The Mary Greg blog has moved

If you are looking for the blog on Mary Greg go to.
http://www.marymaryquitecontrary.org.uk

when you have found it mark the page as this blog will be removed soon.

Roll of paper

We went to see some more of Mary Greg's treasures at the start of summer.
One of the objects we found is this roll of paper in a metal tube.
The paper turned and gave glimpses of hand writing on paper that refused to unroll.
I have been making similar objects for shopping lists...one for every weekly shopping trip.

Doubling up

I don't think wordpress is pulling all new posts off this site - just added a comment to marymary in wordpress and noticed that Sharon and Alex's posts here don't appear there. Hope this isn't going to cause problems - we've got two blogs going at the same time. Have you worked out how to add a post Hazel? I've got everyone's log ins, created by Martin, which I can email to you or tell you over the phone if you give me a call.

Looking forward to seeing you all next week, Alex and I are spending the day working out how to catalogue the letters on our collections database tomorrow. Really looking forward to it!

Sharon gets blogging!

Surprise!!

I am up and blogging with a little help from my nearest and dearest, all to save Liz a trip out to my house at some unearthly hour. It wasn't too traumatic. To mark the occasion I am posting this image of one of my favourite keys from the collection, a key was also where Mary's collection began as I discovered in one of the letters.

Nov 10th, 1928
"Dear Mr Batho..."
"I began by buying a key which interested me by its fine work – a friend said ‘oh’ I have an old key I do not want you shall have it & so on till my collection as you know is a most valuable one."

Delighted that we have a date for the exhibition, and that it will be at The Gallery of Costume, Platt Hall. As Mary says in the same letter...

"I think of Platt Hall with more pleasure than any other of the Manchester Museums."

...how appropriate!

Curatorial anxiety - as promised

Hmm. On the subject of Crompton's cotton threads and their changing status. One minute they're the first threads from the mule, a truly momentous find, and we're speechless with discovery. Then the dates prove impossible and they're still fab, still curious, but we're slightly disappointed that they're probably not what we thought they were. Then, hang on a minute, a curator from another museum provides a bit of information and we're back on - they COULD be the real thing. I really want them to be, I'll believe it to be true. A curator said so. Well, he didn't actually, he just gave me a bit of info about Crompton's grandson. The weight of curatorial responsibility. The source of curatorial anxiety. If I say it is so, then it is so. Museums tell the truth.

Mary?

I have now carefully read twelve years of correspondence between Mrs. Greg and Manchester City Art Gallery staff and I have enjoyed the formal and polite language that they use. It is so much of its day, and you can tell instantly from the phrasing, as well as the layout and typography that these letters could not possibly have been written now... This extends to what they call each other. It is never Mary, or William - but always Mrs. Greg and Mr. Batho. She even signs herself M.Greg, never Mary...

Maybe we should rename the site!?

Photographs from the Mary Greg flickr collection