Making a Mermaid Museum

The Mermaid Museum

Buxton Museum Saturday  1st June

1 - 4pm

a merman seen as a flicker in the deep

 

our very own Museum Mermaid

A Mermaid Museum: alternative mermaids, fierce mermaids, shark spirits and exhibitions: help us remember the origins of the Museum Mermaid by making our own Mermaid Museum

 

The Vicotrians created their own mermaids out of bits and bones, wood, fish, monkey skin.....they improvised wildly. Today, we are inviting you to help us create out own Mer-folk Museum. there might be fossilised mermaids, preserved mermen, a merquarium. Ther emight be terrible tales of bravery and foul deeds on the high seas and devious entrapments in low swamps and by the end of it all we might deice our merpeople need to swim free.....

This is the last of the events in the half-fish festival. Visit here for details of earlier events in the mermaid tide that runs 30th May - 1 st June

 

Times: 1 - 4 pm

Venue: at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery

Materials provided

No booking needed just drop by and join in - allow 30 minutes for the activity

A BM125 event for Buxton Museum and part of the half.fish festival

merperson fossil?

 

a haunted town

The hauntings of Buxton

Buxton Opera House

October 2018

the company*

Two short workshops in Buxton Opera House last week as part of their spooky Hallowe'en season revealed all sorts of previously unknown horrors in the woods and streets of this old town….

mapping a haunted world

Take a walk through the wild woods of Buxton.
Slip behind the blood-dripping trees,
Past the witches’ broomstick ash,
Past the rocks, the ruins, the quarry,
Under the rocks, under the hill,
Lies a cave of bats and sharp stones, spiders and webs
And a cupboard in that cave is full of showroom dummies.
There will be a party there,
A party for bats and beasts and bogles, and you if you want to join in
But be careful!
Do not eat enchanted food, do not sip enchanted drinks,
Some cakes are chocolate with icing spiders but others are poisoned with bat poo

Keep going,
Keep going,
Don’t stop,
Through the spooky woods,
Past the twisted trees
Between the red-berried holly
And its fierce and spiky leaves
Down the long path
Through all the forest’s dangers
To the mysterious house
Where an old man waits
Dead for a thousand years and no-one has cut the grass in his garden in all that time

And beyond the woods
A ruined church waits
With a graveyard
Where the dead do not rest easy in their graves




On Hallowe’en night
When the rain drops red onto the green leaves of trees,
That’s when the bones walk




 

 A challenge
If you wait under the broomstick tree until those broomsticks are ripe they will fall like conkers or acorns. If you can catch one before it touches the ground when its magic instantly drains away, you could spend the night flying like the witches through the sky.


Our workshops were short and very full of ideas and drawing, talking, scribbling, making and performing so we didn’t get much time for our stars to pose on their sinister black carpet for photos. We sent our young puppeteers and storymakers back out into the wide world with words, stories, puppets and terrible deeds to tell of…

With many thanks to the puppeteers of the Theatrical Phantoms
workshops and to Buxton Opera House for getting it all going in the first place!

* if anyone does not want themselves to be seen in the photos, let me know

 

Summer stories at Carsington

Summer stories

Tales of wild creatures and adventurous children!

ready for stories

Wednesday 29th August

Carsington Water, Derbyshire

the smallest thought can become a story

There are adventures everywhere and stories waiting to be told, or tales waiting to be heard. In the wind whispering through the leaves, in the shadows under the bench, in the sudden splash of something in a pond.

I will be at CArsington Water on Wednesday 29th for a day of tales of brave hedgehogs and naughty rabbits, fierce mice and reckless beetles. We will tell a tale or two and then create our own, making brand new stories for ourselves out of leaves and weather and whatever we find

There will be short sessions through the day, so come along and join in, listen, laugh and create your own tales of excitement, adventure or maybe terror

When: Wednesday 29^th August

Where: Carsington Water, Ashbourne: DE6 1ST

Times: there will be sessions running 10am – 12noon, 1pm – 3pm: any one session of stories and making things up lasting about 45 minutes – but feel free to drop in and drop out as you will!

The activity is free but there is a fee for car parking

Materials provided

Meeting point: outdoor classroom area

Booking: none needed

This will be an event for the Derwent Stories project  run by Stone and Water and like all these events, Summer Stories is open to anyone who wants to join in but activities are structured around families with children with additional needs

Contact for more info: fb: Stone and Water

Email: stoneandwater@btinternet.com

Summer adventures

Over the summer months, my friends in  Stone and Water are hoping to arrange exciting events in different places as part of several projects

We cannot release definite dates and times yet as we are still waiting for funding to confirm but as the summer unfolds around us and flowers open and butterflies flutter, we wanted our friends out there to know that we haven’t forgotten you and to keep your eyes open for news!

