Hi! Stoke Wow Commissions: an art trail celebrating the heritage of Stoke Town
Cobalt Chronicles—by Jasmine Simpson, Stoke Town HSHAZ Wow Commission 4
Cobalt Chronicles is the fourth wow commission as part of Stoke Town High Street Heritage Action Zone programme, funded by Historic England and Stoke On Trent City Council. From January to March 2024 artist and ceramist Jasmine Simpson will design and create a ceramic mural artwork linking Church Street to the courtyard entrance at Spode. The artwork will bring together elements of traditional ceramic craftsmanship with a contemporary approach and take the form of a ceramic blue and white tile mural with sculptural elements. The artwork will be created in collaboration with a local tile manufacturer and the tiles will be hand-painted using cobalt oxide to create an impactful blue and white design linking to the traditional pottery of Stoke, particularly that created by Spode.
The mural will weave together iconic symbols and landmarks from town’s heritage with future facing designs. From the iconic bottle kilns to the flowing waters of the Trent and the intricate detailing of traditional pottery, each tile will tell a story, creating a vibrant narrative that celebrates the city's resilience, creativity, and the enduring legacy of its pottery heritage.
Jasmine is also inviting people with a connection to Stoke town to get involved in creating the artwork. Jasmine is inviting you to share stories, memories, and symbols that resonate with your relationship with the town. As well as helping to inform the overall design Jasmine plans to include some QR codes onto certain tiles, linking to digital stories shared by community members.
There will also be a chance to take part in a hand-sculpting workshop with Jasmine to create 3-D elements for the design as part of the next Hi! Stoke Festival 10th/11th February 2024, further details TBC
Send your stories to Jazsimpsonartist@gmail.com Or share your story to Instagram in written, video or any format you prefer with the hashtag #stokestories
Stoke Town Mosaic - by Tom Edwards of We are Culla, Stoke Town HSHAZ Wow Commission 3, located at 27-29 Glebe Street, ST4 1HL
Stoke Town Mosaic created by Tom Edwards of We are Culla, celebrates different historical Stoke Town Stories and references many familiar aspects such as the ceramic giants of Minton’s and Spode, but it also contains some that are less well known.
Here are a couple of stories which feature in the mural (a full list of the featured stories and associated imagery will be available on the council website and via QR code on the mural itself in due course)
Did you know that Sir Oliver Lodge, born in Penkhull in 1851 was not only the first man to transmit a wireless radio message. But he also invented the electric spark plug. There is a street named Spark Terrace and a residential building fittingly called ‘Oliver Lodge’ nearby.
Arnold Machin who was born in Oak Hill in 1911 (then later lived at the Villa’s) was an artist and sculptor who, in the 1960’s, created the iconic image of queen Elizabeth II used on decimal coinage and postage stamps to this day. Probably one of the most reproduced images of all time!
The Wheatsheaf pub (now Weatherspoons on Church St) was once considered one of the best live music venues in the Midlands. With bands such as Oasis and Radiohead being regular visitors. Many people spoke of the importance of the venue to their youth and their memories of growing up in the town.
Let’s Talk Market—by Pickle Illustration, featuring Haikus by Alan Barrett, Stoke Town HSHAZ Wow Commission 2, Located at Stoke Library (market side elevation), South Wolfe Street, Stoke, ST4 4SZ,
Artists’ Pickle Illustration developed two window designs running workshops and interviews to explore people’s experience and memories of the site both when in use as the indoor market and as the site of the town’s library and local centre. The artworks also include Haikus from Poet Alan Barrett.
Four Landscapes for Stoke - Kaye Song, Stoke Town HSHAZ Wow Commission 1 —Located in the windows of 1 Campbell Place, Stoke, ST4 1NH
Artist Kaye Song was commissioned to design an original piece of artwork for the windows at 1 Campbell Place. Formally a bank the site is now the Stoke home of Carse and Waterman Productions. As well as reflecting on the heritage and present narratives of Stoke, the fourth panel explores the potential future of the area. It includes 3-D scan of future landscapes made by Staffordshire University Architecture students.
Kaye explains some of the thinking and research behind the artwork, ‘Four Landscapes for Stoke’ tells a four-part story of our relationship to our surroundings and explores how landscape plays a role in the making of Stoke Town.
The first panel depicts the wider, deeper history of Stoke. Situated on the edge of the moorlands and Peak District, this region stood on heavy clay and rugged land that was not suitable for agriculture. Residents instead turned to ceramics - kilns unearthed here evidence potting that dates back to Roman times, with roads connecting Stoke to Chester and Derby. Stoke was also part of the Kingdom of Mercia and an important place of worship as well as a thoroughfare for pilgrimages. Today, this is marked by the Two Saints Way, a long-distance route between the shrines of St Werburgh and St Chad, with Stoke Minster marking the midpoint.
The second panel focuses on the more recent, industrial history of Stoke, much of which forms the heritage of Stoke-on-Trent as we know it today. The exploitation of the land on which the city stood was crucial to it becoming an industrial powerhouse - access to coal, clay and watercourses made the production and transport of ceramics an operation that propelled the city to international prominence. During this period, the cultivation of oats came to dominate its farmland - straw was used as fire for the kiln, and grain milled to form flour for a new fast food for the Potteries workers, which wrapped leftovers with a delicious, filling oatcake.
The third panel hones in on the present and local Stoke Town of shops, houses, streets and warehouses. The urban environment is shown as part of the natural features that surround the town. The River Trent punctures through the hill at Harecastle Tunnel, flowing alongside Stoke in concreted channels; fragments of the town’s architecture are collaged together to form a conglomeration of brick, tiles and stone sitting atop substrates of soil, clay and pottery fragments.
The fourth panel speculates on what the Stoke landscape holds in the future. There is great work being done by organisations such as Wilder Stoke Wilder Newcastle to connect local people with the land around them. They remind us that even our backyards form part of a collective landscape - creating log piles, installing bat boxes, bird feeders and ponds and letting our grass grow long all help to contribute towards creating green corridors and reinstating biodiversity into our cities. With everybody working together for sustainable advancements in how we farm, build and distribute, Stoke Town is allowing its residents to use its land in ways that are ever-greener and ever-smarter.
In the background of the fourth panel lies a landscape still in the process of becoming. Made with Staffordshire University Architecture students, this 3D digital mesh was taken directly from a collaborative clay model of the Stoke-on-Trent landscape. Together, they imagined a new terrain full of bridges, clean energy infrastructure integrated into new construction, plentiful housing and safer thoroughfares for wildlife and people. In the centre we see people starting to lay bricks for the future Stoke with robotic technology, a nod to the buildings current use as a digital creative space and incubator for next generations technological innovation.
Altogether, the panels portray landscape as a dynamic and colourful culmination of people, material and spaces. Stoke Town has a hugely multi-layered history and deep ties to its land that also forms part of a larger human story. How we use our land plays a far-reaching role in shaping the environment around us, and our environment in turn is what shapes our practices and culture: landscape is all around us and is who we are. ‘Four Landscapes for Stoke’ is a testament to this and encourages us all to take care of our surroundings, to value the stories that are embedded in our land and to find power in using our tools to rework it for a better future.