All posts filed under: Reviews: resources, books, museums

Unexpected treasures: antique textiles at the Honolulu Museum of Art

When I go on a trip, I like to look back over my images when I get back and see what the first image I took was: the first thing that inspired me to pull out my camera and commemorate it. This is my first photograph from my recent trip to Hawaii: It’s an 18th century shoe in the textile store at the Honolulu Museum of Art. I love this.   It’s so typically me: the first thing I wanted to do on Oahu was go to the HMA, and the first thing I immortalised was a 250 year old shoe — not the usual Hawai’i image at all! I’m lucky enough to know the director of the Honolulu Museum of Art (formerly the Honolulu Academy of Art), and he really wanted me to meet the textile curator and tour the textile store.   Was I interested?   Are you kidding!   Of course! I thought the HMA textile collection would be very Hawai’i focused — all Hawaiian quilts, vintage holoku, kapa (barkcloth) and woven …

Friday Reads: A Star Danced

This book was another of my ‘cheap, old, in-an-op-shop and with an interesting title’ discoveries.  I’ve learned a little bit since My Theodosia and I take the time to read a few pages before buying a book now. The intro to A Star Danced sold me immediately: CB Cochran!  1911 theatre productions!  Over-blown language!  I’m so there! I also realised when reading the introduction that I actually know who Gertrude Lawrence is – one of the generation of pre-WWII British actresses who, because they never made it to Hollywood, have faded into sadly underserved obscurity in recent years. In her own day Gertrude Lawrence was the ‘brightest star’ (as the phrase goes) of the London theatre scene, close friends with Noel Coward, and a smashing success on Broadway.  A Star Danced is her autobiography, tracing her life from less-than-conventional childhood to international stardom. Celebrity autobiographies are always a bit hit and miss, but either Gertrude had a lot of help or she could sing, dance, act AND write, because the book is unfailingly interesting and …

Friday Review: Fitzroy Gardens & Cooks Cottage

While I was in Melbourne I stayed just a few blocks from the famous Fitzroy Gardens, and everyone told me that I simply must go visit Cooks’ Cottage “where Captain Cook was born.” Exciting!  An 18th century house in Australia, and one so closely linked to one of the most famous and influential explorers ever. Wait, what? Captain Cook wasn’t born in Australia! And there weren’t European settlements in Australia until the 1780s!  How could there be a proper stone cottage from 1750? The answer is sad and prosaic. The cottage was built in 1750, but not in its current location.  It was built by Cook’s parents in England, sold in the 1930s, bought by a wealthy Australian, transported stone by stone to Melbourne, and re-assembled. So really, it’s only kinda an 18th century cottage. Darn. And the news gets worse. Despite what everyone in Melbourne (with the exception of the cottage staff) will tell you, Captain Cook wasn’t born in the cottage.  It was built by his parents, but it was built when he …