PAINTED MILK BOTTLES AND DISCARDED DISPOSABLE LIGHTERS

Sunday saw a very popular couple of collectors displaying their treasures at Collectors' Corner.

James Kedge had brought along his collection of 81 painted (or rather printed) milk bottles which he had begun collecting in the 1970s when the milkman delivered the first one and he thought it was attractive.

Penny Hobson was showing her collection of used disposable lighters all collected from the beach in Bexhill and which she arranged in the colours of the rainbow on the table in the interactive area. Penny also brought along photos of the lighters she had taken together with documentation of her archiving activities including maps of where the items had been found and individual labels for each one with the detail of a thumbnail image on them of the object concerned.

The milk bottles formed a very pretty line along the top of the low partition wall collecting the light from the windows and drawing in visitors' eyes as they approached the end of Gallery One.

Advertising anything from Mars Bars to The Samaritans they were fascinating to consider as such ordinary yet distinctive objects from everyday life. People liked looking at their detail, the fonts and colours used specific to the particular era in which they had been made and remembering when they too had been in possession of similar bottles.

A lot of discussion arose around the two collections often concerning why the collectors had chosen to collect these things in particular, although all seemed to agree that they had their own charm and fascination.

It was the first time that Jim had displayed his collection as a whole apart from in his home and for Penny it was an opportunity to try out an idea for a forthcoming art exhibition. Jim's bottles usually live wrapped up in paper in two large cardboard boxes in the loft and Penny's lighters take their place amongst the other flotsam and jetsam that she amasses on her walks along the beach. Both enjoyed sharing their enthusiasm with others and for visitors it was a unique chance to admire such disparate objects in relation to each other and to talk to their owners about their passion.

Burger Bites and Dreamy Shepherdesses

The cool modernism of the De La Warr Pavilion continues to be disturbed by the rush of bustling stuff and the apparent chaos of Tamoko Takahashi’s ephemera fuelled exhibition. This afternoon’s Collectors Corner was a further ruffle to the rectilinear calm of Gallery One when Dave Valentine and Louise Kenward brought in their respective collections to show a large and enthusiastic crowd.

Between the ages of 5 and 7 Dave rigorously gathered as many types of crisp and savoury snack packet as he could and stored them away in scrap books and plastic sleeves and only recently (25 years later) rediscovered them in his father’s loft. For Dave and for many of the thrilled visitors the nostalgic appeal of the 250 packets was hugely enjoyable and stimulated much debate about the designs and colours of the packets graphics and the differing flavours and shapes of the actual snacks. About 100 people drifted in throughout the afternoon and many were surprised and delighted to recall favourite snacks and fond memories of particular brands, including oddities such as Burger Bites, Ringos, Wheat Crunchies, Discos, Piccolos, and Crunchy Waffles. These plastic and brightly coloured packets counterbalanced the creamy smooth porcelain of Louise’s collection of whimsical figurines - little princesses, dancing Louis Quatorze style figures, and misty eyed maidens collected from local charity shops, all sitting calmly in front of Takahashi’s explosive garden shed piece. Louise started collecting her figurines four years ago when she moved to Bexhill and the appeal for her lies in their peculiar and ironic nature, as well as their ability to suggest a previous life with different owners who must once have loved them.

When asked the visitors too has weird and wonderful collections, though often they were dismissed as ‘nothing much’. Personal collections included obvious items like fridge magnets, rubbers, soap, badges, model die cast busses to the more unusual lego box instructions, nice tasteful pigs, Care Bears, and KLM airline Dutch pottery houses containing gin plus the man who has spent 40 years collecting crisp/snack packets from all over the world and now had 3,000 items – all kept under his daughters bed.

The most pleasurable aspect of the whole afternoon was the real and tangible enthusiasm of both the collectors and the audience and the fact that these 2 collections attracted interest from all sorts of people of all ages.

Collecting ideas

A quieter Saturday than some of the previous ones, in part due - apparently - to the Airbourne show at Eastbourne, and in part due to the sun coming out as the afternoon went on - by late afternoon the view outside was irresistible, and most people headed outside to enjoy the return of our summer. Prior to that though it was another great session, with a wide range of people exploring the value of objects, in relation to the art on display, to their own lives, and in relation to ideas. Today's focus was on collecting words, descriptions and ideas, and highlighted a range of reactions to the work. One lady spoke of her "painful" response to Clockwork, as it spoke very directly to her of her personal circumstances, of the chaos that her disability often caused in her life and the way it ate so much time out of her life. I was struck by how moving she found the work, and the levels of interpretation this exhibtion can sustain. Another group - this time young archeologists - referred to the obvious archeological aspect of the pieces - the ways Takahashi shapes a story out of what is discarded or considered "throwaway", but that those stories are to be excavated, they are found within the layers of debris. Using play to identify what "stuff' is of value in people's lives has been illuminating, as has been the ways in which people decide where the value of the exhibits lies. One gent came striding through mid-way through the afternoon in search of the crisp packet collection, which is actually showing tomorrow (Sunday) but due to an error in the paper had been advertised for today also. He was full of purpose as he strode in and I was struck by the lovely idea of a collection of crisp packets generating such a physical response. Objects do indeed have great power, symbolic and otherwise, and the value and meaning in them is endlessly open to interpretation and utterly subjective. In our activities today some people's most valuable object was their Bible, for others it was an inexpensive brooch, or a little china bluebird, or Granny's biscuit barrel - what other people would dimiss as junk. The most potent art it would seem in this exhibition has been the power to make people examine their own relationships to the objects that make up the literal and metaphorical "stuff' of their lives.

