Friday 28 October 2016

Woman’s Work - Jessie, Kate & Enid by Joanne Ayre

Sometimes I think I'm a frustrated dancer. Unable to move on the dance floor in a coordinated manner, my style of dancing could generously be labelled 'abstract' or 'expressive', 'post-modern' even, if that means you nick moves from around you collaging them together into a disjointed series of steps, sways and swings of limbs. Making is my moment as a dancer. A place where uninhibited choreography is enacted by my fingers. A chance for grace and elegance. There is a recognised contentment to be found in being in the flow of a process; the flick of a brush, the decisive cut of a wire, the sweep of a sponge. There are other benefits to making objects- a chance for self expression, the enquiry and exploration into materials or subject matter, a way of processing the world. In recent years there have been times when I have felt that I have lost my own practice, that I have become wrapped up in other work or life or circumstance, but the joy of process has been a constant. The pleasure of a well oiled guillotine made trimming work for display a stolen pleasure in a busy day of teaching.

Moving back to Stoke has provided me with freedom; space, opportunity and encouragement have played a part in allowing me to channel my energy into my work as an artist. Working alongside others is an important part of what I do and I am increasingly intrigued by collective endeavour; what happens when people make together. What happens when individual identity becomes more difficult to define or even irrelevant? Why is anonymity such a source of fascination to me? How does this relate in particular to gender? Are women more happy to work collectively, less ego driven perhaps? Or is there more a denial of their individuality that means they have only been identified as a collective?

Photo by Stephanie Rushton
To open my research I have presented three collections of objects brought together in response to three named women who worked in the pottery industry. Their individual stories seemed a good place to start, with some information recorded and accessible. As the residency progresses I hope to uncover stories of other women, who may not be associated with a specific object but for whom the work of their hands is nevertheless part of the process of making ceramics.

Detail of Jessie by Joanne Ayre

Born in Stoke on Trent in 1928, Jessie Tait was one of Midwinter Pottery's most prolific and popular designers. Many of her patterns are so familiar to us they have seeped into the archetypal aesthetic of 1950s British design. Exploring some of the vast range in designs she created, it is remarkable how elements of these appear to have been adapted or reinterpreted by other designers. Pieces like those in the Domino range feel so ubiquitous it seems strange to attribute this to the work of one designer. This is a reflection of the success of Jessie's playful rhythm of line, dot and dash. Her relationship with the 'army' of women who 'incorporated hand-painted details' into the ware is one that I would like to explore further. To me, many of her designs seem to celebrate the deftness of the paintresses' hands. Would it be romantic to suggest that she purposely made this an essential part of the process rather than turning to more mechanised ways of applying decoration?

However, the part of Jessie's story that intrigues me most is her dedication to making. For Jessie lived a double life, designing by day and making with clay at night. Clay as a material and form, as well as a surface, must have had a real draw for Jessie. She made use of access to night school to create wheel thrown tubelined wares. I would love to know how she felt about these two approaches to ceramics, whether she would have preferred to work as a 'studio potter' or if she saw both pursuits as complementary. Was working as a 'designer' a more respectable career option for a woman? Cheryl Buckley describes the role of designer as an alternative to domestic roles for women. Would an independent potter have been a step too far in terms of gendered expectation, for was it more a matter of financial stability?

Kate by Joanne Ayre

Kate Bruce was a paintress at Spode from the mid 19th century for over fifty years. Her skill at executing detailed decoration, in particular a cornflower design, led to her becoming one of few, if not the only, woman permitted to sign her work. Pam Woolliscroft has more information about Kate here: http://spodehistory.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/spode-and-kate-bruce.html

I wonder how Kate's feelings about her work changed after she was granted this permission? Was she proud? Was it an added pressure? Did she feel stuck with painting more cornflowers? Was her loyalty and long service driven by financial need or did she take pleasure and pride in her work? Did the social dynamic with her colleagues change after her individual endeavours were acknowledged?

