The Rose Garden - Now the Real Work Begins

Finally, after 6 weeks of intensive groundworks, and even longer researching and contextualising, the Spode Rose Garden Project opened, along with the British Ceramics Biennial.

Bathed in BCB pink, our beautiful Rita Floyd hand-crafted ceramic rose sat resplendent on top of a plinth rising from the specially constructed flower bed.

While it was great to see this part of the project come to a conclusion, in truth the work for the project has only just started.

The Gallery has tasked itself with bringing the whole Spode Garden Site to life - to renovate the whole space in time for the 2015 British Ceramics Biennial. And as a central part of this, to bring the Spode China Rose to life in the form of a real old-style floribunda white rose.

The Gallery's part in this is to raise the £2500 necessary to fully develop the real rose, which we are doing through a crowdfunding campaign.
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/spode-rose-garden/x/4512038

We really want donors to feel that they have helped to successfully develop the project. Whilst we are happy to accept any donations at any level, we are aware that it is good to give donors something tangible for their donations.

We have developed 5 levels of reward-pledges

£10 - receive a limited edition photograph of the Rose (unltd. available)

£35 - receive a limited edition photograph of the Rose, plus receive a rose bush, when they are developed and grown in 2015.

£100 - receive a rose bush in 2015 and one ltd edition bone china rose, with certificate in December 2013.

£250 - your name as a funder on a plaque in the rose garden. 

£1,000 - a special picnic for two in the rose breeders field, with rose breeder and project developers: to learn about the project. 


The really exciting news came from a meeting the Gallery had with 3 power brokers in the City Council, who fully bought in to the project, being particularly impressed with its central tenet - a nod and acknowledgment of the city's past, but with a firm focus, conceptually shown by the new rose, on the city's future. 

They have endorsed our ideas and have pledged to ensure that the project happens and so now in a sense, the real work begins. We need to develop a sense of partnership. It's great to have the City Council on board, but we want to speak to Portmeirion, as the parent company of Spode, to see if they want to back the project - maybe by designing some special Spode China Rose Planters and Vases. We think the University would like to be involved, as well as some local horticultural colleges, who might want to grow some of the sites plants. And then of course the BCB, as we feel a special link with that organisation, and want to shout about 2015 and the National Year of Ceramics.