New paintings and regular art updates.
A cat moved into the warehouse where we held out art and craft show. It has a home in a local housing estate but I guess because the warehouse is heated it’s found a place to visit. The main problem is there is a ladder up to the loft space and on Saturday it climbed up and went to sleep!
There was a panic because they couldn’t lock up the building until it was found. Luckily someone bought some cat treats so it came down!
Through the door of the warehouse looking out over lock forty of the Trent and Mersey canal. Steps lead up from the depths of the deep lock, picked out in white paint amidst the concrete sides of the canal. Behind me on the other side of the warehouse the Cauldon canal flows. It is higher up than the Trent and Mersey canal until lock forty raises it to the same level. The warehouse is slightly damp inside which may be to do with its position between the two arms of the canal. I like ‘views through’ things, like views into windows and through foliage.
While covid has been happening the warehouse where we used to hold our Etruria art group on a Thursday morning has been transformed. The blue walls have been painted white and a disabled toilet has been added, with a little kitchen bay in the main room. Hopefully they will fix the roof as there are several loose tiles.
Unfortunately there may be a problem with the art group continuing to use it. Perhaps pottery is too messy? We have yet to hear if we will be allowed to go back after the lockdowns end. We live in hope. It would be good to go back there and make use of it again.
I mmust have been feeling cheerful when I did these paintings plus a batik picture of some fish. The first bottle oven painting is an attempt to do a clarice cliff design. If I did it now I would make the building more curved. The batik is sort of a Pices idea. The dragonfly was an interesting compositon and the half bottle oven is meant to be mirrored by blue sky or water in a canal. It is slightly remenicent of a yin yang symbol. The exhibition was held at the warehouse at Etruria industrial museum at Etruria, Stoke-on-Trent three years ago. At the moment we cannot use the building because of covid19.
Through the door into the dark shadows, light shining through dusty windows, shafts of sunlight with dust motes dancing through the beams. We were exploring, looking at the racks of plaster molds, stacked high on racks, above head height. Hundreds of them, all shapes and sizes. For slip casting pottery.
In the back of the store room something stirred. A figure unfolding, grey with dust. Semi transparent, like a ghost? We saw it as it lurched to its feet and grasped at the racks of saggars. It spoke. ‘you don’t belong here’ it shouted ‘get out’, and we did! We turned tail and ran, through the door, through the yard and away. We won’t be going back there again!
My first drawing of 2020 on 2.1.2020. It’s red because we were at Etruria Artists in the warehouse by the canal. It was so cold we had the electric heaters on in the roof that glow cherry red. For those who know the person, I’ve got his nose too long. This is because he was moving.
The Etruria Artists are now meeting on a Thursday morning from 10am to 12noon unless we change it. Hopefully this will encourage more people to come along.
Finished off my take on an Easter island head this week by hollowing it out and adding texture to the surface. It now needs to dry out so it can be fired. If the clay is wet the water in it will expand and may cause the pottery to blow up. It may not be an accurate representation of these wonderful statues, but I hope it is not disrespectful to model it?
We have started to meet on Thursday mornings at Etruria rather than in the evenings, this means we are there at the warehouse on the Trent and Mersey canal by summit lock 40. From 10am to 12 noon.
* note, we are meeting on an ad hoc basis at the moment dependant on the weather.
Four of us visited the Warehouse at Etruria today, its by the summit lock 40 on the Trent and Mersey canal, near Etruria Industrial museum, Stoke-on-Trent.
The subject was Easter Island heads, and I decided to try and work out how to slab build it, which is why I did a drawing of it first. Then because we decided to do smaller statues we decided to carve the clay instead. The results are shown in the middle pictures. Finally I talked to my friend Robert, who is a Potter and leader of the group. He explained that we should have glued bits on with slip if we wanted the pieces firing.
The final photo is one of my hubby’s drawings in response to the ideas. I liked what he was doing and took a photo. He explained he was working on ideas from Barbara Hepworth.
X
I’m not sure why these are inside a building and not outside by the side of the canal to be used? Perhaps they are old and not the correct standard anymore. Maybe they have been stored in case they are needed? Maybe they are for use by the boat club that meets in the warehouse sometimes. Yes that is damp at the bottom of the wall. The building is between the trent and Mersey canal and the Cauldon canal. It is actually lower down than the water on one side, and next to a deep lock on the other side. So water might be slowly seeping in and the building is over a hundred years old.
Back to the life belts, I guess you could grab them and use them if someone falls in the lock….. I might find out about them…
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.
X
Mallaband-Brown