Tag: Gladstone

A year ago

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A year ago I was outside Chatterley and Whitfield colliery drawing with the Stoke Urban Sketchers.

This year Stoke-on-Trent is hosting the United Kingdom Urban Sketchers annual festival from 7th to 9th June 2019! There may be a lot if sketchers descending on the city.

There is a lot of industrial archaeology and architecture here so I think people will enjoy it. Hopefully I will be able to get involved in it.

 

There are lots of places in Stoke-on-Trent and in the surrounding countryside which are worth drawing. I would love people to come here and fall in love with this city.

Buses

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I was looking at Facebook and this came  up on my memories from a year ago. It seems like Gladstone has turned into an annual event. These photos were taken on my old phone but I think they came out OK.

Bus’s, bus, busses, buses,

Hiss of air brake, diesel drumming,

Sitting up top, out looking,

Running upstairs, keep on trucking,

Ding ding, we’re off

Charabang to the coast

Come look at me,

By the sea 🌊

Just a short trip up town

Buy a dressing gown.?

Memories of buses

Number 21

Conductor checks the ticket

Missed it, now its gone..

Tiles

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Tiles at Gladstone yesterday.

I think they are by Minton which was a Pottery that went out of business a few years ago when a lot of Pottery manufacture went abroad because it was cheaper.

I know lots of people admire these tiles and they are often found in hallways in old victorian houses in this area. Our local church, St Thomas’s has tiles by Minton. The factory was based in Stoke-upon-trent, which is one of the six towns of Stoke-on-Trent.

Many of the people in the town were laid off from factories in Stoke, including Spode. Only a few places still make Pottery now, including Emma Bridgewater, Portmerion, Moorland Pottery, Moorcroft and I think Wedgwood…. There is also a tile manufacturer called Johnson’s tiles. But nothing really compares to the beauty of Minton.

Raku and sawdust..

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While we were at Gladstone today we saw a couple of interesting ceramic techniques. The first was by a lady called Tez. She was firing some raku Pottery. She had some pots in a metal bin with a gas jet heating it at the base. I didn’t find out what temperature she was firing at, but she said it takes about 40 minutes for a firing plus the work on the pots afterwards. Once they had been fired the pots were taken out of the bin and put in another one to rapidly cool causing crazing in the glaze. The lady put lots of beech shavings on top of the pots so that it smothered the fire. We were told that the wood sucks the oxygen out of the air around the pots and is a reduction reaction causing the copper in the glazes to shine through in a wonderful sheen.

The other technique we saw was more subtle. This time another potter put her pots in a box of burned sawdust ash. The pot was then covered in fresh sawdust mixed with white spirit. She sprinkled some of the burnt ashes on the pot to mask some areas then set light to the sawdust. As it burned it gave a mottled effect on the pot. It looked like it was being aged.

Finally there was some traditional stone ware pottery for sale. Fired in an ordinary kiln but also lovely to look at

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