All these activities will develop in conjunction with  Creeping Toad so events will be posted on Toadpages as well - so this is by way of a whetting of appetites - more details very soon!

Derwent Stories

Events across the Derwentwise area - more or less along valley of the River Derwent from Cromford to Derby

Events will range from art and storywalks to picnic days with time to make, think, draw and explore

These events will be free and open to everyone but their structure and activities will be aimed at young people with additional needs and their families

Partners: Umbrella and Derwentwise

 

 

 

Summer excitements

Events in the Southwest Peak area ranging from haymeadows in the Upper Dove Valley to picnics in Taxal and ghost stories and old buildings in the Moorlands

Partners: Southwest Peak, Dove Valley Centre

With the Derwent Stories and Summer excitements projects, we will post definite dates and details as soon as we can. These will be posted here and also on our facebook page

Buxton

And in Buxton, we will be part of the Festival Fringe again
Sunday 15^th July TINY! AN UNDERWATER WORLD
We are back as the Tiny! team for another day of making and laughter. Join us in creating a whole submarine world in our sea tent. Mermaids and monsters, sharks, dolphins and seahorses: who knows what will be wriggling in our seaweed? Join us in the Gardens near the young children’s playground.
11am to 3pm Free, Ages 2+

Thursday 19^th July LOST STORIES OF BUXTON Buxton secrets: help us invent the lost stories of Buxton. Join storyteller Gordon MacLellan for a morning (or afternoon) of secret passages, treasures, ghosts and adventures. Hear old stories and make up new ones, turning stories into storycastles and wonderwoods. No tickets needed. Drop by and join in. All materials provided.
Buxton Library 10:30am to 12:30pm, 1:30pm to 3:30pm Free

Saturday 21^st THE BUXTON PRIDE PICNIC Celebrate Queer Buxton (LGBT+ and friends!) with an afternoon of graceful silliness and frivolous strength. Bring your own exquisite nibbles, an umbrella or parasol if appropriate, and join us for a picnic as elegant as we can make it. Winner of last year's Spirit of the Fringe Award.
Pavilion Gardens – Swimming Pool Lawns 2pm to 5pm Free

With all these summer events, Stone and Water gratefully acknowledges support from The Bingham Trust

boxes of delights

House of Wonders, 

boxes of delights

Between 1926 and 1978, the Douglas House of Wonders in Castleton offered visitors a wonderful collection of curiosities from a motor that could fit into a thimble to the Lords’ Prayer written on a thread thin enough to pass through the eye of a needle. There were minerals, native spears, and a selection of locks and keys that were featured in the BBC’s A History of the World in 100 Objects. Randolph Douglas was also an accomplished escapologist who worked with Houdini but we’re not going to ask you to go down that path on this workshop!

an Insect Cabinet

Inspired by the original Douglas House of Wonders, we invited visitors to the Castleton Visitor Centre on Wednesday 6^th April to make their own Cabinets of Curiosity. Part of Buxton Museum’s Collections in the Landscape project, with events like these we aim to inform people about the links between the Museum Collection and the places in the Peaks where that collection comes from

Next event in this series: Up your street on June 2^nd: looking at old panoramic photos of Buxton streets and making our own streets (or other places) as pop-up landscapes: more details here  and on this blog soon

Victorian and Edwardian Cabinets of Curiosity were personal museums with collections that ranged from local fossils and shells to exotic trade beads and even shrunken heads from distant travels. In size, these Cabinets could be free standing glass display units or small glass-fronted cupboards mounted on a wall. In effect anything could become a “Cabinet” if it offered a space that could hold a selection of items. While at one level being simply collections of odd bits and pieces, Cabinets are also reflections of an individual’s interests and travels, offering glimpses into the interests and fascinations of Victorian society and the personal lives of their owners.

optimism

Starting with flat-pack cardboard boxes, we cut windows, added pictures (old copies of wildlife magazines mostly), chose compartments and generally got carried away. Some people pursued themes: there were a couple of seasonal Spring boxes, an insect cabinet an owl box and someone wanted one for his collection of teeth*.

Searching for Pizza, Pirates sailed the Seven Seas braving storms, giant waves and even the legendary Kraken. From Tortuga to the wild Malagasy shores, their pizza search carried the pirates to far, strange lands and in the end there was no pizza. Shipwrecked on Candy Island, they stayed there until their teeth fell out and they were rescued by some children on a school trip in a Boat-bus

 …and all that evolved during the making of a Pirate Cabinet

Find out more:

About Randolf Douglas and the Douglas Collection:

“Randini, the man who helped Houdini” by Ann Beedham, Youbooks, 2009

ISBN 9781905278299

About Cabinets of Curiosity: "Cabinet of Curiosities: collecting and understanding the wonders of the natural world" by Gordon Grice , Workman 2015 ISBN 978-0-7611-6927-7

* We did not enquire too deeply about just whose teeth these originally were

House of Wonders, public event

The House of Wonders

Wednesday 6th April

Castleton Visitor Centre

 a short expedition into the world 

of personal, portable museums

Between 1926 and 1978, the Douglas House of Wonders in Castleton offered visitors a wonderful collection of curiosities from a motor that could fit into a thimble to the Lords’ Prayer written on a thread thin enough to pass through the eye of a needle. There were minerals, native spears, and a selection of locks and keys that were featured in the BBC’s A History of the World in 100 Objects. Randolph Douglas was also an accomplished escapologist who worked with Houdini but we’re not going to ask you to go down that path on this workshop!

