AHRC BGP Conference: University of Northumbria and University of Sunderland

11th May, 2011

Community in Clay: Ceramics and Community Engagement

The Heart of Jack Crawford: From Museum Text to Printed Ceramic

AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award - Community in ClayUniversity of Sunderland and

Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens

Towards a Sunderland Ware for the 21st Century: Using ceramics to monumentalise and materialise

identity and narrative in the Digital Age

Christopher McHugh, Year 1, Full-time

Director of Studies: Prof. Kevin Petrie, University of SunderlandCo-supervisors: Dr Andrew Livingstone, University of Sunderland

Shauna Gregg, Keeper of Art, Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens

Aim 1To develop innovative methods of artist-led community engagement and collaboration using a museum collection

a) How can current best practice in museum-based community engagement be developed by the artist in order to lead to mutual benefit?

b) How can such practice be better reflected upon and evaluated in order to inform and shape current practice?

c) Are ethnographic and archaeological conceptions of material culture useful when developing strategies for interpreting museum collections and how can these ideas help artists?

Aim 2To develop a new body of artwork in ceramics and mixed media which engages and celebrates the community through reference to the collection

a) How can identity and contemporary narratives be represented in ceramics using form and surface decoration?

b) How can objects in the Sunderland Ware collection be used as starting points for creative expression and the development of associated imagery and themes which reflect and engage the community?

c) How can digital media and social networking services be used by the artist in conjunction with craft-based production techniques to engage the community?

The Sunderland Pottery Collection at the

Sunderland Museum and

Winter Gardens

Vive l’ Empereur, God Save the Queen

Transfer printing and pink lustre glaze

Maritime themes, parted lovers, etc. Frog mugs

Jack Crawford in the Sunderland Pottery Collection

Jack Crawford, The Hero of Camperdown, 1797, dated 7th April 1890, unveiling of statue

19th Century white earthenware jug decorated with transfer printing, orange lustre and enamelling, Ball’s Pottery, Sunderland

Photo: Tyne and Wear Museums

Jack Crawford, The True British Sailor

19th Century white earthenware jug decorated with transfer printing, orange lustre and enamelling, Ball’s Pottery, Sunderland

Photo: Tyne and Wear Museums

Jack Crawford nailing Admiral Duncan’s colours to the mast on the flagship Venerable

19th Century white earthenware mug decorated with transfer printingBall’s Pottery, Sunderland

Photo: Tyne and Wear Museums

Transfer print of medal presented to Jack Crawford by public subscription, later sold to the Earl of Camperdown, who donated it to SMWG

19th Century white earthenware mug decorated with transfer printingBall’s Pottery, Sunderland

Photo: Tyne and Wear Museums

Jack Crawford in Sunderland Museum texts:

hearts and pots

Museum Accessions Register

15th Sept. 1882‘The Heart of Jack Crawford’, donated by Coun. H. Rudlandbrother of ‘Signor D-u-r-land’ (?), freak show owner

First reference to Jack Crawford pottery being donated to the Museum, 24th August, 1897 (Centenary of Battle of

Camperdown, 1797)

‘24.8.97 - Pot - painted Jack Crawford nailing Admiral Duncan’s flag to the mast…’

Jack Crawford in Historic Texts:from cholera death to

re-instated hero

Left: cholera death of “veteran tar John Crawford” reported in Sunderland Herald, 12th Nov. 1831

Right: Editor’s comment from Monthly Chronicle, April, 1887, “a glass jar labelled as containing the heart of the hero of Camperdown.” Also reference to pub sign which was in the Museum until recently.

Left: Programme of Statue opening, including a variety of stalls selling cider and a Jack Crawford panorama, 7th April, 1890

Right: Drawing of proposed statue, Monthly Chronicle, Sept. 1888, same design as mug

Renewed interest in Jack Crawford shown by numerous articles in Sunderland Echo in 1880s

Jack Crawford in

printed ceramic

Jack Crawford’s Heart

Slipcast porcelain with oxide stain and transfer printing

Approx. 15 x 10 x 5 cm

Prototype medal made for British Art Medal Society Medal Competition

Jack Crawford’s Heart(reverse)

Slipcast porcelain with oxide stain and transfer printing

Approx. 15 x 10 x 5 cm

Prototype medal made for British Art Medal Society Medal Competition

Work in progress, slip cast porcelain, yellow ochre and oxide stain

Work in progress, slip cast porcelain, yellow ochre and oxide stain

Using objects to engage:Foyle Street Writers -

Focus Group and Verse Project

Sunderland plaque - ‘scripture tiles’/ ‘poor man’s pictures’

Re-visiting Museum Collections

• Initiative of Collections Trust & Museums Libraries and Archives

• ‘Toolkit’ for capturing alternative interpretations of objects to add to archive

• feedback• collectionslink.org.uk

• Looking at the object1. Why have you picked this item?2. What is most important or

interesting about it?3. What topics or subjects do you think

it relates to? 4. Have you used something like it?5. Do objects/ records like this relate to

your own experience, or a tradition you know about?

6. What can we find out from it? 7. What do you think about it? 8. Do you like it?9. What do you want to know about it?

Better to pay and have little leftThan to keep much and be always in debt

While thou drink’st thy neighbour’s healthDrink not thine own away

Love and Be Happy

This world is a good place to live in

May carpenters flourish and our trade increaseAnd victory bring lasting peace

Seize the moments as they fly, Know to live and learn to die

Sunderland

Pottery SqPottery LanePottery RoadShows you were here

By Sylvia Forrest

Education has overtakenVocation.

Sunder landJoined at last by bridges that span

Moulding and meltingLives come togetherSearching, taking, transferringthe formCreating an image, the future is born.

Pavements worn smooth and shiny by the boots of the shipworkers marching down to work. Ringing now with the echoes of thespirits that rise withthe tide. By Val Wilkinson

The word, Wedding.The WE: comes before the, I.

No ships. No pits. The Glass: Works!

The Winter GardensWhere you, press a Screen toRelive the past.

Ships no more.Cars galore.

By Kath Conlan

Loving Cup

May this cuplike our wedding vowsnever be broken

Tankard

Our heritage was foundedby the banks of the Wearshipbuilding, coalminingAnd good old fashioned beer

By M Llewellyn

3 Rifles Medal Project

• Focus group to develop a campaign medal commemorating tour in Afghanistan

• Reminiscence exercise• Precedent in

Sunderland Pottery – What would it look like now?

Sunderland ware mug at DLI Museum commemorating Thomas Brown 68th Reg., 1842

COLLECTION

Gallery of Wonder at Great North Museum: Hancock 14th May (PM) – 10th June

Exhibition brochure: ‘The Heart of Jack Crawford: A Shrine to Unsung Heroes’

Contact

Tweet a Sunderland verse in 160 characters:twitter.com/communityinclay

@communityinclay

Blog: communityinclay.blogspot.com