Spitfire gallery

Posted on April 10, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Gladstone pottery museum, Hanley, Longton, opening times, Potteries Museum and art gallery, Reginald Mitchell, Spitfire, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trentLeave a comment

We also visited the new Spitfire Gallery at the Potteries Museum and Art gallery today. Our local council spent millions on the gallery to house a Spitfire E (with shortened wings for low altitude flying). But then earlier this year they decided to reduce the museum opening hours. This means it will be closed two days a week. The Gladstone Pottery Museum will also be closing for five months a year due to council plans to cut budgets. There is outrage in Stoke on Trent. We realise that this will affect tourism in the city and that it is cultural vandalism. But that is what you get when you are ruled by ‘bean counters’ knowing the cost of everything and the value of nothing as the saying goes.

Stained glass view

Posted on April 4, 2022 Posted in Fine Art, UncategorizedTagged Art, Church, Colour, Design, Glass, Lead, Pattern, Rode heath, Staffordshire, Stained glassLeave a comment

A few weeks ago we visited Rode Hall and the church across the road from it. I was running out of battery power so only took this photo. I just decided to look at it again because I like the colours in the glass. Blues, reds and whites highlight the figures and the textiles and architecture. The detail of the pattern at the top and base of the window panes help link each panel together. Just cutting the glass pieces out must have been so difficult and time consuming. Using lead to hold the glass in place. How do artists manage to do this? I’m full of admiration.

The Manifold Way

Posted on March 24, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Countryside, Green, Life, Light railway, path, Staffordshire, Thors cave, Trees, Valley, Waterhouses7 Comments

The Manifold Way is a cycleway near Waterhouses in Staffordshire, England. It runs along an eight mile stretch of valley and is a path for walking and cycling.

There is a cave up on the hillside, it’s called Thors cave. I walked up once.. Very steep. The valley is wooded and there is a stream running alongside the footpath for some of its length. It has a small tunnel through part of the hillside as it used to be a small narrow gauge railway with only two engines (hubby tells me). It was used for dairy products and passengers. A light railway branch line. We are so lucky to be near to such a beautiful place.

Falcon Works

Posted on March 10, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged collapsed, Falcon pottery, Goss works, History, Industrial archaeology, Penkhull, Pottery, roof damage, Sad, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trentLeave a comment

The derelict Goss Falcon Works at the back of Portmeirion pottery. (I hope I’ve got this right). You can’t see from here but part of the roof has collapsed at the other end of the building. You can see it from Penkhull New Road but I couldn’t get a close enough view to get a good photo. The city of Stoke-on-Trent that I live in is becoming more derelict. History is being forgotten or neglected. So sad.

Reflected sky

Posted on March 2, 2022 Posted in Fine Art, UncategorizedTagged Acrylic on canvas, Art, England, Fine Art, Landscape, Painting, Sky, Spode site, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trentLeave a comment

I can’t find the photo of a finished painting. It had more detail on the wooden supports between the panes of glass. The paint was peeling off and chipped and that’s what attracted me to the image. I’m the final version you can see me and my phone reflected in the surface. It’s an image of the Spode factory site. Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire.

Daphne

Posted on February 27, 2022February 27, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Bush, daphne, gardener, Gardening, Google, Growing, Life, Plant, Rode hall, StaffordshireLeave a comment

I didn’t know what this bush was but it has a lovely scent and was growing in places around the grounds of Rode Hall.

I has to ask one of the gardeners there what it was. She was very helpful in explaining what it was. When I got home I looked it up online: Daphne odora, winter daphne, is a species of flowering plant in the family Thymelaeaceae, native to China, later spread to Japan and Korea. It is an evergreen shrub, grown for its very fragrant, fleshy, pale-pink, tubular flowers, each with four spreading lobes, and for its glossy foliage. Wikipedia

Please note. I’ve been told they are extremely poisonous.

Kitchen garden display

Posted on February 25, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged gourds, greenhouse, hothouse, Life, Plants, Rode hall, Staffordshire, Visit, walled kitchen garden2 Comments

In one of the hothouses in the walled kitchen garden at Rode Hall. Yes I have gone on about it but it was an interesting visit. Vegetables were displayed as if they were in a competition. Onions balanced on flower pots, old gourds piled up and drying. Bulbs were sprouting. It must be spring soon!

Why does everything look like a painting in the UK?

Posted on February 25, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, boathouse, England, Lake, Landscape, Painting, Photo, picturesque, Rode hall, Staffordshire, ViewLeave a comment

This question from an American friend made me laugh, then think. I guess the answer is that some of the subjects I take photos of are picturesque. That is to say, fit the ideals of what a painting should look like. But I guess I cropped this to improve how it looks, and I chose to take a photo of it. I saw other views that I could have photographed that would not have looked as nice.

Rode Hall Snowdrop walk

Posted on February 25, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Beauty, Cheshire, country Hall, day visit, Enjoyment, Flowers, Life, Rode hall, Snowdrops, Staffordshire2 Comments

Rode Hall is a small stately home on the borders of Staffordshire and Cheshire. It’s on a lane running between two major roads, one of which is the A34, which is in England.

Each year they hold a Snowdrop walk at about this time. The weather today was cold, crisp and bright. The various varieties of snowdrops glowed in the sunshine.

We had a very pleasant walk along a pathway to a lake in the grounds below the hall. Then back along the path a short way and up the small hills around the grounds of the hall. Finally we visited the walled kitchen garden with glass houses full of award winning vegetables.

I took lots of photos and I will post more on other blog posts. It wasn’t expensive. The only thing was there was a massive queue for the tea room but we ended going off and getting refreshments at a local church.

How the Leopard looked

Posted on February 9, 2022 Posted in Fine Art, UncategorizedTagged Art, Burslem, Emulsion on lining paper, Fine Art, Leopard Hotel, Memory, Murals, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trentLeave a comment

This was the function room, the Arnold Bennett suite, in the back of the Leopard Hotel with my murals visible on the walls. They were quite high up and I’m only short, so I spent a lot of time climbing up and down ladders! If I had realised it was likely to take me almost two years to paint them (there were eleven? ) seven on one side and four on the other if I remember?

Titles were :

The Leopardess

Umbrellas by Clarice Cliff

Arthur Berry, artist

Walter, the regular

Pot banks and woman worker

Murdered woman

The Leopard coat of arms

The Burslem Riot 1842

Wedgwood and Brindley

Molly Leigh, Burslem witch

Burslem Angel

I cannot remember if there was another one. I’m hoping to collect a full set of images of them. I hope that local people will be able to help me.

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Staffordshire