1980's Crisp Packet collector creating a media storm...

As part of our Collectors' Corner season, we have Dave Valentine's 1980's Crisp Packet collection coming to the De La Warr Pavilion on Sunday 15th August at 2:30pm.

A media storm has been created and everyone seems to be talking about it...

Have a look at the following stories and get yourself down to the Pavilion on Sunday to see the collection and hear the talk for yourself! Click here for more information on the event.

The Sun

The Metro

Argus - Bexhill man's crisp bag collection

Newsround - man has £10,000 crisp collection

Studentbeans - crisp packets worth £10,000

Plus it has been on BBC Breakfast News and many other sites.


Here are some of the Twitter Comments:

BrightonBuzz Bexhill man's crisp bag collection worth a packet http://sns.ly/VH243

rohanjay Don't miss the world's greatest crisp packet collection - oh yes it is! - on show at the @DLWP Bexhill Sunday http://bit.ly/90jCkM

fob51 RT @dizzytigerstu: Silly season tabloid fame for our Dave & his crisp packet collection (The Sun http://tinyurl.com/2u7zotc etc).

brightonargus Bexhill man's crisp bag collection worth a packet http://bit.ly/c3Vwo2

discoverbexhill 1980s Crisp Packet Collection on show this Sunday at 2.30pm @dlwp. It's worth £10,000 and has generated lots of interest in national media.

PHONOGRAPHS AND JAPANESE DOLLS

Yesterday afternoon in Gallery 1 was a delightful treat with Dave Homewood bringing along several of his collection of phonographs with records and cylinders to play some wonderful old tunes for us.

Also on display were 7 of my own Japanese dolls or 'Kokeshi'.

About 70 to 100 people must have come along to see what was going on drawn in by the fabulous sound of voices from long ago singing down the length of the gallery. A buzzy atmosphere was created by people looking at Dave's wonderful machines and asking questions. A number of people were also specifically interested in asking about the Kokeshi.

At one point when quite a crowd had gathered I asked Dave some questions about his phonographs and about collecting in general.

We found out that for both of us our collections had started when we were children and a relative had given us something as a gift that kicked off a lifelong passion.

Nearly everyone had lovely gentle smiles on their faces as they heard the beautifully ghostly voices emanating from horns and cone-shaped speakers.

Guessing Games

Saturday 31^st July Reflecting on objects: an activity in three parts:

Part 1 Guessing Games

A small, green 1960s Antler suitcase lined with pink, watered satin bought from a Charity Shop for £1. Inside, a variety of mystery objects. Reach your hand in and pick one. Don’t think too much about which to pick, just take the first one your hand encounters. Take it out carefully so that no one else can see it and then look at it yourself, all the while keeping it hidden from others.

Next describe the object trying not to say what its function is (if it has one). What is it like? What shape is it? What colour? When someone guesses correctly place the object in the middle of the table until we have a collection.

Part 2 Relating to objects and to each other

Now, give your object to someone else who in turn gives theirs to another. Study your new object and think about something in your life it relates to. Then tell your story.

Part 3 Mini-installation

Place your story-object on the small, strange, two-tier metal trolley-on-a-lead that happens to be in the corner of the room. Everyone places their object until we have a mini-installation. We look at it, we discuss it. Look how the grain in the wood of the paintbrush handle echoes that of the lines on the curtain-rail finial. ‘Finial’? A word for the decorative end of a pole or banister for example. A new word I’d not heard before springing up from someone in the group.

Finally, we stand back and admire our new installation of objects, which have had an encounter with each other and with our lives as we have had with each other.

I could list the objects but to do so would not do them justice and it would spoil the games in case you are thinking of coming along to take part yourself.

But there is one I can name: a small, wooden Japanese Kokeshi doll. Next Sunday I will be bringing along more of my collection of Kokeshi and describing some of my mixed feelings about these strange and beautiful objects: Collectors’ Corner 2.30pm Sunday 8^th August.

Thanks to all those who took part last Saturday, it was all fun and enlightening.

Susan Diab

GAMES AND STORIES

My game set up by Eva.

I took a piece of my own work to the gallery on Sunday. It's a sort of game which first began in 2005 when I was exploring ideas about mapping and wayfinding. It started with the board. I was thinking about how blind people find their way around familiar places. I had been talking to blind friends about their strategies of counting paces; listening for changes in sounds; feeling changes in the air temperature, wind strength, the ground beneath their feet; all those things which sighted people don't think about most of the time. I used some tactile maps as references to mark out a trail on a big piece of board. That was the start of my game. I've added to it over the years and each time I set it up it's different. This week I brought it to the gallery to let other people decide how it should be set up.

Talking about how she decides on the way her installations will develop, Tomoko Takahashi has said that there is always a kind of story behind it - she sets up a background and starts imagining things. That was exactly what a little girl called Eva did with my game. Hers was a story of goodies and baddies and a great flood which the goodies had to escape from in boats which sailed across my board leaving a trail of markers for  people following on behind. Then they made a blockade to keep the baddies out of their area and set up (slightly wonky) red windmills to generate their electricity.