Celebrating Cranogwen

To mark St. David’s Day (March 1st), a new design has been produced in collaboration with Sussex Lustreware to commemorate the Welsh poet, teacher and mariner, Sarah Jane Rees. (1839 -1916.)

 
As a teenager Sarah Jane declined the dressmaker’s apprenticeship suggested to her by her family, and instead spent two years crewing on her sea-captain father’s ketch before returning to study for her master mariner’s certificate in navigation in London.

Despite being fully-qualified there was the expected opposition to her captaining any ship, so instead she returned to Wales where she became a teacher, educating children and tutoring young men in the arts of navigation.

A celebrated poet in the Welsh language, Sarah Jane was also known by her Bardic name of Cranogwen, and those who she helped gain their master mariner certificates were known affectionately as ‘Cranogwen’s Captains’.

Studio photographs of the adult Sarah Jane show her long hair centre-parted and worn tightly arranged against the head, with the jewellery, gleaming gowns and velvet jackets of a woman of her class.

What she wore when she crewed her fathers ship is not known, and so my portrait of her is a fanciful one in the tradition of the romantically inclined depictions of sailors on nineteenth century ceramics and toy theatre character sheets.

I’ve given her the varnished and be-ribboned straw-boater of a nineteenth century sailor, with a neckerchief knotted at the collar of a shirt worn under an open jacket.

Sarah Jane Rees must have been a woman of courageous and independent spirit to have taken the path she chose. She was a lecturer in an age when public speaking by women was frowned upon, she established a women’s magazine and founded the South Wales Women’s Temperance Union in order to secure the safety of women in both their homes and within society. 

Sarah didn’t marry, and there is clear evidence that her lasting relationships were with two women: Fanny Rees, who died young from tuberculosis, and Jane Thomas, the lifelong companion addressed by Sarah in her most celebrated poem, My Friend: 

“I love you, my beloved Venus”. 

Below: The maritime tradition of Sunderland Lustreware

Inside the collar of our jug runs the text: Sarah Jane Rees, also known as Cranogwen: Morwr (Mariner) Bard (Poet) Athrawes (Teacher)

Reference and Adaptation in ‘Harlequinade’ for Sussex Lustreware

When Susan Williams-Ellis of the Portmeirion Pottery designed her Pantomime range in the 1960s, the records indicate she found the images in a book published by Pollock’s. Mention is made of the engravings being too faint to successfully reproduce on china, which may well be true, though by re-drawing them she will also have sidestepped photographic copyright issues. Whatever the full truth of the matter, her ink drawings were dark and sharp, and they reproduced with clarity.

Portmeirion ‘Pantomime’ ware designed by Susan Williams-Ellis

All the reference material for the Sussex Lustreware Harlequinade range of ceramics has come from my own collection of 19th century toy theatre sheets. Because there were so many printmakers producing these – Green, Skelt, Redington, Pollock etc – I did quite a lot of adaptation so that Harlequinade would have the unity of a single visual aesthetic. Some of my drawings stayed fairly close to the original material, but occasionally I ‘improved’ the designs so as to be what I needed to work for the collection, while always staying firmly within the bounds of the toy theatre ‘style’. My collaborator at Sussex Lustreware, Gloria, came up with the idea of using freehand lustre swags to link the transfer-ware vignettes of the audience around the edges of plates.

Susan Williams-Ellis had rendered her ‘Pantomime’ designs in pen and ink. I drew mine in soft black pencil scanned in greyscale to make transfers ready for applying and firing to the earthenware. Neither Susan’s ink drawings made in the 1960s or my pencil drawings made last year mimic the engravings that were our inspirations, but each of us made what we knew would reproduce well on white ceramic. My pencil drawings have the same silvery tone as some of the old engravings, and the results look particularly good when combined with the soft gleam of pink lustre.

The Golden Beehive Inn is a backdrop from Whittington and his Cat or Harlequin Lord Mayor of London, re-printed by Benjamin Pollock from the play originally produced by Green and then Redington. (The origins of plays can be tangled as toy theatre printmakers frequently re-engraved earlier plates, replacing the original makers’ names with their own.) The Whittington engravings are quite crude, though have a pleasing naive boldness and vigour, and the scene of the inn on a harbour is one I liked so much that I kept returning to it. I combined it on a mug with ‘street’ characters from Green’s The Castle of Otranto or Harlequin and the Giant Helmet, including a ‘Postman’ and an ‘Egg-seller’.

The Golden Beehive from Whittington and his Cat

Postman from The Castle of Otranto

Egg Woman from The Castle of Otranto

Occasionally an original engraving required quite a bit of ‘adaptation’ to produce the image I required for Harlequinade. Clown Riding a Donkey was one such, as I wanted an illustration with much cleaner lines and a better definition of the subject matter than provided in the engraving.

Popular poses and groupings of characters from Harlequinades appear repeatedly in 19th century sheets, drawn by different artists for various publishers. Sometimes I adapted from more than one version of a particular design, as in this drawing for Clown and Pantaloon having a tea-party, reproduced on the Sussex Lustreware Harlequinade teapot.

