Sketch of two Canada geese at Westport Lake today. I know their necks are too long. We went for a short walk but the wind was quite cold. So I decided to sit down and draw some of the birds and a view of the rippling water on the lake. While we were there a young man went up to one of the fishing platforms on the lake and started dipping his feet in. He was acting very strangely so we watched incase we needed to ring for an ambulance. But he came over to us and asked us if we wanted to buy a camera? Very strange. So I finished the sketch and we left. I hope he was OK but it was hard to know what to do.
Building reflected in my car window. It looked funny as I have a hat in the back of the car and the building looks like it has a hat on too. I hope you can see it?
Sitting in the Waiting room gallery, looking out on a blustery day. The road in front runs down past the gallery on the left of where I was seated then on behind me to the Longport station building where trains regularly stop. That is why the gallery is called :the Waiting room’. The gallery is linked with the station and is a community space that is run by the volunteers who have worked on maintaining the station building. I don’t know the full details but it’s good the station is still in use. Its just a short walk from there to the Trent and Mersey canal and along it to the Middleport pottery. It was a bleak, wet and windy day, but we were warm and snug at the gallery with a cup of coffee and a scone too!
Almost the end of my couple of weeks at the The Waiting Room Gallery at Longport.
I’ve had my paintings up for sale there and sold a few already. But as they are tiny I can’t say I’ve made a massive amount of money (less than £40 so far). But I don’t care, I’m just pleased people liked them enough to buy them.
What next? I might add ribbons to them and turn more of them into Christmas decorations for next year, after all I’m not sure when things will get back to normal (if ever) and at this rate it might be a long time before I can mount an exhibition.
One of my little paintings has been reserved. It might be a Christmas present for someone? It’s pleasing to think someone likes it enough to buy it. I must think of new things to paint. Whether to do mythical images again, like green men? I don’t know. I’ve got lots of canvases to fill. I’m not making much money out of them but at least it’s a small success.
While we were at the Waiting Room gallery in Longport we decided to go for a walk round the lake. The local council has bought in parking charges at the lake (I’m not sure if they have started taking money yet), but rather than driving there we left our car on the street and walked a few hundred yards along the canal to the lake.
As you walk along you see the sad dereliction of the industrial heritage of Stoke-on-Trent. Buildings that used to use the canals for transport are falling to rack and ruin. Firms buy them up then instead of restoring them and perhaps nurturing the buildings and creating museums or even apartments like they have in Manchester or Birmingham, let them fall down or burn down!
Leaving the sad buildings behind, we walked along the canal towpath to the lake. We bought a bag of bird food and fed the wild fowl around the lake. Worryingly we did see a Canada goose with what looked like mucus hanging from its beak. There is bird flu in the country which is very harmful to the birds. Once round the lake and then back along the canal. A good walk.
Pottery bottle oven, Longport, Stoke-on-Trent. Next to the Trent and Mersey canal. I can’t remember the name of the pottery sorry. I think there are only 32 of these old pottery ovens left in Stoke-on-Trent. A few, like at Middleport pottery and the Gladstone Pottery museum are preserved and in good condition. Others are derelict or semi derelict. A few are just the bases of them left on the ground. Some are being rescued and repurposed, but others are dreadfully neglected as this one is.
Bottle ovens/kilns and enamel kilns burn at different temperatures. They were different shapes, the enamel ones are thinner. The outside bottle shape has a doorway into it and surrounds a cylindrical kiln where the pottery is placed. The pottery itself is stacked in ‘saggars’- round or oval shaped covers that protect the ceramics as the kiln is ‘fired’. These old fashioned kilns were heated with coal. The clay and fires lead to lung diseases, which were also found in local miners. As coal firing was stopped because of the clean air act many of these potteries closed or converted to gas firing in modern kilns. Old photos from the turn of the 19th century show many bottle ovens all over the city and the pall of smoke they created.
Stoke-on-Trent has clay, water and coal in abundance which is why the pottery industry set up here as well as a few other places in the UK. There are many books about the industrial archaeology of the area are available. Other information can be found at the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery in the city centre (Hanley), Stoke-on-Trent.
When you take a photo of your work and post it in Instagram… Don’t include your foot! I was trying to take a photo of my necklaces on display at the waiting room gallery at Longport, Stoke-on-Trent. I’m pleased to say I have sold two necklaces and a small painting. It’s taken six months, but now they can allow people in again it might do better. I may arrange to make some more pieces.
View of a bright pillar box red boat. Longport Wharf, Longport, Stoke-on-Trent. We were walking down the canal to get back to our car and I glimpsed this bright red boat beyond a bridge over the canal.
The colour works really well against the clouded sky and darker red bricks of the pottery behind it. Worth the added steps!
We saw this family of Swans on our walk round Westport today. The Cygnets are almost adult size now and are stretching their wings and legs and are starting to change from soft down to white plumage.
As we stood and took photos several people walked past with dogs. The male Swan reacted by hissing loudly. One woman and her friends had three small dogs with them. Her friends walked swiftly by but she was panicking and wouldn’t move so I asked her to hand me the dogs lead and I held it while I stood between the Swan and her dog. The Swan just hissed but didn’t attack. She got past and I carried on with my walk. X
Mallaband-Brown 