Detail of Kate by Joanne Ayre
Designer Enid Seeney provided a third focus for my initial exploration. The 'Homemaker' design is one that I recall spotting during trips to the Potteries Museum as a child. A feature on the regular tour of the potteries museum with my nan, which included the dolls' house, the cow creamers, the chip shop and taxidermy, it jumped out of the case at me with its bold use of line and the detailed depictions of furniture. It connected with my fascination with encyclopaedias and maps and diagrams of homes or towns illustrated in the inside covers of Milly Molly Mandy, Peter Pan and the Hobbit. I had not given the design a second thought until this year when I became involved in a project with artist Anna Francis. Enid's story is a fascinating one, which Ray Johnson's film Homemaker records through interviews with Enid herself. She trained as a designer with Spode Copeland in the 1950s, where she learned 'how to draw better'. However, she moved to Ridgway Pottery on completion of her training as she wanted to 'do modern designs'. In the film her love of drawing radiates from the footage and her recollections. She speaks with great excitement about the wonderful atmosphere of the studio, the pleasure of designing and the satisfaction of having her designs accepted after many attempts to bring in a fresh, stylised aesthetic to the traditional manufacturers. Enid worked as a designer for seven years before leaving Stoke on Trent to marry her first husband. 




A modest woman, Enid describes the surprise at discovering the Homemaker range for sale in her local Woolworths. In the film Enid makes no suggestion of regret, she seems pragmatic in her reflection on the way she left the profession to 'be a wife' and 'make a home'. How did Enid reconcile her creative urge? Or did she find other sources of fulfilment; swiftly filling the gaps left by the end to her career with other passions, roles or activities? The unearthing of the Super 8 footage by Andrew Branscombe is a wonderful glimpse into her life. It captures a relaxed, happy, playful young woman. There is a degree of self reflection when examining the lives of others - how would I feel if this were me? But there is a complexity to feelings, motivations and behaviours that make 'conclusions' elusive. There is an ethereal quality to personality which denies definition. And there is a way of 'making the most' of it that many people possess.

Detail of Enid by Joanne Ayre


So where next? I am interested in delving deeper into the lives of these women and others beside. I hope to 'understand' more about them and their work through the making of ceramics, reflecting not only the visual elements and processes of their work but also the settings, where they worked, who they worked alongside, how their work formed part of their daily or weekly activities. Collective working and the anonymity of identity is an area I would like to explore through working with other women in the city. Memories and accounts have already begun to flow my way and I now look to identifying ways of recording and responding to these stories of 'woman's work'.


Woman’s Work is a partnership project between AirSpace Gallery and The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery. Woman’s Work seeks to make visible the hidden and unsung labour carried out by women in the home, the workplace and public life, and in particular seeks to redress the imbalance in history and the arts, where work made by women has been undervalued, or simply not recognised.


The exhibition is open at AirSpace Gallery 11am - 5pm, Thursday - Saturday, 30th September to 5th November 2016. The evolving Woman’s Work programme at Potteries Museum and Art Gallery runs through to November 2017

Thursday 20 October 2016

Woman’s Work - A Soft Armour by Monique Besten




Monique Besten is a nomadic artist who was born in the Netherlands and is at home where her feet are. She works site-specific using different media with a special focus on long distance performative walking, crossing countries on foot collecting stories and researching life. Themes in her work are slowness, sustainability, borders and simplicity. She likes to be in the here and now by creating poetic bridges between the past and the future, the real and the virtual world, analogue and digital ways of working.


A Soft Armour #2, currently on show in the AirSpace window, is a suit Monique wore for 108 days. Everyday she sewed a new image or text on the inside, slowly creating a growing mind map of how she experienced the world around her. Monique states ‘Time and observation are inextricably bound up with each other, in my work as in reality, because time is only truly visible through the changes around us and in ourselves.’ Throughout the performance Monique also wrote texts - reflections on her experience of acutely observing the world whilst in a suit. Some of these are on display alongside the work and give insight into Monique’s thought processes and her accumulation of research on life.





