A new project for 2013

The Johnston Collection is a house museum in East Melbourne, which has a wonderful collection of Georgian and Victorian antiques [http://www.johnstoncollection.org]. The House and contents originally belonged to Mr William Johnston, who left his collection to the people of Victoria.

One of the interesting things about this Museum is that they completely redecorate the house every few months, moving things around and bringing some items out for display and retiring others. This means that the display is regularly refreshed, unlike other house museums where the same things may be on display for years.

At Christmas every year, the curators work with the craft guilds of a region of Victoria to decorate the house. Each guild (or an individual artist or group of artists) has responsibility for one room in the house. The members make items inspired by items in the collection, the life of Mr Johnston or the story of Christmas. It's a great concept, as it encourages each guild to work collectively on a project, but it also encourages the guilds to work collaboratively. I've heard that in the past it has been a real network building exercise.

Next year, 2013, is the turn of the Mornington Peninsula craft guilds. And, even though there's only about five or six Bead Society of Victoria members living on the Peninsula, we have been invited to participate. I was extremely hesitant at first, because I thought we would have to festoon an entire room in beads and I couldn't picture what we would have to do and didn't want to have to do all that work! However, after going to a couple of their presentations, and seeing the museum, we have developed a strong concept and I feel confident that we can achieve it, even if I end up spending hours making netted baubles!

We will be decorating the White Room in the museum, and will have a Christmas tree (hence the baubles). We will also make various small items such as snowflakes to hang from the sconces and beaded snuff boxes to display on the mantlepiece. Our colour scheme is inspired by the Collection - dark red, dark gold, cream and black.

I've just finished the first part of the job - sourcing the patterns, choosing bead colours and working out the first order of beads, which took ages. The next job is to recruit helpers (we are allowed to recruit people from outside the Peninsula to help, as long as it is led by us). We have selected a variety of patterns ranging from very complex down to quite simple, and hope that other BSV members will help.

I plan to keep a record of how it all goes on my blog this year.

Here's some of the beads I have compiled so far for the project - don't you love that gorgeous rich red?