Inspired by the original Douglas House of Wonders museum in Castleton, join artists from Buxton Museum’s Collections in the Landscape project to make your own Cabinet of Curiosity or set out to find the lost scenes from Castleton.

Victorian and Edwardian Cabinets of Curiosity were personal museums with collections that ranged from local fossils and shells to exotic trade beads and even shrunken heads from distant travels. In size, these Cabinets could be free standing glass display units or small glass-fronted cupboards mounted on a wall. In effect anything could become a “Cabinet” if it offered a space that could hold a selection of items. While at one level being simply collections of odd bits and pieces, Cabinets are also reflections of an individual’s interests and travels, offering glimpses into the interests and fascinations of Victorian society and the personal lives of their owners.

We’ll use folding cardboard boxes as bases, cutting windows, adding acrylic sheets, hidden pictures and museum trays to make compartmented boxes to hold collections of small objects. You might go looking for shells and fossils, find a special leaf or a precious feather and store your mementos and souvenirs in your own portable museum.

There will also be a selection of period pictures to use, inviting you to explore Castleton and the Hope Valley and try to find those same places a century later. If you send us those 21^st century photos we will build a project Gallery of Changes

Send photos to: creepingtoad@btinternet.com

Where: Castleton Visitor Centre, Buxton Rd, Castleton, Hope Valley, S33 8WN

Times: 11 – 1 and 2 – 4: allow 45 minutes for your visit

Bookings? These sessions are free and no booking is needed, just drop by and join in. Car parking charges may apply

 

what would you put in your Cabinet?

(The two Cabinets here are from the Creeping Toad collections rather than anyone else's!)

Lost People and Marvellous Minerals

Lost People and Marvellous Minerals

events at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery

February 2016

visiting the Crescent in Buxton

We began with the people who used to live here, or might have lived here, or really should have lived here…and we ended up in kangaroos.

a villainous type, with staple scars

“Lost Peoples of the Peaks” built puppet characters inspired by the pictures around us on the walls of the Project Space at Buxton Museum. So we saw the elegant ladies of Haddon Hall, a deer that liked a woodland and some villainous types who loitered with pillage in mind in the caves of Dovedale.

There were wolves, too, and a cheerful rabbit and a remarkably stout mouse. And from somewhere a kangaroo hopped into the picture. We claimed it was the last of the Roaches Wallabies (if you have never heard of them then that is a sad story for another day). Explaining away the elephant was harder.

 

she wandered off among the wild rocks and tumbling streams

precision work

There were crystals of amethyst and citrine and delicately pink rose quartz. We wondered at the weight of galena and the glow of Blue John and tried to trick each other with Fool’s Gold. We met salty halite and the delicate strangeness of mica. We marvelled at minerals and took those inspirations to fashion our own crystal pictures. In an explosion of glue, tissue and cellophane, visitors made their own sheets of translucent crystal pictures. As precise as chemists, we measured out borax or alum or copper sulphate and armed with sachets of chemical and instructions,  our mineralogists have gone home to try to grow their own crystals. Hopefully, photos will follow….there are hearts and stars, snowflakes and scorpions crystalising around pipecleaners all over the Peaks this evening. It doesn’t always work!

Events at Buxton Museum

17^th February: Lost People of the Peaks

18^th February: Marvellous Minerals

There are  more events coming:

Check in at the Museum website

Or on the Collections in the Landscape blog for the next adventures

Many thanks to all our hard working, imaginative 

and very patient visitors! 

We pushed the Project Space to a limit these two days

The Last of the Wonders

The Last of the Wonders

Wednesday 23^rd December

10am – 1pm

Buxton Museum and Art Gallery

have you stared into ancient forests?

Have you visited the Wonders before?

If not, why not make this your first visit! If you have wandered through the galleries before, join us for a last visit before the Exhibition is closed for a shakedown and a refit.

have you growled with the Bear?

What do you like? 

What have you relished over the years? 

Or what has made your skin creep!  

or seen the hungry hyena?

The bear and the beasts and the bones? 

A grinning mermaid in a glass case? 

A delicate Blue John window. 

Memories of plague and the Eyam Cross. 

Roman treasures and the wonder of polished black Ashford Marble?

