Hi, it has been a while since I have written one of these blog posts. Back in spring last year I was on a work placement, working alongside staff at South Shields Museum and Art Gallery and the Discovery Museum, as part of my studies at Newcastle University. Since completing the eight-weeks of the placement, I finished my master’s degree in Art Museum and Gallery Studies and got a job at The Biscuit Factory gallery in Newcastle, where I still currently work as a curatorial assistant.

Over the couple of months, I have been volunteering one day per week here at South Shields Museum, in order to complete an exhibition that I began to curate as part of my work placement. ‘Watercolour Treasures’ is currently open, where it is on display across the museums’ Stairwell and First Floor Corridor Galleries. Over 20 works from South Shields’ collection will be featured. Through the works that have I selected for the exhibition I have aimed to try and show some of the history of South Shields. For example, in ‘Market Place after the Blitz’ by Albert Ernest Black we are shown the wreckage caused by the incendiary bomb which fell onto a gasometer in 1941.

TWCMS : G5791 from the South Shields Museum & Art Gallery collection

Many of the art works, including this one…

TWCMS: G4522 from the South Shields Museum & Art Gallery collection

…act as records which map the change from sail to steam-powered ships, over the 1800s. In the image above, the artist has included three different types of ship: sailing collier, paddle steamer, and screw propeller steamship.

It has been fantastic seeing this exhibition through to completion,  from conception to tweaking the final touches. I would like to thank Adam Bell for offering me guidance, creative freedom, and the opportunity to come back to see ‘Watercolour Treasures’ through to completion.