Museum and Art Gallery, Reading, Berkshire

On the Saturday morning of our stay in Reading daughter D dropped me off outside Reading Town Hall so that I could visit the Museum and Art Gallery which is within this building.  It's a building that I used to spend time in when we lived in Reading, firstly as a child looking around the exhibition rooms and the children's library, (the library was there before the new central library was built), going to events in the concert hall and where Mr P and I had our wedding reception in one of the function rooms.  My father also worked in one of the municipal offices before the new civic offices were built to serve Reading Borough. Then I took my own children and grandchildren to the museum, which has now been refurbished, re-arranged to appeal to today's families and individuals. Mr P was one of those who worked on the latest refurbishment of the galleries.  He has also worked on other historical buildings and business parks in the Home Counties and London You can read more about Reading Town Hall here.

The schoolchildren had been having fun over the half term holiday learning about the history of food. The banqueting table and the paper, pâpier-maché or cardboard covered in crepe paper items looked impressive.  Thank goodness the swan and the boar's head haven't been served at a banquet for many a day and the swan, like many other creatures, is a protected bird!

The Reading Guild of Artists (group of professional and amateur artists in the Berkshire area) were putting on the 89th Annual Exhibition so I looked in on that.

Here is a selection of the exhibits and some of those that caught my eye.

3D works - Lobster by Shirley Smith, bowls by Carole Stephens

Sonning Lock Weir by Clare Buchta

View From Grey's Court by Gill Goodwin

Hospitium by Linda Saul

There's a lot more to see in the different rooms such as the replica of the Bayeux Tapestry, the history of  the Huntley and Palmer Biscuit enterprise and the history of Reading and surrounding area in general which I'll share another time.

I'll leave you with the pretty Venetian and Bohemian Glass items that were in the cabinets in one of the entrance halls.

Joining Riitta's Friday Bliss #27 linkup

Five on Friday

Joining Amy for the Five on Friday link-up, I'm sharing some photo images taken this week when Mr. P. and I travelled to Derby to have a look around Derby Museum and Art Gallery. (This was my first long outing for quite a few weeks, but Derby is only just over an hour away from where we live travelling by car so it was manageable).  There's an open art exhibition on until 25th September called Everyone - Your Place In The World which we wanted to see as our daughter-in-law and some other artists that we know have their work on display.

I liked the way the artwork had been hung according to themes and colour, had been done by artists of all ages and demonstrated so much creative talent.

I particularly liked the artwork above because of the colours of orange and blue.

We also looked around some of the other galleries. One of them had a display of eclectic items inspired by the natural world. An information note said ........"figures of fierce lions to delicate depictions of butterflies the animal and insect world has been a rich source of inspiration for these objects"........

Beautiful 19th century ceramics such as delicate porcelain and quirky stoneware figurines were on display.

An interesting cameo brooch. Next to it was a display of carved stone flowers and birds that were ready for inlaying into Ashford-in-the-Water black marble then made into items of jewelry at the workshop in this Derbyshire village.

There's so much to see in the Derby Museum and Art Gallery and as it was such a quick visit I hope that we shall be able to return some time to see the other important collections on display there.

Linking with Barbara's Paint Monthly