New paintings and regular art updates.
View of the fire escape stairs across the road. We live opposite a pottery and of course it looks industrial. The superstructure allows people to come and go at various floors. The doors are always open in hot weather and sometimes people stand on the platforms during hot weather. They have gardens and trees around the grounds. At least they are trying to green the area.
The ‘Potteries’ is the name people call the city of Stoke-on-Trent in the North Midlands of England.
Built on the coalfields of the area, with an abundance of water and clay, it was an ideal place to start making pottery in factories during the industrial revolution. Bottle kilns, or ovens (so called because of their shape) were built across the six towns of Stoke-upon-Trent, Hanley, Burslem, Tunstall, Fenton and Longton. The six towns were bought together as a Federation in the early twentieth century and this created the city of Stoke-on-Trent.
The Potteries Museum and art gallery is crammed with beautiful ceramics and is situated in the Cultural Quarter of the city centre which is in Hanley. Also worth a visit are the Gladstone Pottery museum in Longton and Middleport pottery in Middleport (near Burslem). There are many places to visit here. Hopefully they will all be open again soon.
Bone China tea set my friend is getting rid of. I’m going to try and find someone who wants it. I think another friend will have it.
Bone China was manufactured by potters who wanted to find a substitute for porcelain that came from China. It took several years to find a formula that produced thin, strong, translucent pots. It contained clay from the China clay quarries in Cornwall, calcined bone and flint (heated and ground to break them down into a fine powder). The bone gives off phosphorus which adds to the strength of the bone china. You end up with a material half way between pottery and glass. This fine white china was then beautifully decorated with hand painted flowers, fruit and landscapes.
I’m sure there is far more to say on this subject. But that’s enough for now.
My morning glory plants are doing well. Not flowering yet though. They are in lots of places, but I particularly like the ones in this ceramic head I made years ago. It’s survived for about twenty or thirty years as has the female one further on up the yard… I’m not sure what colours will be on the plant. Looking forward to it.
I just found this memory, I’d decorated this jug, I did it at a local pottery in 2017. Now if I could only find the other side with the cat looking outwards not with its back to us! I think I gave it as a Christmas present. That’s the trouble with random memories if they are not in context. I only know when this was because I painted 2017 on it. By the way it’s meant to be a tortoiseshell cat.
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I’ve bought you a present, said my hubby. I saw it and thought of you! How much did it cost? £5. OK, but we already have three teapots a coffee pot and a cafetiere….? But I wanted to buy you a present.
I got you a glass ornament too. A tree shaped thing with two colourful parrots on branches comes out of a bag. But the cats will break it! I found it a safe space.
I know I’ve got no taste, he said, but I wanted to show you I love you.
OK, thank you, I appreciate it. The coffee set will reside in the summerhouse. (With the spiders).
Where I live,
Who I am,
What I do,
How I think,
Where I work,
My companion,
What I trained as,
My books,
My life,
My I.
My me!
If you turn over a cup,
a mug,
a teapot
a jug?
If you look under your plate.
you may find a mark
light or dark.
Pottery thrown
Or molded?
An indented word
or a print of a symbol
so whatever you think,
you can see
who made your sink
your teacup
on the table
underneath?
A label.
A backstamp
to tell you who
made it.
DAY 6 in the new Urban sketchers Stoke-on-Trent challenge. I used gold glitter and purple pen to cheers this up. I should have let the glitter paint dry. It clogged up my 0.5 ink pen. I used permanent black and purple pens to draw and add shade…. Noticed I’ve got a lot of egg cups and extra mugs tucked away in there.
“Cupboard” isn’t the most inspiring subject, so instead of drawing cans I decided to draw crockery, pots, glasses and egg cups.
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Long title…
We went for a walk along the Trent and Mersey canal, from the road up to Trubshaw Cross at Longport, Stoke-on-Trent, along the towpath, to the lakes at Westport. I was not at my best so we only walked round the small lake, then back along to our starting point.
The day was blustery, but I could feel some warmth from the sun. The old bottle oven round the back of Price and Kensington (facade allowed to crumble so much the council had to demolish part of it). It was sad to see all the rubbish and wood stacked up on the yard waiting to be burnt. The owners regularly light fires, not small ones, and cause a nuisance with smoke. I worry that the buildings may be irreversibly damaged by this behaviour. As you walk along the canal towpath the image improves, although there are places that are derelict and that made me wonder what would happen if the facade of a building were to fall into the canal.
We found the entry to Westport lake easily enough. We popped into the cafe to get some duck food, than a nice stroll round the lake. Stopping to chat with a photographer who had a really long lens to take pictures of the birds on the lake.
I need more exercise and this helped!
