Our Art Specialists

A 20th Century Design

With the advent of a young generation of designers in the decorative arts from the 1960's onwards, this trend to focus on visual communication and presentation in the decorative arts has led to some of the most striking results in furniture, ceramic and glass making. Our design specialist is an art historian and registered valuer. After working as a decorative arts specialist for Sotheby's for more than 10 years, he established himself as an independent consultant, valuer and broker within his field of expertise. Working for private collectors as well as museums, he has curated several exhibitions on design and is actively involved in scholarly research on this subject, resulting in various publications and lectures. Design has long been regarded as the 'future collecting field'. Our specialist says: the future is now!

B Toys and Dolls

Our expert worked for Sotheby’s, in Sussex for 25 years where she catalogued and valued dolls, teddy bears and other childhood memorabilia. Passionate about her field of expertise, she has seen the market change over the last 30 years, where dolls and toys have become increasingly collectible by the widest possible variety of audience ranging from 1900’s Steiff teddy bears to the more recent Star Wars memorabilia.

C Coins

Our coins expert has had an interest in this subject since childhood and from 1990 to 2005 worked as auctioneer and cataloguer for two of London's main numismatic auctioneers (Glendening's and Baldwin's). With his main specialty in commemorative coins, he has a deep knowledge of his subject and market and will be able to advise you on the value of your coins.

D Arms, Amour & Militaria

We have two experts in this field. Our expert in Arms, Armour and Militaria was formerly Head of Sotheby's Worldwide Department of Arms, Armour and Militaria and assisted Sotheby's with sales in London, New York, Denmark, Zurich, Billings Hurst and Hanover. The sale of works of art from the Royal House of Hanover included arms and Armour which sold for £4,764,004 ($8,392,610) which continues to stand as a World Auction Record for an ancestral collection in this field. Now running his own business, he is an authority in the military collecting field. We also have a specialist in 20th century, mainly World War I and II, militaria which have become increasingly more collectable in recent years.

E Medals

Our medal specialist commenced his career as a member of the Coin & Medal Department at Sotheby’s in 1980, cataloguing British & foreign orders, decorations & medals - a date that now makes him the longest-served auction specialist in this field. He was appointed an auctioneer in 1987, and later became head of a newly created department for medals & militaria. Reverting to a consultancy role in 1992, he moved to another well-known company in 1997 and thence to Dix Noonan Webb, in Mayfair, London, in 2002, an independent auction company that has achieved highest annual turnover in this field ever since 2000.

F Jewellery

The jewellery auction market is a rather fluctuating one, and even though very strong sales can be achieved, it is one where deep knowledge is required to be able to tell what sells and doesn’t. Apart from the intrisic market value of the diamonds and gold, the design and sale ability is dependent on fashion and trendiness. Our Jewellery expert has worked for over 15 years at Sotheby’s London and will be able to give you the best advice and valuation of your items.

International Business Institute – Buddy Peer Support Scheme

Think back to your first days and weeks in a new country. Were there times when you had questions that you wished you could ask a friend? Or when you wanted to have a chat about how you were feeling?

To help new students, the International Business Institute (IBI) plans to set up a buddy peer support scheme. The scheme will help new students meet current students at IBI who can provide them with some friendly company during their first months in Newcastle and help them with any small problems that they may have. Often, buddies may not be able to solve the problem, but they may know who can help.

What’s in it for you?

We believe that being a buddy will be rewarding in several ways. As a volunteer, it will be personally satisfying to know that you are able to help new students. However, it will also help you to make contacts that may be valuable in your future academic and professional lives. If you are an overseas student, it will give you another opportunity to practice speaking English. Lastly and most importantly, we hope that it will be enjoyable for you to be a buddy!

Responsibilities of buddies

Telephone and arrange to make contact with the new student. Meet the student and show him/her around the campus and the local area. Meet for coffee, perhaps. Answer questions about living in Newcastle and administration procedures at IBI. (We will give you a checklist of things to mention when we send you the new student’s name and telephone number).

