Wedgwood’s Glazes: A Poetic Sequence Derived from Glaze Chemistry with Contextual Essay

Abstract: ‘Wedgwood’s Glazes’ (Poems and Critical Overview)
L Mansell, May 2013
‘Wedgwood’s Glazes’ is a poetic sequence composed using transliterations of glaze chemistries recorded in Josiah Wedgwood’s Experiment Book and in John and ‘Richard Riley’s China & Earthenware Manufacturers Recipes’ (published by City Museum & Art Gallery Stoke-on-Trent Journal of Ceramic History Vol. 13) These poems are visual and sonic, fractured and (al)chemical-- consisting of scientific found material mixed with mythical, gothic and nostalgic fluxes that reflex the interrupted narratives of the post-ceramic era in Stoke -on-Trent.
The sequence addresses problematical creative identifications of self and community in the shifting 'post-creative environment': e.g. in a community that has experienced a sudden loss of creative heritage in disbanding of the ceramics industry in Stoke on Trent. For example, these 'creative selves' in the Potteries identify themselves in relation to a heritage that privileges creative industry (ceramics), which has in the past defined a stable regional identity. The loss of this heritage creates a sense of lack in the subject-position of the individual and a fragmenting and pluralising of this regional identity. However, this is not a loss of creativity; it is the loss of an accessible context and focus for it. This suggests an interruption as a consequence of an interrupted heritage in the creative narrative of Stoke-on-Trent.
Much has been written of this perceived heritage gap, but little focus has been placed on scientific process and its relationship to creativity. Instead, the concern has been for oral narrative storytelling, memoir, nostalgia and mythology; the science of glazes has been forgotten in the haze of reminiscence. The aim of the sequence is to challenge these prior reconstructed (and mythologized) linear narratives by proposing an interrupted narrative that is non-linear, fragmented and representational of the interrupted narrative experienced in the Potteries’ interpellation with creativity, and with science.
This submission is a 2,000-2,500 word contextualizing critical paper with an experimental long poem sequence of up to 8 pages.