Moorland Pottery producing May un Mar Lady mugs | Dave Follows | Cartoons

Pottery firm brews up May Un Mar Lady mugs range

via Moorland Pottery producing May un Mar Lady mugs | Dave Follows | Cartoons.

Keeling & Co Ltd Pottery | Flickr – Photo Sharing!

“I adore how they have faded with the passage of time. I must admit, though, that I would love to know what they looked like when new”

via All clean now 🙂 | Flickr – Photo Sharing!.

On Yer Bike…Cycling through Art

On Yer Bike….

…Cycling through Art

In support of the Tour of Britain 2010

The Old Post Office  Gallery Burslem presents “On Yer Bike”, an exhibition to coincide with the Tour of Britain through Burslem. On a day that promises excitement, the contemporary gallery opens its doors and welcomes visitors to enjoy the sporting atmosphere.

Bringing together an eclectic selection of artists, viewers will be able to further enjoy the cycling through art! Curator Lindsey Cotterill says, “It is great that such a major event is coming through the city, starting in Burslem it will bring a well needed boost to the area. Stoke-on-Trent has a fantastic selection of artists and this is a great opportunity to come and see their work whilst supporting a major event! It promises to be a great day and we hope that people come and make use of the galleries great event, refreshments and atmosphere!”

The artists who will be taking part include the cartoonist Warren Armstrong, who takes inspiration from cycling through the area to produce comedic images. There will also be Paul Shipley who has previously competed in cycling and triathlon competitions, after he suffered an injury, he began to show his passion through cycling. His work realistically shows the passion that such events can hold.

Paine Proffit completes the artistic line up, his poster style art captures the essence of the exciting event, he says “for this series, I wanted to celebrate the Tour of Britain bicycle race and try to do the paintings in a ‘vintage poster’ style to capture the feeling of an event coming to our town. It’s so exciting to have the race come through Stoke-On-Trent and it’s been a lot of fun working on these pieces! I’ve wanted to focus on different elements of the race … the event, the pageantry, the gruelling race, and the excitement and entertainment of the day.”

A late addition to the exhibition is the Stoke – on – Trent City Council’s Cycle Stoke children’s art competition. The winners  and runners up will have their artwork in pride of place within the On Yer Bike exhibition.

To coincide with this event, the gallery is also supporting Spence Ord and his Team AWNTY as then train for their endurance race to the North Pole. Spence has been training by cycling round the city in a Duck suit, the mascot for one of his charities, giving rise to the phrase “On Yer Bike, Duke!” Spence will be gracing the gallery on Sunday 12^th September raising awareness for his cause.

This promises to be a fantastic event. The gallery will be open from 8am – 4pm on Sunday the 12^th, offering refreshments and a place to enjoy the atmosphere.

The exhibition runs from the 10^th – 14^th September, general opening times 10am – 4pm.

For more information please contact oldpostofficegalleryburslem@gmail.com

Ideas flowing in the Old Post Office

With a new exhibition being put up around us, around 15 people gathered for this first experimental meeting. 10 ideas were presented with discussion inbetween. While some were ideas that fit the category of “would be great if enough people got behind it”, many more were already active pieces of work that can inspire other people.

All the ideas will be developed into individual posts and in the meantime here’s a brief summary of the discussion. We think we’ll get together again in a month to continue the discussions.

Many thanks to Rob and the Old Post Office for hosting. This space will be open all weekend for a sales exhibition of pottery and also hosts a Social Media Surgery on September 1st – this is a chance for anybody in the community to come and get free advice about helpful ways you can use the internet. More information here.

Joan Walley’s good food Bill

Stoke North MP Joan Walley has introduced a Bill to Parliament to set legal standards for food served in hospitals, schools, the armed forces, care homes and all other public institutions.

She writes:

If successful, the Bill will mean that all public institutions will have to buy, prepare and serve food which is proven to be healthy, good for the environment and meets clear ethical standards.

The Bill is backed by leading environmental groups including Friends of the Earth and 10:10 and would require all public institutions to buy food that meets health, environmental and ethical standards included in a Code for Sustainable Food. This would result, for example, in public institutions buying food which meets high nutritional standards, promotes animal welfare, reduces carbon emissions from farming, including more organic food, and stops the purchase of endangered seafood.

Then and Now

“If we walk through Burslem today we still have this magical, reachable history which very, very few towns have”

Fred Hughes takes a look back at how Burslem has changed since the 1960s. By peoplesarchive

Burslem’s heritage trail

by John Webbe

Have you seen the information boards around Burslem town centre? Maybe you have seen the bright-green leaflets which proudly shout “Welcome to Burslem, Mother Town of the Potteries”? They form Burslem’s heritage trail.

I decided to follow this route with my retired parents and my then nearly-two-year old daughter as we enjoyed the sun shining bright overhead. There are nine heritage trail boards in total – seven around Burslem town centre and one each at Moorcroft & Middleport Pottery. I am not going to repeat any of the information on the heritage trail boards or in the leaflet, I’ll leave that to you to find out, but believe me, it’s worth it – there’s some fascinating information for even the most hardened Boslemite to learn!