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| Bags and Pouches Collection, The Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, UK. Photograph originally uploaded by Abby Swanwick |
I was pleasantly surprised to find (though I’m not sure why!) on the first floor, a cabinet containing ‘bags and pouches’. They’re not really arranged in any particular order regarding dates or founding locations, as is the case throughout the museum, therefore, you just take it as it comes.
And
this is somewhat the case with my photographs too. I’ve tended to capture
anything that either inspires me, or that I feel is a little bit clever. Please
excuse the quality of some of the photographs; everything is displayed in glass
cabinets, in low-lit rooms…
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Oceania
Melanesia, Solomon Islands, The Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, UK
String-work bag of round section with two carrying loops.
Probably
collected by Robert Henry Codrington, donated by him in 1916
http://objects.prm.ox.ac.uk/pages/PRMUID37999.html Photograph originally uploaded by Abby Swanwick |
This bag caught my eye because it’s the same shape as the totes I currently make; yet is dated pre 1916!
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Oceania
Micronesia, Kiribati, Tarawa (top), The Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, UK.
Rectangular bag with narrow carrying strap, woven from very pale undyed, and dark brown dyed, narrow palm leaf strips. 'Kiribati' is woven in capital letters on the flap. Collected by Rachel Robinson in 1999 and donated by her in 2004. http://objects.prm.ox.ac.uk/pages/PRMUID192916.html Photograph originally uploaded by Abby Swanwick |
It intrigues me how this bag and purse are made from strips of leaf, which are in some cases dyed. I presume palm leaves are reasonably strong, else surely they’d have disintegrated when worked?! It’s incredible how people utilize what they’ve got, especially in terms of mixing dyes from plants and berries etc.
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Middle
America, Tobago (right), The Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, UK.
Bag plaited from matchboxes encased in plastic. Base is lined with a piece of old calendar. Handles of machine-made round braid. This bag was purchased in Tobago in 1999 but such bags have been made in Trinidad and Tobago since at least the 1940s, though encasing them in plastic is a more recent development. Collected for the Museum by Lorraine Rostant in 1999. objects.prm.ox.ac.uk/pages/PRMUID32570.html Photograph originally uploaded by Abby Swanwick |
Plaited matchboxes resemble the kind of thing I might have done either in school or at home, as a child and it’s for this reason I took this photograph - I’m really quite fond of this idea. What’s more it’s recycled art, which has a use… fantastic!
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Asia, North-East India or
Myanmar (Burma); Khamti, The Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, UK.
Textile
bag with cotton warp and silk weft, completely covered in fine multicoloured
brocading in cotton, silk and wool. Geometric and figurative designs, including
birds. The strap is a square-sectioned braid of coloured cotton yarn, tasselled
at the ends. The bag is lined with brown cotton trade cloth.
Collected by Robert Niel Reid in 1937; donated by him in 1955.
http://objects.prm.ox.ac.uk/pages/PRMUID105461.html
Photograph originally uploaded by Abby Swanwick |
This is a beautifully crafted bag, of an ideal size and shape. I was particularly drawn to it, for both the construction and the fixing of the handle, as I’m always on the lookout for new ideas…
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Europe,
UK, The Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, UK.
Pouch made of cotton and silk. Probably made in England in the nineteenth century. Donated by Charis E. F. Thomas in 1940. Photograph originally uploaded by Abby Swanwick |
Finally, the label to this pouch tickles me… ‘Probably made in England’ - it’s this kind of honest uncertainty that you see throughout Pitt Rivers – frustrating to the historian, but quite endearing to me, who rarely reads a label, rather enjoying an object for what it is/appears.
Well that was my ‘something’ (re: the title of this post), what will yours be?!
Thanks for dropping by…
Abby
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