Church tiles

Posted on October 6, 2023October 6, 2023 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged Architecture, Art, Christmas concert singing, Church, Life, Minton, Pugin, Tiles4 Comments

I was rehearsing for our Christmas concert (we are doing it to fund another pantomime in 2025). I saw these tiles up by the altar. I think they are Minton tiles. I also think the church was designed by Pugin?

The acoustics are very good in there and we had great fun trying to get the right harmonies for silent night. The concert is due to happen on the evening of December 15th this year. As well as traditional carols there will be rock and roll songs and some solos and duets. There may also be recitals of poetry.

There are other tiles in the church, so it might be an idea to listen to the concert and have a good look round.

Question

Posted on April 19, 2023April 19, 2023 Posted in Fine Art, UncategorizedTagged Architecture, Art, cost of living, Design, economy, inflation, Learning, Life, Music, Painting, Question, World4 Comments

Is the cost of living crisis affecting whether you buy or collect art?

As a small time seller of art I’m interested in how the rises in inflation and reduction in pay rises is affecting the Art economy. I’m sure decisions are being made that people either put off buying, or don’t buy art at all.

Art is everywhere, in designs of clothes, furniture, architecture, advertising, maps, car design, and even the Art in people’s walls. The Art economy is worth Billions to the economy as a whole, but I think it is under recognised. We like to be surrounded by visual and auditory stimulation, but do people even notice it’s there. Do you notice a painting on a restaurant wall? Or classical music played in a supermarket. I wonder how things will work out?

Glass

Posted on March 22, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Architecture, Blue, factory floor, Glass, Industry, Photo, Photography, Sky, skylight, SpodeLeave a comment

Glass roof and glass bottles letting the light through. Rain water running down the surface from a drainpipe on the wall above. Glass bottles are perched like pigeons on a beam below the skylight. Bright blue sky and white clouds scud past high above. The roof of the Spode museum building is visible behind the bottles. This was in the ‘Factory Floor’ conference and party room at Spode. I like the conjunction of the glass roof with the glass bottles is pleasing, it is also interesting to see the metal industrial chimney rising above the roof.

Through the arched window

Posted on November 19, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Arches, Architecture, Curves, Geometry, Life, mathematics, Window, WorldLeave a comment

Arches are strong. Arches support weight because pressure is pushing inwards towards a central point. They have a keystone that holds everything together. I wish I knew the mathematics that explained this. But it is something amazing when you see arches in churches or castles or other religious or secular places supporting the rooves of buildings. They can be so elegant and flimsy looking but they have innate strength. All due to forces, and geometry.

Town or City

Posted on November 12, 2022 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Architecture, Art, City, Drawing, History, Industrial archaeology, Life, Sad, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trent, Town, Town planning2 Comments

Town/City full of buildings sketch. There are many historical buildings in Stoke on Trent but a lot of them are derelict and falling down. Where places like Manchester have had investment old buildings are refurbished and turned into apartments or restored to their former glory. Here in Stoke they languish, are bought up by out of town businesses that allow them to fall down, get broken into or in some cases have unexplained fires. Severs properties in the North of our city have had fires over the last few months. Is it wrong to be suspicious about that? I do wonder and worry that one of the most important areas of industrial and vernacular architecture is not being cared for. We could use the better properties even if we only keep the facades. But our local leaders seem hell bent on stripping back the past, losing a heritage that could be supported. You only have to look at Etruria Industrial Museum to see somewhere that has worked. But I despair for so much of our surroundings.

Your face is a map

Posted on April 13, 2022April 13, 2022 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Abstract, Architecture, Art, arteries, boulevards, Building, Drawing, Face, Map, Roads, Sketching, Streets, Thinking, VeinsLeave a comment

Ink bleeds through paper. Draw around those patches, lines and dots, and you get a patchwork ‘map’ that looks like roads and boulevards, streets and squares. A change of colour for city blocks. Villages line up on roads between fields. Some streets are tree lined, others are concrete. Does it show your age? Are you industrial or agrarian? Modern or ancient? Fortified? Or do you see veins, arteries and capillaries?

Alien world?

Posted on March 15, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Architecture, Art, Colours, Copper, Design, Duplicated, Galaxy, Metallic, Mirrored, Photos, space shipLeave a comment

Close up photo of a metal ring holder and a copper coloured stapler. It’s interesting what you can do with duplicated photos. I didn’t know it was going to look like this. It looks like architecture or a space ship with a distant galaxy reflected on the shining floor of the ship. I will play with some more images, juxtaposing different shapes, textures, and colours.

#urbansketchersstoke

Posted on July 10, 2021 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged #urbansketchersstoke, #uskstoke, Architecture, Black and white, Drawing, Grey, Shadows, SketchingLeave a comment

After over a year I finally went out today with my local urban sketchers group to a place called Keele Hall, part of Keele University. Its near Newcastle-Under-Lyme in Staffordshire. The hall was originally the home of Ralph Sneyd and his son a couple of centuries ago. It was then taken over as Stoke-on-Trent University but then was taken over as Keele University, one of the first campus universities in the UK.

Too complicated! I should have been there at 11, but by the time I got there and started it must have been 11.45, then time flew by. The sun was so bright I decided to lurk in a shadow, but even then it was hard to see details.

horse on its side

Posted on October 26, 2020 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Architecture, Creative, Fun, graffitti, Horse, Ideas, Paint, Poem, Poetry, Sculpture, Words2 Comments

OK, I dont know why I like this

but this horse

on its side

could be stone

waiting to be carved

hewn out of rock

pumice from a volcano

found in an ancient town

or modern art

tipped sideways to shock

graffitti painted in white

on a famous building?

or slapped onto shutters

before they open

to the next day’s sun.

Beautiful brickwork

Posted on October 9, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Architecture, Art, Bricks, Building, Ceramic, Colours, Design, Interesting, Laying bricks, Pattern4 Comments

I don’t know much about bricks, except that they are fired clay. But I do like to see them when they are used decoratively. The way they are laid is called the ‘bond’ where it depends whether they are laid horizontally across the surface of the wall, or with the short end showing on the face of the wall and the length turned 90° so that the brick is across into the layer behind or allows the wall to turn the corner at the edge of the building.

As you can see from this photo, different coloured bricks are often used to make patterns and shapes in the brickwork or are used to frame tiled areas of text stating when the building was built.

I also know that brick sizes changed over time. That they were smaller in the past and hand made. Then molds were made and the brick sizes became standardised. I don’t know all the history of that sorry.

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Architecture