YAG Workshop, Thursday 30 May 2013

In this YAG workshop, the Youth Advisors spent the morning making flowers for the Garden of England exhibition by Alice Kettle in the Queen's House. They worked with Louise Simkiss, Adult Programmes Manager at National Maritime Museum, to make their own pieces from fabrics. In the afternoon, we visited one of the Museum's stores to learn about naval uniforms with Amy Miller, Curator of Decorative Arts & Material Culture.

Louise talking about The Garden of England

Youth Advisors making their own flowers

Learning about uniforms with Amy, including Nelson's uniform

We started by visiting the exhibition and looking at the flowers in the artwork to inspire our own pieces

 

We made sketches of ones that we liked

 



Isobel sketching

Piarve and Mercedes sketching

Fatim sketching

Amy and Isobel

Tina

Callum and Piarve

 

We then went to the Orangery in the Queen's House to make our own. It was difficult to use the synthetic fabrics but we each made at least one piece. One Youth Advisor commented that 'it was good to pick out our own patterns'

Youth Advisors with their finished pieces:

Fatim

Callum

Amy

Davina

Mercedes

Piarve

Tina

 



After making flowers, we had lunch and then went on the Museum's minibus to one of the Museum stores to see the naval uniforms kept behind the scenes. Amy Miller gave us a tour of naval uniforms from 1740. The Youth Advisors said, 'It was interesting to see how the outfits changed in the 18th and 19th Century, and it was interesting to find out about men's fashion and the weird things that they did', including exercising on mini spring trampolines to work out their calves.

Visiting the Museum stores

Amy showing us the very first Naval uniforms. The men had to buy them with their own money, nad they were very heavy. This one is from 1748 and is the oldest in the collection

These are waistcoats from 1740s also

Amy showing the Youth Advisors how the jackets were lined

We learnt about nelson and got to see the jacket he wore at the battle of the Nile in 1798. One Youth Advisor said, 'The Battle of the Nile was interesting to hear about and Amy told us in a way that will stick in our minds'

This is Nelson's jacket that he wore during the Battle of the Nile in 1798. He was very small and underweight from the stress of the Battle.

Amy showed us only one arm was lined, as he had lost his right arm in battle in 1797

 

You can see the hook on the right cuff, to hook onto the central buttons

We can still see the marks from his powdered and waxed ponytail!

This portrait was made after the Battle of the Nile

This coat is from 1843