New paintings and regular art updates.
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was food so I chose to draw some fruit on a calico pattern Burleigh plate. As I’m not feeling like cooking this was the easiest option….
A couple of paintings I did two years ago? They were on display in the waiting room gallery at Longport. These are paintings of the Falcon Works behind Portmeirion pottery in Stoke-on-Trent. A lot of these buildings are either falling down or just sitting empty. I wish some of them could be restored. There is a wonderful place called the Black Country Museum in Dudley I think in Central England. They have rebuilt many old buildings on the site so you can visit and see the history of industry and businesses in England. There are some museums in Stoke-on-Trent which are smaller versions. For example the Gladstone pottery museum. It’s a real shame that so many old buildings are being allowed to fall into rack and ruin.
Bibendum is the name of the iconic symbol for Michelin tyres. There was a large factory near us run by Michelin. Sadly the factory has mostly closed now, its mostly a training facility. The one improvement is that the smell of vulcanising rubber no longer hangs over the city. Like many of the factories and manufacturing in Stoke-on-Trent the jobs have gone. Potteries have been badly affected. Steel manufacturers have gone and other jobs like coal mining went in the 1980’s. Northern areas of the United Kingdom have been badly affected over the years of the late twentieth century and twenty first.
A cheerful, colourful, square pot I have a Christmas cactus in. It was outside earlier in the year, but I noticed the glaze was coming off the other one so I bought it in (I think frost and rain got to them). This one’s a bit messy round the back, but then I just have the good side facing out. You can make anything nice if you position it well, even if its cheap and cheerful.
Painted a year or two ago. The derelict pottery at the back of Portmeirion pottery. I love painting bricks. Most of the windows are boarded, and the Falcon symbol is on the end of the building. Painted in Autumn, acrylic on canvas.
It’s still standing but I think I will take some more photos of it before long, it’s worrying that it’s not being maintained or restored as far as I know. I guess it might be taken care of one day, but I’m not sure when.
The stuff in this ‘cup’board is mainly cups and egg cups. I’m pleased that some of them are ones we have decorated ourselves. Plus I found the Maggie egg cup I was looking for.
It’s amazing what clutter I’ve collected over the years.. I guess I can call it a cup collection…
Used a photodirector filter to give this photo a bit of a twist. The building is semi derelict like many others in Stoke-on-Trent. They sit huddled in the landscape, settling gently into decay. Some owners of the old pot banks just leave them. Maybe one day to be renovated. At one stage there were plans to turn some of them in museums. But money doesn’t come this way very often. We are lucky to have places like the Gladstone pottery museum and Middleport pottery open for visitors, but so many more are falling down. A sad situation.
Wore a hole punch as a hat…. Sat on my bookcase, surrounded by books. ‘Goodbye Mr Chips’ is one of them. What would they have thought of each other? Stern, disciplined, sometimes cruel. Were nort the characteristics of Mr Chips!
This ceramic Toby jug is based on the Spitting Image version of Maggie Thatcher. I also have a (slightly cracked) egg cup of her. That was because I used it as a candle holder.
No I was not impressed by her callous disregard for the poorest in society. Nor her attacks on the Miners and her introduction of the poll tax. So why have I got her? She was a present off a Potter who made her. She makes me laugh, to think about the ideas she had. At least she’s gone now.
My friend gave me this. A hand painted ceramic cat with fish on it. One fish seems to be biting the tail of the other one, both they and the cat seem to be happy and smiling. There seems to be a sea shell below the head of one of the fish. Perhaps this is a fishing cat? It’s a flat back ornament with no decoration on the back. I think it’s sweet, naive, simple, a bit rough round the edges. But fun.
The back stamp on the bottom of pottery can identify where it was made, it’s country of origin, and sometimes indicate what it’s worth, although sometimes people fake the marks to try and con people thinking a cheap teacup or vase is worth more, sometimes a lot more, than it actually is.
This happens in pottery manufacture across the globe. A Ming dynasty vase might have been made last week, a Delpht plate might have been made somewhere in Britain..
The thing is an inanimate lump of clay can be transformed into something delicately shaped and beautifully glazed or enamelled. People want to know it they are looking at a Clarice Cliff or a Susie Cooper. That’s part of the reason they look. But also if you live in a pottery manufacturing town you want to tell the difference between them. And the turn over can be enlightening!
Mallaband-Brown