Arrange to meet the new student one morning or afternoon one weekend early in the semester, and take the student to places that you enjoy in Newcastle.

Be prepared to take phone calls from the new student to answer further questions that he/she may have from time to time. Meet to explain information to the new student in person, if required.

You will be matched to an individual new student. However, if you have friends who are also buddies, you might prefer to form a support group together. This would mean that you meet the new students as a group rather than one-on-one.

Being a buddy is voluntary. There is no “requirement” to provide assistance beyond the help outlined above. However, we hope that the buddy and new students will enjoy each other’s company and continue to meet each other.

Please note that if you agree to become a peer support buddy, you will be expected to fulfil your role conscientiously and cheerfully. It will be important to be considerate and reliable so that our student can feel confident of your support.

When you agree to act as a buddy for a particular term, your commitment covers that term only. For example, if you act as a buddy for Term 2, and would prefer to be free in the following term, there is no obligation to continue as a buddy in Term 3. Of course, we hope that you will want to assist every term.

How Babies learn Language

During the first year of a child’s life, parents and carers are concerned with its physical development; during the second year, they watch the baby’s language development very carefully. It is interesting just how easily children learn language. Children who are just three or four years old, who cannot yet tie their shoelaces, are able to speak in full sentences without any specific language training.

The current view of child language development is that it is an instinct – something as natural as eating or sleeping. According to experts in this area, this language instinct is innate – something each of us is born with. But this prevailing view has not always enjoyed widespread acceptance.

In the middle of last century, experts of the time, including a renowned professor at Harvard University in the United States, regarded child language development as the process of learning through mere repetition. Language “habits” developed as young children were rewarded for repeating language correctly and ignored or punished when they used incorrect forms of language. Over time, a child, according to this theory, would learn language much like a dog might learn to behave properly through training.

Yet even though the modern view holds that language is instinctive, experts like Assistant Professor Lise Eliot are convinced that the interaction a child has with its parents and caregivers is crucial to its developments. The language of the parents and caregivers act as models for the developing child. In fact, a baby’s day-to-day experience is so important that the child will learn to speak in a manner very similar to the model speakers it hears.

Given that the models parents provide are so important, it is interesting to consider the role of “baby talk” in the child’s language development. Baby talk is the language produced by an adult speaker who is trying to exaggerate certain aspects of the language to capture the attention of a young baby.

Dr Roberta Golinkoff believes that babies benefit from baby talk. Experiments show that immediately after birth babies respond more to infant-directed talk than they do to adult-directed talk. When using baby talk, people exaggerate their facial expressions, which helps the baby to begin to understand what is being communicated. She also notes that the exaggerated nature and repetition of baby talk helps infants to learn the difference between sounds. Since babies have a great deal of information to process, baby talk helps. Although there is concern that baby talk may persist too long, Dr Golinkoff says that it stops being used as the child gets older, that is, when the child is better able to communicate with the parents.

Professor Jusczyk has made a particular study of babies” ability to recognise sounds, and says they recognise the sound of their own names as early as four and a half months. Babies know the meaning of Mummy and Daddy by about six months, which is earlier than was previously believed. By about nine months, babies begin recognizing frequent patterns in language. A baby will listen longer to the sounds that occur frequently, so it is good to frequently call the infant by its name.

An experiment at Johns Hopkins University in USA, in which researchers went to the homes of 16 nine-month-olds, confirms this view. The researchers arranged their visits for ten days out of a two week period. During each visit the researcher played an audio tape that included the same three stories. The stories included odd words such as “python” or “hornbill”, words that were unlikely to be encountered in the babies’ everyday experience. After a couple of weeks during which nothing was done, the babies were brought to the research lab, where they listened to two recorded lists of words. The first list included words heard in the story. The second included similar words, but not the exact ones that were used in the stories.

