Drawing Tuesday: Irons at the Science Museum ( plus V&A Exhbitions)

Drawing Tuesday   this week was at the Science Museum - very busy and noisy with families ( tho marginally quieter than when there are school groups), slightly less  frantic  in the ' Secret Life of the Home' gallery in the basement. It's a treasure trove of  household appliances, ancient and modern.  I tore myself away from the sewing machines  to find something a bit easier to draw  and found another  textile related display  dear to our hearts - irons !

 It was interesting to see the innards  of a steam iron  and see the early models of the electric iron ( my mum had one identical to the canary yellow one  below) 

 I was initially tempted by the idea of drawing the damage done to synthetic fabrics with a hot iron  ( above) but settled for the range of old metal flat irons 

The 'goffering iron ' looked  quite space age . It was made to shape ruffs and frills  with a hot metal poker placed  in the iron to heat it up. 

 With lots of rubbing out and   redrawing in 2h and 2b pencils  it was a relief to finish off  with a quick sketch  of box irons using a 6b graphite stick ! 

 After catching up with the others in the cafe and revived  by lunch I headed  over to the other side of  Exhibition  Road, to the V&A .  Using my Museums Association   membership  card I got into the  Frida  Kahlo  exhibition ( despite   all tickets being sold out)  and then 'Fashioned from Nature'.   I'm not sure  that I would have paid  to see the Frida Kahlo exhibition ( I tend to agree with the reviews) but as I'm coincidentally re-reading ' The Lacuna' by Barbara Kingsolver, it was fascinating to see the early photos and short  film clips including one  with Trotsky. 

It also brought back fond memories  of  going to Mexico for work   in 1997. I taught an orchid growing workshop in Puebla  then  had a few days in Mexico City gracefully hosted by Robert Bye and Edelmira Linares . ( contributers to the  book associated  with 'Frida Kahlo's Garden' . Now that's an exhibition I wished I'd seen) .   Besides the usual museums and galleries , Edelmira ( who's an ethnobotanist)  took me to some fascinating craft places. 

 More to my taste was the 'Fashioned from  Nature' exhibition  - so much  exquisitely  stitched  clothing and a fascinating glimpse into materials  and methods both used in the past and new innovations. Being  a textile exhibition with many fragile pieces, light levels were low  so photography was a bit  limited. I was rather struck by the Gucci handbag inspired by stag beetles ( noble beasts!)  and the darned clothing  ' Visible History'  by designer John Alexander Skelton. 

  Finally, I  had  a quick look at the gallery showing the finalists of the 'Jameel Prize 5' . I was particularly struck by the woven details in the  work by Hala Kaiksow ( below)

  I wonder whether those folds involved  a goffering iron?!