Groupings of Harlequin characters in a pyramid are enormously popular on toy theatre character sheets, usually with Columbine at the apex.

Above, my drawing for a pyramid of Harlequinade performers, and below, the reference on a sheet by the publisher Skelt. I replaced the two ‘Imps’ with performing dogs.

Sussex Lustreware Teapot with a Harlequinade ‘pyramid’

Pieces from the Harlequinade range may be purchased direct from Sussex Lustreware

HERE

If you can’t see what you want in the shop, then you may order any piece by leaving a request at the contact button.

The Book That Ran Away To Join the Circus

Well, not quite to join the circus, but certainly to have an adventure!

Before the World of Wonders range emerged from Sussex Lustreware, Gloria sent the above photograph of herself with the sheets of the drawings-reproduced-as-transfers, ready to start work in her studio. It was an exciting moment as the precursor to what came later.

None of this would have come about without the novel that started the whole journey, Marly Youmans’ Charis in the World of Wonders, for which I was commissioned by the US publisher Ignatius to make a cover and chapter headings.

So the novel first, then the illustrations for the novel, then the publishing of the novel with its illustrations and after that, the collaboration with Sussex Lustreware to produce the World of Wonders range using the drawings made as chapter headings.

Finally, the still-life paintings I’m currently making of the World of Wonders lustreware. Everything tumbling along merrily. Literature begetting art begetting ceramics begetting art. What a delight it’s been, in the company of people I both admire and love.

A Word From Our Sponsor

This post was written by my friend and collaborator Gloria, who under the umbrella of her business Sussex Lustreware, has produced the Harlequinade range of lustre-embellished transferware for which I made drawings on the theme of Victorian Toy Theatre.

A post on the subject of theatrical swags – and collaborative sparks!

“With our first collection, the World of Wonders, Clive gave me his beautiful drawings and more or less carte blanche on the production and decoration of the pots, largely leaving me to get on with it as I thought best, a touching display of trust!

With Harlequinade he was creating the artwork especially for them, and greater collaboration on the overall design seemed in order to make the most of it. So over the summer we had some lengthy chats via Instagram, with pictures and ideas flying back and forth between us. And emojis of course! 😀😆👍

As an admirer of Laura Knight’s ‘Circus’ designs for Clarice Cliff in the 1930s I was keen at the chance to use plate rims in a similar way, with an audience and ruched swags suggestive of a night at the theatre.

Laura Knight Circus plate

Laura Knight Circus plate with the audience around the rim

Clive obliged with small groups of spectators, while I tried to work out how best to suggest draped velvet with lines of lustre.

Clive Hicks-Jenkins Post-It with suggestion for swag placement

Above and below: Harlequinade audience

Other influences and inspiration cropped up in conversation, from Hockney’s ‘Rake’s Progress’ Glyndebourne sets, through Rex Whistler interiors, to the trompe l’oeil Austrian curtain wallpaper in my aunt’s C20 Bethnal Green bathroom 🤩.

Rex Whistler ‘swag’

Hockney design for The Rake’s Progress

We decided that a single ellipse was too abstract, that three were too much, and so arrived at two. Plus the trio of embellishments, so that the glamour of the occasion – and our fluency as semioticians – should be in no doubt! 

From a 19th Century Toy Theatre Character Sheet

Reinterpretation + swags

I was so pleased with the results that the swags ended up not just on the plates but festoon the jugs and trinket box too ✨💖

Lustre swags before firing

Trinket-box with with swags

It was really fun working in this way, so I thought you might like to see a few snippets ‘behind the scenes’!”

The Harlequinade Teapot

Behold the Harlequinade teapot. The wonderful Gloria at Sussex Lustreware has boldly decorated its Falstaffian belly with two scenes featuring Clown, Pantaloon, Harlequin, Columbine and some performing dogs. In addition the spout and lid swarm with vignettes of Cinderella’s slipper, stars, a jovial sun, oak leaves and a jaunty windmill! 

The Harlequinade range celebrates the great Victorian tradition of toy theatre and brims with the characters that would be found in nineteenth century theatre entertainments. Harlequin, Columbine, Clown and Pantaloon were adopted into British pantomime from the Italian Commedia dell’arte, leading a supporting cast of tradesmen and street-sellers forming the backgrounds to their adventures.

There were also assorted fairies, sprites, ogres and demons from the world of faery, together with a mix of gods and goddesses of the Ancient Worlds plus a spattering of historic characters.

Neptune in his shell chariot drawn by seahorses.

The London printmakers who created the toy theatres which became so popular, adapted their scenery and character sheets from live performances, and that’s why the 19th century toy theatres are such an excellent record of what was going on in the real theatres of the times.

Green’s Character sheet for Harlequin and the Giant Helmet.

