world's important events in unique and engaging ways.

• Nearly all of the Earth’s water is salty or trapped as ice, leaving less than 1% available as freshwater for all living things, including humans.
  
  
• If all of the Earth’s water fit into a two-liter bottle, the amount of freshwater would only add up to a tablespoon!
  
  
• Even though the United States has some of the cleanest drinking water in the world, Americans drink twice as much bottled water as they did a decade ago.
  
  
• Over 80% of plastic water bottles end up in landfills.
  
  
• A gallon of tap water costs 1,900 times less than a gallon of bottled water!
  


• Most interesting to me has been discovering the origin of our water here in Seattle: the Cedar River Watershed (pictured below).

What has the Burke Museum done to conserve water? We’ve made some small changes like adding aerators to bathroom faucets and providing a pitcher of good tap water for meetings instead of bottled water. We also have an ethnobotanical garden in front of the museum, full of native plants, which typically require less water than non-native plants to thrive. I'm looking forward to figuring out what else the museum can do to conserve water!

Posted by: Sarah Tollefson, Facilities

I just uploaded several medical illustrations of empyema on our Flickr page. I came across at least a couple of dozen of them today and this is the first installment.

Hello Docents-

Debora was so kind as to forward on her notes from last Saturday’s program, Redefining Northwest Art: Past and Present. Thanks Debora!

Also attached is a copy of the training calendar for January – March 2010. I will make a copy available at the docent desk as well. Our first training is scheduled for January 6 and I will look forward to seeing you then, if not before, but you get the rest of November and all of December off of trainings so enjoy that “free time.”

Finally, I wanted to acknowledge the time committed to training you all put in. We really appreciate all that you do to keep yourselves informed and our visitors enthralled. I did want to make one extra special announcement in regards to training this past quarter. Out of all of our trainings, one docent attended each and every one, including those that were not required. Sharon Berens!!! As a thank you to Sharon for all of that effort I have a Museum Store Gift Certificate to be picked up at my desk.

Thank you for all that you do for Tacoma Art Museum.

Best regards,

-Jana

Hello Ellen and Jana,
  I'm sending on my notes, Ellen, as I said I would. Please excuse the mis-spellings(!)
Jana, I didn't know if any docents who didn't make it to the lecture, would like to especially see some of the Indian artists' names that Jim Halliday refered to?
Debora Kernan

Windows 7: It works the way you want. Learn more.

Hello Docents,

I wanted to share some new docent opportunities with you as well as remind you of other tours which do not yet have docents. 

·         I am in need of 2 docents to lead gallery tours of Concise History of Northwest Art on Wednesday, January 6 at 12 pm following a lecture given by the Washington State History Museum staff.

·         I am looking for one more docent to help lead a tour for 45 visitors on Thursday, February 25 at 12:40 pm.

·         I am looking for 3 docents to give tours on March 13 at 12:30 and 1:45 pm for a large group of Japanese students from Mukogawa University in Spokane.  The contact for this tour has requested that the docents speak slowly, enunciate clearly and share basic exhibition overviews with these groups.

·         I will need another 3 docents to lead the same group from Mukogawa, for different students, on Saturday, March 20, again at 12:30 and 1:45 pm.

Please let me know if you would be available to lead any of the above tours.  Thank you so much for all that you do for Tacoma Art Museum and our visitors.

Best,

Allison

Allison Baer
Education Assistant
TACOMA ART MUSEUM
1701 Pacific Avenue
Tacoma, Washington 98402
T: 253.272.4258 x3018
F: 253.627.1898
www.TacomaArtMuseum.org

But we hadn't looked at our own policies for copyright and permissions for some time – particularly related to the papers we publish for Museums and the Web.

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The John Moores Contemporary Painting Prize now open to entries.

Any artists considering entering the John Moores Contemporary Painting Prize would do well to get inside the head of a previous judge. Matthew Collings, who hosted What is Beauty? last Saturday evening, was on the panel for John Moores 22 in 2002 when the artist Peter Davies won.

In the programme Collings lists his top 10 favourite “beauty experiences” in art. From an amazing bridge designed by Sir Norman Foster to pre-historic cave art, his perception of beauty is really interesting and varied. Definitely worth a watch on iplayer.

If I could be described as anything it certainly wouldn’t have the words ‘Queen of..’ used as a prefix, it would probably be ‘pain in the ..’. However there are people who definitely deserve to be given such a praising pseudonym.

For example on Natural World on BB2 last Wednesday evening biologist Andrea Marshall was given the nickname ‘Queen of the Mantas’. This is deservedly so, as the documentary showed Andrea giving up everything for a life in Mozambique to study the endangered species of Manta Rays (to watch again click on the iplayer)

Although she would probably blush at the thought of it, Andrea reminded me of Rachel Ball, our aquarium curator at World Museum. Although she hasn’t left her life in the North West to save Manta Rays in a far flung part of the world she is making an effort to help conserve Thornback Rays.  The Thornback’s have been decreasing in numbers since the 1980’s so Rachel, her team and volunteer anglers are tagging rays in the name of conservation project RayWatch in the River Mersey and Liverpool Bay in order to track them. With this in mind perhaps Rachel should be dubbed Queen of the Thornbacks?

To get involved in RayWatch you can sponsor a ray, to do so either call 0151 478 4918 or visit www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/raywatch