These have been my 'toolbox' months. I have been deep diving and thinking about my toolbox as a visual artist. Organising my 'plugs, globs and verious weel nuts' (photo by JPBarr 2025 Wellstead Museum). Handwriting is a gesture, mark making is a gesture of the hand, same same in my head.
I admire the dedication to order and phonetics in this shed at the Wellstead Museum in Bremer Bay. When you grow up with different spoken versions of the English language vowel pairings can then be arranged in many different ways in your head before you even open your mouth, and it’s usually never the correct one that escapes your mouth!
We all have specific tools and quirks and I’m learning that you make it work for you. Stephen King wrote a book called ‘On Writing. A memoir of the craft‘. At the start of the section called “THE TOOLBOX” he says ” I want to suggest that to write to your best abilities, it behooves* you to construct your own toolbox and then build enough muscle so you can carry it with you. Then, instead of looking at the hard job and getting discouraged, you will perhaps seize the correct tool and get immediately to work” pp125.
(*great word choice)
These photos are part of an ongoing series of Museums and ‘wunderkammer’ private collections I come across in regional areas of WA. All photos done with a Leica DLUx7.
Copyright and IP Rights of Jenny Potts Barr 2026 asserted.