Join us for a morning of tales and memories

Listen to old tales from the Peaks.

Share your own stories with us, draw a card to keep and leave us notes, comments and pictures in our “Book of the Wonders”. 

• The event is free and materials are provided
• No booking needed, just drop by and join in - but give yourself at least 30 minutes to get things done
• Children of 7 and under should bring a grown-up with them so we can scare the adults with the Bear....
• Buxton Museum, Terrace Rd, Buxton, SK17 6DA
• find out more about the Collections in the Landscape project here

• 
  

  wave! the Mermaid is watching!

exciting wintry events

A cold season of creative wildness

family events in December 2015

 Winter comes rolling in with our first snow here in Buxton and as the hills are beautifully white and the trees black as old bones, here at Creeping Toad we are gearing up for some lovely December excitements!

4 events are planned – details for all follow

Sunday 13^th December, at the Green ManGallery

Hardwick Square South, Buxton

10.30 – 12: Wintry Landscapes, 10 - 1

4.00 -5.30pm Stories for a Winter Afternoon, 4 – 5.30

Sunday 20^th December , Mystery and Mulled Wine, stories for grown-ups,  at the Green ManGallery, Hardwick Square South, Buxton, 7pm – 9 (ish)

Wednesday 23^rd December, The Last of the Wonders, at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery, 10 – 1

The Last of the Wonders: an event marking the closure (for refurbishment) of the delicious Wonders of the Peak exhibition in the museum. Details will follow but activities will include storytelling to suit the different rooms of the exhibition and the chance to draw your own postcards of favourite pieces of the display – the Bear? The bones? The mermaid? The Blue John window? And to leave us postcard messages of what you like best – or least – of the display

MORE DETAILS

Wintry Landscapes

Sunday 13^th December

10.30 – 12.00

Add an individual touch to your festive decorations!

Join me for a session building some exquisite Midwinter creations

We might

• capture a scatter of presents, or leaves, feathers and colours, or even a tiny castle on a bottle lantern
• play with card and colour, pictures and trees building a pop-up world of snowmen and frozen pools, of lost castles among dark mountains, of reindeer flying through a starry sky….

Get carried away with a display lantern of trees and palaces, rivers and bridges and children iceskating into an adventure

During the session, we will make

• a bottle lantern
• at least one small pop-up card
• a larger pop-up landscape
• maybe a round display lantern

This will be a deliciously messy, delightfully creative session, giving you the chance to learn quick techniques and go away with your own wintry landscapes and the skills to make more

Places are limited, you need to book a ticket

Cost: £6.00 per person (supporting grown-ups go free)

Activities suitable for 5 years and over, 7s and under need to bring their own grow-up with them

Materials provided (but if you’d like to bring a washed, empty plastic bottle that could add to the mix (500 ml - 2l are best)

Phone 01298 937375

email hello@thegreenmangallery.com or call in to book. Card payments can be taken over the phone.

4.00 - 5.30pm Stories for a Winter Afternoon

Cheerfully chilly stories of the first Christmas Tree, the wren and the robin, the secrets of Christmas feasts and work with me to mix natural materials, wonderful treasures and strange characters into the first telling of the Buxton Winter Tale

Places are limited, you need to book a ticket

Cost: £6.00 per person (supporting grown-ups go free)

Stories suitable for 5 years and over (and maybe younger), 7s and under need to bring their own grow-up with them

Phone 01298 937375

email hello@thegreenmangallery.com or call in to book. Card payments can be taken over the phone.

Sunday 20^th December , at the Green Man Gallery

Hardwick Square South, Buxton

Mystery and Mulled Wine 7pm – 9 (ish)

The Winter Solstice brings seasonal storytelling for grown-ups by Gordon MacLellan and Helen Appleton.
From cheerful trolls to deep winter cold, from the downright silliness of a Trickster tale to the rich images of an old English adventure, join Helen and Gordon for an atmospheric evening to get your Midwinter off to a warming start

Tickets: £7.50 (with a free glass of mulled wine) Further refreshments available

Phone 01298 937375

email hello@thegreenmangallery.com or call in to book. Card payments can be taken over the phone.

This is a storytelling session for an adult audience which doesn’t mean the stories will be particularly racy or outrageous but themes and images may not suit a younger audience. There is a storytelling session at The Green Man for families on December 13th.

 

Wednesday 23^rd December, The Last of the Wonders, at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery, 10 – 1,

The Last of the Wonders: an event marking the closure (for refurbishment) of the delightful Wonders of the Peak exhibition in the museum. Activities will include storytelling to suit the different rooms of the exhibition and the chance to draw your own postcards of favourite pieces of the display – the Bear? The bones? The mermaid? The Blue John window? And to leave us postcard messages of what you like best – or least – of the display

This event is free, just drop by and join in!