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Galt unveils its Treasures and Curiosities |
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Written by Sherri Gallant
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Friday, February 19 2010, 10:55 PM |
It’s an eclectic assortment of items, exhibited masterfully as though they’re in the midst of being uncrated.
But beside each one is the story of the person who chose it as a favourite from among the Galt’s extensive collection, and the details surrounding the memory or experience it evoked in them.
Treasures and Curiosities opens today at the Galt Museum and visitors can explore free from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. since it’s Community Museum Day. Galt curator Wendy Aitkens hatched the plan for this unique exhibit as she pondered how unfortunate it is that people don’t get to see much of what’s stored in the museum’s basement.
“Initially we thought that staff could choose their favourite items for exhibit, and then we realized that it was far too large to just keep it in-house,” said Aitkens, taking media through for a sneak peak Friday.
So nearly 100 members of the Galt “family” — staff and board members, volunteers, community members — were asked to choose one or two of their favourite artifacts after learning how to browse the database first, then physically visit the storage areas. That led to 200 items on display which aren’t connected in any logical way, as exhibits are inclined to be, but are connected in that they each provoked a deep response from someone.
Bill Ramp, who’s a member of the Galt’s collections committee, said he pounced on a particular scrapbook when it had come in to the museum and knew he wanted to choose it for Treasures and Curiosities.
“It’s a scrapbook filled with pictures of Germany, compiled by a German prisoner of war. All the pictures are very romantic depictions of old villages, typical of the type of romanticism prevalent in the 1930s,” said Ramp.
But another factor struck him harder, perhaps, and that’s the complete absence in the scrapbook of Nazi flags or any reference to war.
“Even if he had access to those things, he chose not to include them, because what this was was a man who just missed home,” he said.
Ramp’s second item, a medicine bottle filled with Codrenin, a combination of cocaine and adrenalin, reminded him of the Gombault’s Caustic Balsam his grandfather swore by (a veterinary medicine, it contained ingredients like turpentine and sulphuric acid).
“They took it off the market because it contained poison,” he said, “and this medicine contains things that people used to take routinely and that were easily available.”
Tim Greenlee, a past Galt board member, had a vivid childhood memory flood back when he laid eyes on an old dental basin. As a small boy during his first visit to the dentist, he spat all over the bib on his chest when the dentist commanded him to spit, not aware there was a basin beside him designed for that purpose.
When Diane Miedema saw an elegant black dress and a classic little handbag in the collection. It reminded her of exactly the sort of outfit worn by her mother, Lena Elder (now 96), in her younger days. And Elaine Liebelt, a Galt museum volunteer who put countless hours into co-ordinating people involved in the exhibit, chose an item that actually came from her own family — a brooch worn by her mother she believes was a gift from her grandmother.
Along with the exhibit viewing today, Community Museum Day has children’s games, face-painting, a treasure hunt, and screening of Lethbridge episodes of Antiques Road Show. Treasures and Curiosities closes May 20.
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