The actors of Harelquinades were adept at all the performing arts, and we can tell from depictions of them in toy theatre sheets that they were acrobats, dancers and even equestrian performers. In my images for the range of china I’ve represented them in all their diversity of skills.

Below: My drawing of Harlequin, Columbine, Clown and Pantaloon in the ‘pyramid’ arrangement so common in toy theatre representations of the characters.

Harlequin as an equestrian performer.

The photographic record of Harlequinade is very thin, composed of costumed performers in photographers’ studios, because the art of photography at the time was not up to recording them in action on stage. Here in an undated but late-Victorian hand-coloured studio photograph, actors in the roles of Harlequin, Columbine, Clown and Pantaloon pose in all their Pantomime finery:

Toy theatres, by contrast, with their scenery showing all the elaborate transformations and spectacular stage tricks, as well as the wide range of characters, give us an excellent impression of how the live performances looked to an audience of Victorian theatre-goers.

Harlequin & Columbine plate from the Sussex Lustreware Harlequinade range.

Harlequinade

I’ve worked over the past months on the designs for a new collection from Sussex Lustreware, which earlier this year produced the World of Wonders range of ceramics. World of Wonders charmingly utilised chapter-head drawings of animals I’d made for Mary Youmans’ novel Charis in the World of Wonders, published in 2020 by Ignatius.

A World of Wonders bowl from Sussex Lustreware, decorated with drawings made as vignettes for Charis in the World of Wonders

For Harlequinade I’ve made all the images specifically for Sussex Lustreware, inspired by the great tradition of Victorian Toy Theatre. In preparation for the launch of the collection, I’ve worked closely with my collaborator, animator David W. Slack, to produce a series of films to promote the range. Here’s the first:

The animations are made up almost entirely of drawings produced for the ceramics, brought to life on a stage which I designed specially for Harlequinade.

The Harlequinade collection is traditional black on white transfer-ware, embellished by hand with pink lustre and occasional splashes of gold. It will consist of plates, jugs, bowls, mugs, trinket-box and teapot. The Autumn launch date has yet to be announced. Watch this space.

The China-Room

At the back of the hallway at Ty Isaf, a low, half-glazed door leads to the china-room. It’s little more than a cupboard really, made out of a section of what was once a servants’ passageway running the width of the house. Decorated in a glowing pinky-red chalk emulsion and fitted with a dresser-rack of black-painted shelves, it’s a combination cabinet-of-curiosities and china repository. There are clockwork tin toys, artists’ ceramics, toy farm animals made of painted lead, fossils and tacky souvenirs. Bits of model sets from my years as a stage designer, hand-crafted gifts from talented friends, a fine bone-china ‘blue dragon’ tea-service, found objects, plastic toys and family heirlooms.

Small children love it, as do I.

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Man Slain by a Tiger

Man Slain by a Tiger. Screen-print. 56 x 56 cms.

Image by Clive Hicks-Jenkins, printed in an edition of 35 by Daniel Bugg at Penfold Press.

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Last weekend print-maker Daniel Bugg arrived at Ty Isaf with a brown paper parcel containing proofs and prints of my first screen-print project with the Penfold Press, Man Slain by a Tiger. (You can read about the genesis of the print HERE.) Dan has made a wonderful job of the image, and it was a pleasure to sit down with him at the dining-table on Saturday morning to number and sign the edition of thirty-five prints.

In a fortnight I’ll be making the stencils for the first image in our fourteen print series based on the medieval poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. I’m using the Simon Armitage translation/reworking for my inspiration, which is the version I like best. The print will be launched in time for Christmas.

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A day at Penparc Cottage

Artworks left at the cottage by artists Steffan Jones-Hughs and Jeanette Orrell, who stayed there last week. Steffan made the painting of the cottage viewed from the back garden, and Jeanette made two studies of plants.

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The Cottage

Beautiful, soft sea-light on old plaster and tongue and groove.

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Ceramics

Vintage charger painted by me in cold enamel.

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Foliate head serving-dish that I made in the ceramic workshop of Pip Koppel.

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Plate thrown by Pip Koppel and slip-decorated by me with a nautilus.

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Jack-on-the-Beach

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A happy day!

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preparing artwork for a print

Dan Bugg at Penfold Press and I are collaborating on an editioned series of screenprints on the theme of the medieval poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. But because I’ve never before done work of this type, I’m taking a tilt at the process by making artwork for a trial print unrelated to Gawain, using a drawing of a Staffordshire group of a man being slain by a tiger. The original postcard-sized drawing was made as a birthday present for my friend Ben Koppel.  I’m re-working it as a print at a much larger scale, which means I can include the ornate pedestal that I had no room for in the postcard version.

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The original, postcard-sized pencil drawing

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Pencil on paper enlargement, made as a guide

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Working in greasy lithographic crayon on a sheet of True Grain

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Adding Tusche Waterproof to define the negative space of the composition.

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The True Grain is secured with registration pins over the guide drawing. What is painted red here, will be black in the final print.

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Rendering the detail

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I’ll be posting about this project as it progresses.