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 19^th 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.