If you never been to the Ikon Gallery, you’re missing a real treat.  The building itself is a piece of art that never fails to fascinate.  Originally built in 1878 for an infant school, it has had a few other responsibilities before its current (and hopefully permanent) position as home of the gallery.  The artist journey begins as you walk in and see this very prominent but non-busy sign:

I met Director and Jonathan Watkins, a busy man who’s passion for Ikon was evident from the start along with Kate Self who is the essentially their Educational Officer (although it’s technically Ikon Youth Programme (IYP)).

After explaining the many hats and angles this interview was going to take (blog, AskACurator.com, Kids in Museums), I quickly got into the questions as I knew time was precious for both.

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A few weeks ago, during one of my many Tweets about AskACurator one tweet led to another and I was soon making arrangements to go to Birmingham Art Gallery.  After another few emails and tweets, it was narrowed down to me meeting the Fine Art’s Curator Victoria Osborne.

I was told that Victoria had a few questions ready for our meeting.  Upon meeting Victoria, she also explained that she had read my blog on the French AskACurator (here, here and here).  Victoria was clearly well prepared.  But unfortunately for her, she soon found out I don’t really work that way.

We started with a few general questions which I was hoping led to the right Ask A Curator question – and I wasn’t disappointed.  My journey with these interviews has been fascinating as each one is different so no template can be used.

Victoria has been at Birmingham Art Gallery for ten years. She is clearly very knowledgeable which was evident from our conversation.   We agreed the best approach for this interview would be for Victoria to speak for herself as role of Fine Arts Curator, and not representing all of BMAG as their collections are numerous and diverse.

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Musee Guimet and Musee d’Art Moderne

Charlotte and Michael decided to have another trip up the Eiffel Tower which allowed me a morning to explore. I originally planned to head to Musee d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris but along the way, I managed to find this quaint, very French market.  There was something special about stumbling upon this very established market that made the event special. The market had very fresh food, along with traditional market-style items.

While wondering through,I noticed this fabulous building on the corner that clearly looked like a museum, so I headed in.

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Versailles and Musee de’ Cluny 

We started off early as our first stop was to Versailles.  However we made a stop on the way at Javel, where we walked over the bridge to take pictures of the Statute of Liberty as we have a very fond attachment to the monument, even more-so now after yesterday’s discussion on the topic at Musse des et Metire.  I do feel that its unplanned stops along the way that really make a holiday personal.

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Musee d’Orsay & Muse des arts et metiers

Today we started off early to get to the Louve before attending an appointment at musee des de metires.  The weather was shining brightly on us and we managed to take lots of gorgeous, typical tourist photos of both the external Louve and the Jardin des Tuileries.  Then we went to queue for the Louve … except it was closed.  Our initial disappointment and annoyance at not checking on that prior to leaving was soon squashed with the decision to go to Musee d’Orsay.  And we were very pleased we did.

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