Kia ora katoa

its Te Wiki O Te Reo Maori and there are no macrons on blogspot! We should start a campaign!

What a huge day we have had; we had planned to move the framed works from their off-site storage to the museum in a controlled fashion that allowed us to check, sort, collate and condition report each object, but when we set off to do this we found half of the glass in the door had been kicked in so we had to move everything in that storage facility out today. Now all the framed works are propped up and lining the walls of the gallery, waiting to be sorted, cleaned, checked, collated and condition reported - suddenly the task seems huge! But, it is like eating an elephant - so one bite at a time...............

We do have some gems in the collection and I am looking forward to seeing them free of dust, bubble wrap and tyvek - there are some real curiousities such as World War II cartoons drawn on old cardboard boxes and nailed to rough wooden frames. I have to figure out how to conserve these whilst retaining their innate character and special qualities - collection management is replete with such conundrums.

Bookworms and art lovers, fans of Taranaki and museum friends - this is the last opportunity to buy a raffle ticket. If you would like two chances to win luscious books on Taranaki; get back to me asap at kristelle.plimmer@stdc.govt.nz or phone the museum on 06 273 8354.
Raffle is drawn on Friday morning under police supervision. Proceeds go to support the exhibition design development so be in to win!

Here's what the books look like:

I shall look forward to hearing from you by close of play Thursday

ka kite

Kristelle, museum curator.

book book book!!!

Kia ora


last post I mentioned that we are short of funds - well we are having a raffle, not that one raffle will cover the costs of designing and installing the exhibitions, but every penny counts! First prize is six luscious books about Taranaki and second prize is five luscious books about Taranaki.

The complete list of titles for the first prize is: Te Ara Tapu - Sacred Journeys: Whanganui Regional Museum Taonga Maori Collection, Taranaki Fortunes: Lost and Won, Te Maunga Taranaki - Views of a Mountain, Taranaki Stories, Len Lye, The Sacred Hart - Terry Urbahn.
Second Prize is: Taranaki Whenua - Life Blood Legacy,  Taranaki Fortunes: Lost and Won, Taranaki Culture - Fresh Out of the Box, With Spirit - Don Driver, a Retrospective, Ann Shelton - A Kind of Sleep.

Tickets cost $5.00 and there are 400 tickets in total.
The raffle will be drawn under police supervision on Friday July 30.
Let me know how many tickets you wish to buy - kristelle.plimmer@stdc.govt.nz or phone 06 273 8354

Happy Thursday
Kristelle

P.S. There is a mystery prize for whoever sells the most tickets, so I am counting on all of you to buy a ticket from me!

Kia ora katoa

it has been a fabulous week weatherwise - calm, clear and cold with heavy frosts since Sunday......the most delicious aspect of winter. Te maunga, Taranaki has been looking absolutely majestic and the frost has frozen the plants around the Aotea Memorial in Patea. These pictures were taken on Tuesday, July 13, about 7.45am - brrrr!

What's happening at the museum this week? Well, today is judging for the Building of the Year Awards so we have been cleaning and polishing in order for the building to look its shining and beautiful best. Right now there is a faint scent of furniture polish and glass cleaner pervading the otherwise empty galleries. Exhibition development is proceeding and, although it can seem agonisingly slow, it takes time to create stunning exhibitions, particularly when your collection is a range of the gloriously random and the outright eclectic!

The other component of exhibition development that we are sorely missing is funds. Marie, the secretary of the Museum Trust Board is a whizz at writing funding applications but so far we have come up with - nothing. There are more applications out there that we have not had a response on yet, but we are in dire need of money if we are to get the exhibitions on the floor by the end of November. All donations gratefully received!

If you have any suggestions  on how we might solve this dilemma, or if you have recently won Lotto and are feeling generous, please get in touch - 06 273 8354 or email: kristelle.plimmer@stdc.govt.nz

ka kite
Kristelle

Kia ora katoa.

There is so much to do to get this museum open - exhibition development is challenging at the best of times, but when large parts of the collection are still in boxes and the roof on your collection storage area leaks it is downright frustrating. What to do? Well, we decided to fix the roof so, having scrounged a large pile of "good" second hand corrugated iron and a couple of sheets of long run roofing we peered at the sky and declared Saturday June 19 to be the day.

Fortified with coffee and cheese scones we lifted the old leaky roof and replaced it, sheet by sheet with new or nearly new non-leaky roof. The team worked brilliantly; no one fell off or through - which is a good thing as they would have most likely landed on a precious collection item and damaged it - and we finished the day with three-quarters of a new roof.

Here's the crunch - we need another 52 metres of material to complete the job, so if anyone out there has good quality roofing iron to spare, please can we have it? We can collect it and you will be rewarded for your generosity - you will be suffused with a warm glow that comes from knowing you have done a good thing!

I can almost certainly promise you a very waggy response from our site supervisor who spent the day on the ground keeping a close eye on things!

To contact us with news of your generous donation call 06 273 8354 or email me on kristelle.plimmer@stdc.govt.nz

It has rained an awful lot since our working bee and I am pleased to report that we have not had any leaking from the new roof - so our work is proving worthwhile; gosh, we might even get the collection unpacked sometime soon................ 

ka kite ano

Kristelle Plimmer, Curator. Aotea Utanganui - Museum of South Taranaki