YAG Workshop, Tuesday 02 April 2013

Today the Youth Advisors met with Amy Miller, Curator of Decorative Arts & Material Culture, Research & Curatorial at Royal Museums Greenwich, and Louise Simkiss, Adult Learning Manager. Joan and Piarve tell us about what they got up to...

Meeting in the Queen's House with Amy Miller

  

 

Amy and Louise talked to us about the Alice Kettle Garden of England exhibition inspired by the flamboyant Tudor and Stuart eras and then we moved on to the National Maritime Museum to see the extraordinary Yinka Shonibare's 'Nelson's Ship in a Bottle' which is inspired by Nelson's flagship Victory and Batik textiles ad well as European history and African culture. I found exploring different materials and different techniques to create materials interesting. Understanding how different cultures wore fabrics and interpreted colours was interesting. We also got an introduction to the Silver Arts Award.

Reviews of Alice Kettle's The Garden of England (in the Queen's House until 18 August 2013)

Mercedes Thompson

 

Alice Kettle’s ‘The Garden of England’ is an exhibition in The Queen’s House, taking inspiration from the historical figures around Greenwich.  The first part of the exhibition I went to see was the ‘Flower Helix’ on the Tulip Staircase.  I learnt that the artist was not Kettle alone, but also her students, who had helped to create the beautiful flowers for this wonderful piece. I also visited ‘The Flower Bed’, an installation made of synthetic fabrics with the exception of wool, due to the fabric-eating insects beneath the floorboards.  I really liked this piece because the colours were rather vibrant; I also thought that Kettle’s idea of incorporating patterns from the clothing of royal figures, such as Elizabeth I, was quite unique.  The last piece I saw was a stitch of ‘Queen Henrietta Maria’, which I found amazing as it had a lot of texture and a broad range of colours.  The exhibition was excellent, and I appreciated that Kettle and her students had made a variety of different flowers for the visitor to take away as a souvenir.

My review will be shared through the blog, and I thoroughly enjoyed sharing my experience of this exhibition through writing this review.  The evidence I have for my attendance at this event will be in the form of photos.

Youth Advisory Group Meeting, Sunday 14 October 2012

Youth Advisors, Henry and Clemmie, share what we got up to in our last meeting:

We fit a lot into this session. We played some fairly successful icebreaker games, did some admin, discussed the qualities we look for in a volunteer and had a tour of the Queen's House.

Icebreaker games, led by Isobel

The tour was really enjoyable. The tour guide described the history of the House. It was especially interesting to learn that it was once a place where boys learnt to be sailors and there was a ship outside where they'd stay for weeks at a time.

Royal Hospital School training ship 'Fame' (1933)

It was interesting to look around the beautiful buildings and at the art. It was also interesting sharing the characteristics we look for in a volunteer as it was clear we had lots of ideas, not all of which were realistic!

Group work, thinking about volunteers

 Group work, thinking about volunteers

 

We agreed that we liked the YAG blog and felt it represented the Group well. We also filled in a skills audit and agreed that it would be good to learn ICT skills, money management and teamwork. Next time we are meeting the artist we're working with for Takeover Day

 

Abs and Bryn heading to the Queen's House