Mosspig: Glasgow Museum Resource Centre

Today was a pretty exciting day. R and I went on a tour of the Glasgow Museum Resource Centre in Nitshill.

Because Glasgow City Council has around 1.4 million objects, they can't all be displayed all the time, in fact only 2% of the collection is on show so this is where the rest live! There are 17 purpose built 'pods' split into categories such as Archaeology, Art and Painting, Arms and Armour, Natural History, Transport and Technology and World Cultures.

It's open to public viewing as long as you book a tour in advance, you can also specify what you are interested in seeing and they'll accommodate you as best they can. Of course when I booked the tour I might have mentioned my love of taxidermy...

The first pod was Art & Painting, and let me tell you, it was almost akin to walking into the storage room at the end of Indiana Jones Raider of the Lost Ark:

Hundreds of original paintings and prints are contained within the racks, and we were party to a Lowry, Warhol, Degas and Cezanne as well as some others I forget before being led through a maze of grey corridors and an seemingly unnecessary amount of doors to the next pod. On the way we could see into rooms where the conservation of art works was taking place. We also visited the World Cultures pod which was crammed full of curious and beautiful objects from far flung places, including a huge intricately carved elephant tusk with gilt silver end.

When we stepped through the next door I could barely contain my squee...

So much taxidermy! I mean wall-to-wall stuffage, I was like a kid in a sweet shop (of the skins of dead animals). As well as the mountains of whole taxidermy there was also a collection of illegal/restricted goods seized at Glasgow Airport customs such as ivory and marine turtle shells.

It was interesting to find out that the curator uses plaster cast moulding of the carcass along with fibreglass and woodchips to sculpt the forms. Here's a half-n-half example: