New paintings and regular art updates.
My friend brought this to our writing group today. She had written a story about it because she has loved it all her life and has shown it to some antiques experts. I asked if I could draw it.
She called it “The little runner”. I sketched it today. It’s of a running greyhound. It’s a studio pottery piece by Anne Potts, an Art Deco ornament she made aged 16 in the 1930’s. Totally unique. She went on to be a famous potter from Stoke-on-Trent.
A small papier mache bowl I painted during the week. It’s meant to represent the sun seen through trees, which are the black lines, the green bands are leaves, the blue and white represent sky and the yellow is the sun. But what to call it? I would call it abstract and simple. It’s vaguely art deco? Let me know a title?
This the mural I painted at the Leopard of Clarice Cliffs Umbrella design. It is one of several murals I did. They were painted directly onto the walls, but as the original room had several large squares and oblong of flock wallpaper surrounded by wooden framing, the owners stripped the flock paper and covered the patches with lining paper. I then painted on that. For some reason people think the pictures are painted on canvas. They will get a shock if they try and take them down. They would have to remove a layer of plaster probably too…!
I had the pleasure of being invited to a behind the scenes visit to our city archive today. I had been asked if I wanted to go along by a friend who is doing an art project about the pottery manufacturer.
We went up to the third floor of the city library and were shown round the back of the reception desk into the staff only section. There the city archivist showed us some of the fading pages in the ledgers. They were images of pots that various pot banks made in the history of Stoke-on-Trent.
There were pattern books for tableware and tiles ledgers with the cost of making the ware and details of workers. The old pottery firms did not collect a lot of details and a lot was thrown out when they closed down. But once we had been in the air conditioned archives we were allowed to sit and (very carefully) look at selected pattern books including prints of tiles to surround hearths, doorways and floors. Some were mundane but others were breathtaking. Art nouveau and art deco masterpieces.
I’m very pleased I was invited.
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Mallaband-Brown