(day 7)

suit thoughts


since last week I'm wearing a suit

i wore it on the train, in the optical museum in Jena, in a mild snowstorm, in a cafe,

in another cafe (where I spilled coffee over it), eating diner at a friends’ place, holding a ladder while two people were painting a wall, at a concert, in my own house, in the supermarket and everywhere inbetween

i will wear it the coming weeks, months, while sewing my thoughts on the inside and wondering what this is all about

is it a diary? a mindmap? a performance? an egocentric ego-­‐document or can it communicate something more than what is on my mind?

what is the role of inside and outside? how can I use the voyeuristic element? is the value in my perseverence to wear it?

does the content matter or does it only matter there is content, any content? should i go on a trip again and wear it while walking?

it makes me more attentive to the world but does it makes others more attentive?

while sewing in the train to jena I sat next to a woman who was shouting the private details of her life in her phone so we could all hear it but nobody took notice of it. do you have to be secretive to make people interested these days? silent? on the inside?

i had some nice conversations during the process. and saw a kingfisher in the snow. only because I am wearing a suit. i'm sure.




A Soft Armour #5 is currently on show at The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery. A 3 piece suit Monique wore from Amsterdam to Austria. 1364km in 96 days. 

Every day I wrote a story. Every day I collected pieces of thread, ropes, strings, rubber bands and I tied them together in the order I found them. Every knot a story. Every line a piece of the road. Spheres, globes, condensed days.

I wore The same business suit every day. Traditionally it is called a ‘walking suit’ A three-piece walking suit. I call it my soft armour. It keeps me warm, safe, sound, it opens doors. It is my uniform, my costume, my house, it has many pockets. It is as comfortable as any outfit I can think of. I use it to collect stories in.

The suit is my interface between the worlds I move through. Between the land I walk, the body I walk it with, the place people refer to as ‘the real world’ but which I consider to be just as real as the other world I move around in, the ephemeral world wide web. The stories I encounter, hold in my hand, find a new home there.


Everyday bought new encounters, new landscapes, new stories. I wrote them down on my  solar powered iPad. Two embroidered QR codes on my trousers and my jacket linked to my weblog. At the same time I embroidered the stories on the outside of my suit. Small drawings and texts. It reads like a book. The people on the road read my story. And while reading it, they become part of it. Like I became a part of their story.


Woman’s Work is a partnership project between AirSpace Gallery and The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery. Woman’s Work seeks to make visible the hidden and unsung labour carried out by women in the home, the workplace and public life, and in particular seeks to redress the imbalance in history and the arts, where work made by women has been undervalued, or simply not recognised.

The exhibition is open at AirSpace Gallery 11am - 5pm, Thursday - Saturday, 30th September to 5th November 2016. The evolving Woman’s Work programme at Potteries Museum and Art Gallery runs through to November 2017

Friday 14 October 2016

Woman’s Work - Untitled (Equivalent) by Claire Hickey





Claire Hickey’s current practice uses brick stacks, embedded casts, and moulds to examine notions of pregnancy, labour, women's work, and the dichotomy of being both an artist and mother.


Untitled (Equivalent), a floor piece comprising of handmade, unfired bricks, imprinted with the names of female makers of 19th Century Birmingham, seeks to look at unrecognised, working women. The project was initiated by the discovery that the mass-market jewellery chain H Samuel was founded by a female jeweller, Harriet Samuel. The response of surprise that comes hand in hand with the discovery that H Samuel is a woman is infinitely telling. What does it say about our ingrained attitudes that we blindly assume that the successful chain was founded by a man? How many other female makers are left unknown? Hickey looked at the Birmingham Archives to unearth other unacknowledged female makers from the city.  Below is a list of the women and their professions, each of which Hickey has commemorated in this brick piece.

