Our small contribution to BCB 2013

We visited Middleport Pottery as part of the Burslem weekend for the British Ceramics Biennial. The area in which Middleport Pottery is located is a bit...grim so when we stepped inside it was a bit like falling down the rabbit hole, which was completely awesome. 

We entered a room with three tables with clay monstrosities describing the pits where the fuel for the factories was fug up, the pottery factories which once made the city prosperous and the canal side along which the ceramics were distributed to Manchester, and from there, the rest of the world. 

There seemed to be rather a lot of cats there too :)

This is mine and Patrick's small contribution, which I'm rather chuffed with.

We helped contribute towards the canal-side, which was a wonderful experience. Everything was made by people walking in, picking up clay and morphing the whole story into existence. It was great to be able to just pick up the soft clay and work directly with the materials without having to sketch anything first.

The results look rather cutesy, like the things I doodle.

BCB 2013

Here is lots of links to art and design-related things I am looking at at the moment. I've been doing social networking so that my facebook now looks more like stuff I am interested in and less like sonograms and other overly revealing tidbits from people I met in a drunken haze three years ago.

http://www.theartbay.co.uk/

-A Local Gallery in Fenton, Stoke-on-Trent

http://ourownfuture.org/

-Website is a bit 90's-looking but they've recently set up a shop in Wolverhampton that only sells work that is handmade by artists and craft peoples from the local area.

http://vimeo.com/38459378

-Video about independant store Yellowstone Art Boutique in Trentham, Stoke-on-Trent that sells and exhibits work from contemporary artists and makers. I also love their branding!

http://thedsgnblog.com/

-Beautiful website showcasing work by young designers across the globe

http://www.daydelosmuertos.blogspot.co.uk/

-Day Of The Dead, gorgeous photos of abandoned places worldwide. I love derelict buildings, they are soo beautiful.

I do have a list of further links but this post started to look kinda silly with content and I wanted to write something about all of them so that I don't miss anybody out. Might make links a weekly thing til I run out of em for a while.

Staffordshire University Fine Art End of Year Exhibition: Melissa Roden

Patrick was kind enough to take some photos for me from the Fine Art Exhibition at Staffs Uni. This is some awesome work by Melissa Roden about pop culture and the obsessions that can grow from it, and her own interest in The Cure, and I am ragingly jealous I was unable to attend.

More work can be found on her tumblr: http://melissarodenart.tumblr.com/

While I'm at it, here's some goddamn Arthur Berry, a personal hero of mine when I was 16 and just starting to draw.

The Soul of the Potteries (is not dead yet)

Faye Rowe- The Soul of the Potteries at Theartbay Gallery in Fenton

I have often heard it being said that nothing gets made in Stoke-On-Trent anymore, but I know for a fact that there has always been a quiet but consistent art-scene churning away in the background that people seem to forget about. I'm not trying to persuade anybody that there's hidden swathes of art galleries in the potteries, but there is more than people often realise.

...oatcakes

Best graffiti I've seen in stoke for ages

Conjunction 12

I am really really excited about this.

More info in this pdf

Quick doodle of a local church. A lot of my recent drawings are very heavily line-based, but that's because my main reason behind drawing them is to record types of geometric shapes to give me a further idea of how I want my comic layout to look like.

so far:

• have looked at basic scientific theories of how the universe began
• have visited Keele Observatory for further research
• have copied the first chapter of Genesis (king James version) word for word to give me a better idea of biblical language
• have begun to sketch churches and church windows for grid layout

I need to:

• do more research into classical looking angels and statues because I want the main narrator to be an angel
• do first-hand research into material experimentation, combining textiles and paints
• use church sketches to create grid layouts
• write a script based on the research I have done so far
• create rough draft of what I want the comic to look like on paper combining grid, character, text

Made 2

This looked interesting when I drove past today, might go back for another gander.

Thoughts from Hanley Museum

Took the boyfriend round the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery and drew this:

which is a sketch of the pattern on a Vase made by Mark Dally in 2002. He uses stencils and slip trails/drips to create these beautiful calligraphic shapes and was like a wave of fresh air standing next to ugly brown slipware and over-decoration galore. I think a lot of pottery designers in the height of the Stoke-On-Trent industry had never really heard of the phrase "less is more". It was like somebody had walked into their studio and started yelling that they could see some free space on a teacup or whatever that wasn't plastered in flowers.

It gave me a lot of inspiration for my bowl project though, and having looked at Mr Dally's work, I think I might have a look back at dear Mr Aubery Beardsley (whose work I always end up coming back to eventually). I made some new designs for my bowl based on animal cells.

I thought that maybe I could link my designs in with cancer, because my grandfather died last year due to  stomach/lung cancer and liver failure and without him, this project would not be possible. I was thinking that I could donate some of my proceeds to cancer research.

It was also great to see work by Arthur Berry being hung up again, as he was one of my heros when I was 16 and just starting to learn how to paint in college. I think his work identifies strongly with the cultural ethos of Stoke-On-Trent and it's a shame that so much of his work wasn't preserved.

Jacket Potato Man

Sometimes I like to post about things that inspire me, so I thought I’d introduce the internet to Jacket Potato Man. He is a hero and I aspire to be like him. He’s this charming old guy who always sells hot potatoes from a little gazebo on the street that is always in the same place.

Whenever me and the boyfriend go to visit him and buy his awesome potatoes and filling of choice, we always pay attention to everything he says and does and debate about what it is that makes Jacket Potato Man so awesome, and how he has managed to keep his business in an age where everything can be bought cheaper and made more efficiently by bigger corporations.

 Things I have learned about Jacket Potato Man are as follows:

1.       He has been baking and selling Jacket potatoes for over 20 years

2.       He always asks “how are you?” and never “what would you like?”

3.       He always keeps his hands busy with his work. He never stands around waiting to sell you something you don’t want.

4.       He gives you your money’s worth. He never ever skimps on the amount of potato filling.

One could learn a great deal about selling things and customer service by watching him. The guy is a natural. All he does is sell potatoes, but I’m pretty sure he’s a genius.