Solo exhibition

Posted on September 5, 2019 Posted in Fine Art, UncategorizedTagged Acrylic on canvas, Art, Longport, Newcastle-under-Lyme, opening night, Painting, Spode, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trent, Waiting room galleryLeave a comment

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My latest exhibition is coming up next week. The opening is on 13.9.19 at 6.30pm. There will be wine and snacks (thats what you do at openings).

The Waiting room gallery is at Longport in Stoke-on-Trent. It’s a new gallery and art centre who are also working on Longport railway station and who are trying to restore the historic buildings there. You couldn’t meet a nicer group of people.

I’m very pleased to invite anyone who can come along to see the exhibition.

If you can’t make it I’ve also got paintings exhibited at the Brampton museum in Newcastle-under-Lyme from this weekend to the 10th of November and a painting at Acava Open Studios at Spode Site this weekend. The opening of the Spode show is on Saturday evening. So it’s busy busy busy!

Memory

Posted on September 4, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blogging, Bottle oven, Ceramic poppies, Drawing, Memory, Middleport, Middleport pottery, Poppies, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trent, Urban sketchLeave a comment

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If you can’t read the writing it says (bit truncated) weeping window, 31. 8.18, middleport pottery.

The drawing is of thousands of ceramic poppies which were displayed on the bottle oven at Middleport pottery, middleport, Stoke-on-Trent in August last year. These poppies had travelled round the country to commemorate the men who had fallen in the first World War.

At one stage the poppies were not going to come to Stoke-on-Trent despite thousands of them being made here. I for one am glad they came.

At the warehouse

Posted on August 30, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Drawing, Etruria, EtruriaArtists, Pencil, Sketch, Stoke-on trent, Urban sketchingLeave a comment

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Although we spent most of the evening moving junk out of the warehouse at Etruria I did get a short time to do some sketching. It’s a bit stern looking but it’s relatively accurate. I give you…..My hubby. A quick pencil sketch.

Warehouse work?

Posted on August 29, 2019August 29, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art group, Etruria, Etruria Artists, Etruria Industrial museum, Refurbishment, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trent, WarehouseLeave a comment

Etruria Artists hold art sessions at the Warehouse at Etruria on a Thursday evening.

Now big changes are happening. The building is having a disabled toilet and a new kitchenette. This should make it much more usable although we will lose storage space for our art equipment.

So this evening we were surrounded by an old canoe, a canal diorama, bits of wood, some blocks that built into a bridge, planks that pigeons had roosted on and other junk. Most of it had been stored on a platform above the current kitchen and store cupboard. We helped carry some of it out to a skip. My friend Robert rescued some of it, to be recycled later. My hubby wanted to bring back a six foot long, three foot high and wide, table base but I vetoed that as we already had wooden blocks in the car.

I’m not sure when the work will be done but I think it will make it far more comfortable to use.

Orme Art group and Spode studios Open Days.

Posted on August 28, 2019August 28, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Acrylic on canvas, Art, Exhibitions, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Orme Art group, Painting, Spode, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trent, The BramptonLeave a comment

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This is what I’m working towards at the moment. I’m really looking forward to it. We will have some space on a wall in the Brampton museum and art gallery. I’ve got a tryptich of Jupiter ready and I’m doing a painting of Mars. Then on the 7th and 8th of September I’ve got a painting at Spode during our Open Studios weekend.

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I will also be exhibiting art at The Orme Group Christmas Exhibition, dates and details to follow. Today I’ve also had confirmation that I can put more paintings in an exhibition at the Brampton in November to December for Christmas. I’m just waiting for a poster for that. All I need now is to see if people like them and get some commissions.

The Greyhound inn.

Posted on August 26, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged 1540, court house, Greyhound Inn, Inn, Penkhull, Pub, Public house, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trentLeave a comment

The Greyhound Inn on Manor Court Street, Penkhull, Stoke-on-Trent. A very interesting building. We called in today on the way back to Stoke from Rudyard lake.

To think a building originally built around 1540 and used as a court house been 1558 and 1829 would be enlarged and eventually became an Inn ( type of public house). Over the last few years it has gone through quite a few landlords, some more successful than others. It seems to be a friendly place now. But there are two other pubs nearby, so it has to share custom with them. We had a relaxing half an hour there.

Building in the city centre.

Posted on August 23, 2019August 23, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Betley, Blogging, City centre, Environment, Frontage, Hanley, Old, Old buildings, Restore, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trentLeave a comment

Hanley town is the city centre of Stoke on Trent. We were there this evening. When we walked back to the car I noticed this building so took a couple of snaps since it reminded me of the Spode site in Stoke.

What bothers me is that such an amazing frontage has been allowed to remain like this. There is a new hotel and a big apartment block being built directly opposite the old building. And yet old buildings like this are left to rot. If it had money spent on it perhaps it could be rescued. Then instead of eventually being knocked down, or falling down, it could be restored.

On the same note an old Manor house at Betley in Staffordshire burnt down today. A lot of effort had gone into repairing and restoring it, now its mostly destroyed by fire. The world is a sadder place for its loss and people who had flats there have lost their homes.

The Glasgow school of art had burnt down a while ago and the restoration started, then another worse fire happened. Great art was lost.

The point I guess is that instead of always building new things we should save some of our history before it has gone, and protect what remains.

Haiku Slam

Posted on August 23, 2019August 23, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Appetite big feast, Evening out, Fun, Haiku, Hanley, Poetry slam, Rhyme, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trent6 Comments

We went to haiku slam this evening. Poets read one of their own works then had to read out haiku’s they had written. Eight poets split into four couples read out three haiku’s each. The best out of the two progressed to a semi final, and then two ended up in the final. It was actually quite dramatic. Some wise and some fun words were spoken.

I did not enter the main competition. I don’t have enough knowledge of the form and I only dabble in poetry. But they had a little poetry competition running along side the haiku. I decided to just join in that, so three of us read a poem out and then had to leave the room while people voted. I came second which was a surprise. Maybe I should try and do more funny poetry, I read a poem called ‘unexpected item in the bagging area’ about the frustrations of shopping that I wrote a while ago.

Leopard mural

Posted on August 20, 2019August 20, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Burslem, Burslem riot, Chartists, Emulsion on lining paper, Imagined image, Mural, Stoke-on trent, The Leopard Hotel2 Comments

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In 1842 there was a Chartists riot in Burslem which is the mother town of Stoke-on-Trent. During a meeting of Chartists in the town the magistrate decided to read the riot act and the police and military shot a rioter called Josiah Heapy while they were trying to quell it.

I did this painting at least ten years ago and recently it appeared in the local press to illustrate the root. I wrote to the paper giving them retrospective permission to use it, but now it’s on other Facebook pages. When I informed one page they took it down. I don’t mind it being used but I did it and several others and would like some recognition. Some people speculated that I copied it from prints from the time. But actually I researched it. Look closely and you will see faces of customers, staff and the owners of the hotel. I used old prints to get the buildings right in the background. Things have changed since then including a victorian town hall which was built later. The police and mounted regiment are in uniforms that I had to guess. I tried getting the information but could not find it out in time.

Finished

Posted on August 18, 2019August 18, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Acrylic on canvas, Art, Black, Blue, Eleanora st, Landscape, Painting, Spode, Spode exhibition, Spode Reflected, Spode site, Staffordshire, Stoke, Stoke-on trent, What Spode means to me, White2 Comments

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Took all day but I finally finished this. Spent a lot of time painting the old, flaking window frame. I’m not sure the sky colour is right. I might get up early and tone it down. I’m handing it in in the morning….

It’s called Spode Reflected.

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Stoke-on trent