Women makers of Birmingham (mid 19
th
Century)
Harriet Samuel jeweller
Elizabeth Collins builder
Mary Edwards chair maker
Sarah Hastilow basket maker
Ann Bailey glove maker, hosier & haberdasher
Phoebe Kirby hatter
Betsy Knight baker
Ann L- odge statuary mason
Jane Mayrick dyer
Sophia Mason milliner
Esther Mousley butcher
Hannah Pugh pastry cook
Mary Reeves furrier
Rebecca Reading draper
Elizabeth Richardso
n cabinet maker
Jane Sanders gun barrel browner
Sarah Sanders cooper
Alice Pitt locksmith
Elizabeth Gill sword & gun maker
Lucinda Evetts brass founder
Constance Naden
poet
Georgie Gaskin artist & jeweller
Kate Bunce painter
Myra Bunce designer (metalwork)
Ruth Worrallo file maker
Susannah Parkes gilt toy & watch chain maker
Catherine Holyoake horn button maker
Kathleen Dayus enameller & author
Susannah Roberts straw and tuscan bonnet maker
Emma Rooke stay maker
Martha Oakley shoeing smith
Charlotte Langford paper bag maker
Annie Thompson harness blacker
Sarah Avery wheelwright
Eliza Barber lapidarist
Maria Birch chandler
Ann Blick brewer
Nancy Brindley boot & show maker
Arabella Plant pearl button maker
Frances Moore dressmaker
Sources:
Direc tory of Birmingham 1835
White's Trade Directory 1845
White's Trade Directory 1835
Kelly's Directory 1888
Birmingham: The Great Working City, 1994, C. Chinn
Birmingham Women, 2000, M. Green
Birmingham at Work, 1993, A. & J. Douglas
A History of Industry in Birmingham, 1977, M.B. Rowlands


Woman’s Work is a partnership project between AirSpace Gallery and The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery. Woman’s Work seeks to make visible the hidden and unsung labour carried out by women in the home, the workplace and public life, and in particular seeks to redress the imbalance in history and the arts, where work made by women has been undervalued, or simply not recognised.

The exhibition is open at AirSpace Gallery 11am - 5pm, Thursday - Saturday, 30th September to 5th November 2016. The evolving Woman’s Work programme at Potteries Museum and Art Gallery runs through to November 2017.

Friday 7 October 2016

Woman’s Work - Nocturne by Phoebe Cummings

Phoebe Cummings has written a beautiful text to accompany her piece Nocturne, which is currently on show at AirSpace as part of Woman’s Work. The text looks at the hours of the night as a time for women to work free from their daytime responsibilities as mothers. 




While her seven children slept, my great Grandmother would sew.  During the war she would sew bags for gas masks. No doubt she was exhausted and did it for the money, but I wonder also if she felt the satisfaction of making things with her hands?  Though tired, if she enjoyed at all those peaceful productive hours where her role in the house changed? Her kitchen table became a factory, and she was the boss.

Like many women, since having children much of my work as an artist follows my work as a mother and is condensed into the hours they sleep.  Planning, thinking, writing, testing, producing some components happens at the kitchen table.  I think about what drives me to stay up and work, often unpaid. Some days I almost crave it.  Those hours are a space to think and to learn in a different way than I do as a mother.  Making gives me a different voice in the world, and through it I go to places and have conversations that I would otherwise not encounter.  And then there is clay; a material I continue to be fascinated by, through its history and properties as a raw material. I think through it.

Nocturne is brief bouquet of flora that blooms at night.  It is an impossible arrangement, combined of plants from different continents, suited to different environments.  Most of the piece, modelled by hand, was made at the kitchen table, the rest in the gallery and will exist only for the duration of the exhibition. It is an ode to the unseen work mothers do while their children sleep, throughout history and today.



Woman’s Work is a partnership project between AirSpace Gallery and The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery. Woman’s Work seeks to make visible the hidden and unsung labour carried out by women in the home, the workplace and public life, and in particular seeks to redress the imbalance in history and the arts, where work made by women has been undervalued, or simply not recognised.

The exhibition is open at AirSpace Gallery 11am - 5pm, Thursday - Saturday, 30th September to 5th November 2016. The evolving Woman’s Work programme at Potteries Museum and Art Gallery runs through to November 2017.