Paul_Scott_-_academic_info_on_pieces

slave trade, historical and contemporary never saw their homes again.

• The tea set includes Royal Worcester bone china, Royal Copenhagen porcelain (Denmark was also involved in the slave trade), a tea caddy by Jane Smith, and a pearl-ware cup from the early nineteenth century probably produced when African slavery was still big business.

• Blue prints are held within gold rims. In the early nineteenth century Romantic commentators associated colour with the three social divisions of nobles (gold), freemen (red), and slaves (blue).3 This contemporary Willow reminds us that interwoven in the richness of our everyday lives are the legacies of our ancestor’s enthusiastic embrace of the slave trade and that slavery is still with us but in a less obvious guise.4 For more information, see: www.antislavery.org.

That I had used the ‘flooding’ device before on an unrelated artefact was not problematic – historically potters’ engravers re-cycled, re-used and re-configured patterns and designs very much in the way that musicians re-record, re-use and re-interpret their own songs for different occasions and contexts. The sampling of image and pattern evident in the Cockle Pickers Series is also structurally and formally akin to sampling and re-working of existing popular music that has gone on from the early days of the Beatles through to contemporary Rap artists - who collage existing portions of pre-recorded sound to create the new.

Of its constituent parts - assorted tableware including Royal Worcester (teapot jug and sugar bowl), Royal Copenhagen porcelain (plates cups and saucers) handbuilt tea caddy - only the antique pearlware cups were acquired specifically for purpose. The other elements formed part of the eclectic mix of tableware that is the store within my studio. These have been erratically collected over a number of years providing ready vehicles for appropriation. Sometimes they are handled and used in the kitchen for years before disappearing into the kiln layered with in-glaze decal. Their collection typifies the ambiguous non-specific nature of artistic investigation - they have been collected because they might serve a purpose, which at the at the time of acquisition is by no means clear.

The Cockle Pickers Tea Service was created in an edition of three and featured in the following exhibitions: Legacy - Cumbria Institute of the Arts/Beacon Museum Whitehaven, 200 Years: Slavery Now - Bluecoat Liverpool and Gallery Oldham (both 2007) as well as Teas Up at Contemporary Applied Arts6 London in 2008. In addition the service has been on display in Manchester City Art Gallery’s 21st Century Showcase May 2008 – May 2009. Three items linked to the campaign for the abolition of the slave trade were already on permanent display in the Gallery of Craft and Design in the Telling Tales case - a Wedgwood medallion, cast iron tobacco box lid and pin cushion based on the referenced drabware icon and the legend ‘Am I not your sister’.

Alison Copeland explained: ‘In addition to the obvious technical mastery displayed in his approach to ceramic practices and the unique quality of Scott’s work, the printed wares make strong links with the Gallery’s historic collections of 18th century printed wares. Perhaps just as importantly,