Jusczyk found the babies listened longer to the words that had appeared in the stories, which indicated that the babies had extracted individual words from the story. When a control group of 16 nine-month-olds, who had not heard the stories, listened to the two groups of words, they showed no preference for either list.

This does not mean that the babies actually understand the meanings of the words, just the sound patterns. It supports the idea that people are born to speak, and have the capacity to learn language from the day they are born. This ability is enhanced if they are involved in conversation. And, significantly, Dr Eliot reminds parents that babies and toddlers need to feel they are communicating. Clearly, sitting in front of the television is not enough; the baby must be having an interaction with another speaker.

Flower power

Alexandria in Virginia, USA, and particularly its well-tended Old Town section, is the sort of upscale suburb that rings most major American cities. From the array of pubs, sushi-restaurant chains and pasta joints that line its streets, you would never guess that within 20 minutes you can find some of the best Korean, Vietnamese, Chinese, Pakistani or Bolivian food in America. Its 18th-century homes have been carefully maintained; now that the nasty, dirty business of living in them is done, they are at last free to house upscale boutiques selling ornate pepper-shakers, local wine, birthday cakes for dogs and other essentials. Yet this suburb was a city before cars existed, making it especially dense, walkable and charming. It has also turned an instrument of war into an instrument of art.

The day after the armistice that ended the first world war in 1918, the United States Navy began building the US Naval Torpedo station on the waterfront across the Potomac and just downriver from the Naval Research Laboratory in south-west Washington, DC. After a brief period of production, it stored munitions between the wars. When the second world war broke out, it built torpedoes for submarines and aircraft; when that war ended, the building was again used for storage. In 1969, the local Alexandria government bought the site, which had grown to comprise 11 buildings, from the federal government.

Five years later, after all the debris was removed and walls erected, the main building was refitted to house artists’ studios. A quarter-century, and several extensive renovations, later the artists are still there: over 160 of them sharing 82 studios, six galleries and two workshops. The Art League School and the Alexandria Archaeology Museum also share the space, bringing in thousands more aspirants and students. All of this makes the Torpedo Factory, as it is now called, a low-key, family-friendly and craft-centred alternative to the many worthy galleries across the river.

The building is three-storeys tall; on the first floor the studios and galleries are laid out along a single long hall. The arrangement grows more warrenlike, and the sense of discovery concomitantly more pleasant, as you ascend. Artists work in a variety of media, including painting, fiber, printmaking, ceramics, jewellery, stained glass and photography.

Don't anticipate anything game-changing or jaw-dropping here. Expect plenty of cats and cows in different media, as well as watercolors of beach houses, ersatz Abstract Expressionist paintings, stained glass made for the walls of large suburban houses, baubles and knick-knacks and thingummies galore. All of it is skillfully done; most of it is pleasant.

The photography is an exception: the Multiple Exposures Gallery is first-rate, displaying not merely beautiful pictures but inventive techniques as well. On a recent visit the gallery showcased landscapes, including an especially arresting wide-angle aerial shot of a field in Fujian after a storm. Crops glinted in the rising sun like rows of wet sapphires, the scalloped grey clouds echoing the terraced farming beneath.

The Torpedo Factory’s biggest draw, however, particularly for visitors with children, is not on what is sold but in the demystifying access visitors have to artists. While the galleries function traditionally, the artists work and sell out of the same studio; their raw materials and works in progress, the artistry behind the art, are all on display. Many of them are happy and eager to talk; one was soliciting the help of passers-by to complete a work, she wished to know how to say and write a certain phrase in Hebrew vernacular, a quest that might take time to complete in a yacht southern suburb. A metal sculptor sat on a stool patiently working a piece of metal back and forth in his hands. The Centre of his studio was filled with a huge hollow sphere made from hundreds of cylinders of perhaps anodized aluminum. It seemed we were witnessing the first step in a thousand-mile march.