Community in Clay: Ceramics and Community Engagement at AHRC BGP Conference University

1. AHRC BGP Conference: University of Northumbria and University of Sunderland11th May, 2011 Community in Clay: Ceramics and Community Engagement The Heart of Jack Crawford: From Museum Text to Printed Ceramic

2. 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 Sunderland Co-supervisors: Dr Andrew Livingstone, University of Sunderland Shauna Gregg, Keeper of Art, Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens

3. Aim 1 To develop innovative methods of artist-led community engagement and collaboration using a museum collection • How can current best practice in museum-based community engagement be developed by the artist in order to lead to mutual benefit? • How can such practice be better reflected upon and evaluated in order to inform and shape current practice? • Are ethnographic and archaeological conceptions of material culture useful when developing strategies for interpreting museum collectionsand how can these ideas help artists?

4. Aim 2 To develop a new body of artwork in ceramics and mixed media which engages and celebrates the community through reference to the collection • How can identity and contemporary narratives be represented in ceramics using form and surface decoration? • 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? • How can digital media and social networking services be used by the artist in conjunction with craft-based production techniques to engage the community?

5. The Sunderland Pottery Collection at the Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens

6. Transfer printing and pink lustre glaze Vive l’ Empereur, God Save the Queen Maritime themes, parted lovers, etc. Frog mugs

7. Jack Crawford in the Sunderland Pottery Collection

8. 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

9. 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

10. Jack Crawford nailing Admiral Duncan’s colours to the mast on the flagship Venerable 19th Century white earthenware mug decorated with transfer printing Ball’s Pottery, Sunderland Photo: Tyne and Wear Museums

11. 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 printing Ball’s Pottery, Sunderland Photo: Tyne and Wear Museums

12. Jack Crawford in Sunderland Museum texts: hearts and pots

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

14. 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…’

15. Jack Crawford in Historic Texts: from cholera death to re-instated hero

16. 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.

17. 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

18. Jack Crawford in printed ceramic

19. 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

20. 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

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

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

23. Using objects to engage: Foyle Street Writers - Focus Group and Verse Project Sunderland plaque - ‘scripture tiles’/ ‘poor man’s pictures’

24. 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 object • Why have you picked this item? • What is most important or interesting about it? • What topics or subjects do you think it relates to? • Have you used something like it? • Do objects/ records like this relate to your own experience, or a tradition you know about? • What can we find out from it? • What do you think about it? • Do you like it? • What do you want to know about it?

25. Better to pay and have little left Than to keep much and be always in debt While thou drink’st thy neighbour’s health Drink not thine own away Love and Be Happy This world is a good place to live in May carpenters flourish and our trade increase And victory bring lasting peace Seize the moments as they fly, Know to live and learn to die

26. Sunderland Pottery Sq Pottery Lane Pottery Road Shows you were here By Sylvia Forrest

27. Education has overtaken Vocation. Moulding and melting Lives come together Searching, taking, transferring the form Creating an image, the future is born. Sunder land Joined at last by bridges that span Pavements worn smooth and shiny by the boots of the shipworkers marching down to work. Ringing now with the echoes of the spirits that rise with the tide. By Val Wilkinson

28. The word, Wedding. The WE: comes before the, I. No ships. No pits. The Glass: Works! The Winter Gardens Where you, press a Screen to Relive the past. Ships no more. Cars galore. By Kath Conlan

29. Loving Cup May this cup like our wedding vows never be broken Tankard Our heritage was founded by the banks of the Wear shipbuilding, coalmining And good old fashioned beer By M Llewellyn

30. 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

31. COLLECTION

32. 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’

33. Contact Tweet a Sunderland verse in 160 characters: twitter.com/communityinclay @communityinclay Blog: communityinclay.blogspot.com