Tracy Spiers Professional Practice: Residency Day Two - understanding how the museum works

Gained a valuable insight today into the tremendous work that goes on behind the scenes of Stroud's Museum in the Park. There are currently some 5,000 artefacts on show, but this is only one tenth of the overall collection, which belongs to the Cowle Trust. In 1887 provision was made for a museum at the former School of Science and Art, an impressive building in Lansdown, Stroud. In 1897,William Cowle, a local businessman and landowner bequeathed £4,000 in his will to provide a museum for the town.

The building - Stratford Park Mansion House - and grounds - are owned by Stroud District Council, which maintains, runs the museum and pays staff wages. Museum development manager is Kevin Ward who is the overall general manager.

I spent a good seven hours looking, thinking and drawing objects today, but also took time out to chat with two of the Museum's four full-time staff, administrator Abigail Large and Learning Programmes Officer/deputy manager Ann Taylor to talk about the residency and to find out more about how the museum works.

They love the idea of "Where's Kitty?" and can see the project extending to become an adventure book, as well as a game that children can use to help them explore the museum. We chatted about the whole ethos of a museum, that it is not so much about the objects on display, rather it is how they engage with the people who look at them.

"The objects here represent the entire collection in a meaningful way. It's like a shop window to what there is behind the scenes, " explains Abigail.

As well as the public display, there is a reserve collection which comes out for research purposes, for example if someone is doing an academic paper on the history of lace, they can put a proposal to Alexia Clark, documentation and collections officer to see some examples. The Fisher Lace collection is not on display because it is too fragile, but Alexia recently brought out samples for individuals who were studying lace.

I also learnt today the long process involved to move an object within the museum and the endless logging that has to take place when someone brings in something to be identified or for donation.

Rob Orchard (Kitty and George's nephew), Kitty Ham, George Ham,
Marg Orchard and Janet Ham outside the Mansion House in 1949.

This photo donated by my mother Jan, is one of the museum's latest acquisitions. I had fresh respect for the collections officer when I heard the process involved.

"We worked it out that it is takes a minimum of eight minutes per object just to log the location of an object as it is moved. Everything must be tagged as we can be audited any time and is important we know where the objects are. There is a collections policy which defines what we collect and why. It must have a local providence. The objects may never get displayed, although sometimes they get showed in a temporary case and they have to go to the Trustees board," explains Ann Taylor.

The museum can not function without its strong bank of some 30 volunteers who help answer questions the public may have as they visit. There are also quite a large number of paid part-time staff including a visitor services manager, duty managers and visitor assistants.

To date there have been three artist residencies. I am the first to work within the museum as an illustrator. Let's hope I can produce something to give back to the museum not only as a legacy to my grandparents, but to encourage future generations to celebrate the wonderful stories that are on their doorstep.

MY DAY'S WORK

Valued listening to the public's thoughts on the things they were looking at as I drew. A grandmother and young granddaughter engaged in delightful conversation in the kitchen area in between the late Laurie Lee's soothing rustic voice giving wonderful snapshots of Slad life around his mother's dinner table as he attempted to hit the right notes on his violin. I looked at the lamps for a long while and allowed them to act as a catalyst for my imagination. Enjoyed chatting to volunteers and just reflecting and soaking in the museum's atmosphere. It's the longest I have sat still in a long time!