Pictures from Steam

Warning : This is going to be a picture heavy post.

It's taken me a little while but I have finally been able to get blogger to co-operate and am able to share some of the pictures that I took at the steam museum on Wednesday. Looking at the pictures that I took and the ones I asked Mark to take I can see that there is hardly anything from the large engines that I thought might inspire me, which is quite surprising.

I apologise as some of these picture are at a funny angle I didn't really feel I could sprawl across the floor to take pics in the middle of the busy museum!

Wheels Engine Controls

Ventilation shaft

Face of weighing scales

Map of Highworth Junction (I love all the linear patterns)

Lantern from the replica 'North Star' (Loved the cross detail and the vibrant colour)

Rusty nuts and bolts from the boiler room

Abstract pattern on the front of a GWR notebook.

There were only a few textile items on display that I saw including some window blinds and a couple of uniforms that would have been worn by porters but these two things particularly captured my imagination....An intricate strap on the back of the door of one of the royal carriages.
Detail from the bottom of the strap

And this terrific abstract design covering a chair which was apparently used in a track inspection carriage (whatever one of those was!)

My favourite thing in the whole of the museum was something that was on display in the storeroom. The storeroom houses bits and pieces from the museums reserve collection, the things that would usually be in a warehouse and not on display and on a lot of these pieces there wasn't much explanation of what they were but I just loved this.Apparently its a fire station call out board used during World War Two. Very difficult to photograph though as it was on a shelf at a bit of a awkward height in a big glass cabinetDon't ask me why I like it so much, maybe it's the simplicity of the numbered pegs and the bright colours, there wasn't a huge amount of colour to be seen in the museum so maybe the magpie in me kept coming back to this little piece.I just want to say a huge thank you to Maggie and Kath for getting us free entry to the museum, and also to Mark for helping me getting these pictures. Some of them here are mine and some are his it would be too complicated and boring to credit each one but surfice to say the better quality ones are Marks :)

Now all I have to do is build on the possibilities presented by all these great items and try and translate at least one or two ideas into something which will form a piece for the exhibition ......