Attendant's View Blog and Cartoons

The woad to Mary Rose, via MERL. AKA daft museum tweets.

13/3/2020

Some parts of the internet are just awful, little breeding pits for spite and horror. But then, you find those gems, those people or accounts who are just smart, supportive, informative, or plain old silly.

You may know of the Museum of English Rural Life as the twitter account where the staff, being allowed to have some fun, ended up with an absolute unit of a sheep go viral. It was unusual to say the least. The Mary Rose twitter people are also allowed some leeway for levity, bringing personality to their account. Attendant's VIew, urm, does what it likes, there's no managerial oversight here, just me spouting nonsense and ocassinally getting insenced at things.

Fine folks, let me take you on a journey with The Mary Rose...

https://twitter.com/TheMERL/status/1237022027040595969

A quick update - I am still alive!

9/3/2020

I'm not gone, just kind of busy, and also a bit demotivated... which is why the website has been without a new blog since the end of January, and I'm struggling to draw cartoons.

Because "They're cutting our funding again/the trustees are arguing with the council/staff have had to go on strike to be heard." are just not things I want to put to paper. Perhaps I really should (you folks have previously said very much yes to my creating cartoons about the crap side of things, such as this one here)

I may dig into my stash of amusing and adorable and positive things, and get some warm and fuzzy cartoons done - Heck, a bit of cheer can't hurt to remind us why we all do what we do. 🌈

As ever, a reminder that you can drop me your real life incidents by message here, or on social media and I will keep things confidential, and change as many details as you think appropriate in any cartoons drawn. (or flat out draw you as you in that situation, if you want me to!)

Three museum blogs to follow for 2020

22/1/2020

I you fancy some extra food for thought in 2020, I have three blogs and peeps for you heritage and museum bods to give a follow, and get some fantastic content popped right to your inboxes.

My first bit of advice is to get signed up to Museum 2.0. When this excellent blog appears into my email it's always worth a read. It sometimes challenges my preconceptions, often asks questions which I can apply to myself, my work or venue, and is a very engaging site, taking the discussion to twitter, and bringing in quotes from folks chatting on there.

http://museumtwo.blogspot.com/

Tutankamun at the Saachi Gallery: A Live Tweeted Review.

11/12/2019

I never really had an "Egyptology" stage as a kid, despite always being interested in history and archaeology, but I certainly understand why it has an enduring mass appeal.

A few weeks ago I went to the Tutankamun: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh exhibition at Saachi Gallery, because my travelling companion wanted a gander, and I figured that it would be interesting to see some very unique items, and also to see how the exhibition itself measured to the hype.

Oh there is hype. This is absolutely a "blockbuster" exhibition, proudly trumpeting in it's sales copy the record-breaking volume of visitors in other countries, and stressing the likelihood of tickets selling out.

I decided that rather than try to compile my thoughts into a review afterward (which would mean, realistically, I'd never get round to it), I'd drop a few live tweets to capture my thoughts and feelings as I went round.

Here are the compiled tweets in one spot for you!

The Exhibition continues in London to Sunday 3rd May 2020.

Size Matters

29/11/2019

This was a thing of beauty.
They stood, seemingly engrossed in the details of the famous painting.
Entranced it appeared.
Staring in silence.
And then this.

Topical AND Cheap

19/9/2019

Huge respect to the various arts and crafts events organisers making the most of making things without much to start off with.

Mistaken Identity

29/8/2019

When I read about this, I instantly had a flashback to a similar an instance with a teacher and a full class of 30 kids, which I may now be tempted to render in cartoon....

We'll always need you

1/8/2019

This is absolutely, utterly, not a dig at the many thousands of volunteers without whom so many venues and services wouldn't be able to remain open and functioning.

This is a conglomerate of the tales I have been told where volunteer staffing has increased, and the existing paid staff have suffered with mismanaged hand overs, miscommunication and outright false promises.

Paid staff with years of expertise, experience, stores of knowledge, thousands of pounds of education, seeing their positions packaged into chunks and those chunks handed over to volunteers (some of whom also posses all those qualities, yet can't get paid work) until they are left staffing tills, cleaning, and providing security detail. Paid staff reassuringly told that "we won't be replacing you, you will still have a job!" and slowly finding that their role now only features the tasks that managers can't attract volunteers to.

Yes, many venues need the voluntary help, but it has to be properly, honestly, decently managed.

Museum Dates

11/7/2019

The State of Things - Something Rotten

19/6/2019

It’s been a bit quiet around here, and I feel it’s worth explaining, rather than just letting the dust gather.
The reasons are threefold really.

I’ve not been out front of house as much, and tales about spreadsheets and exhibition design aren’t quite as appealing.
I’ve been busy, and time to sit and draw properly, or snatch time in work to doodle rapidly, hasn’t been easy to manage.
Finally, so many of the tales submitted by the contact form, or relayed to me by peers, are just, in a word, depressing.

I’m told less and less about the fantastic kids a FOH worker dealt with, or the comedic actions of colleagues, and more and more about the frustrations. The sad side of staff feeling undervalued, overworked and under-resourced by an increasingly financially squeezed workplace. Or outright redundant, and now scrabbling for one of the few paid roles remaining.