My name is Louis and I'm studying the Bronze Arts Award. For my award I went to the Emma Bridgewater factory in Stoke-on-Trent.
It is a pottery factory that's in an old building. When I walked in the building it was welcoming with a café, shop and big art pieces of the Potteries.
First, I went on a tour around the factory, with a guide. The guide was kind and welcoming and she explained everything in detail.
I saw employees working on making the pottery and kilns which fired the pottery.
All the pottery is made by hand using moulds, then dried, then it is smoothed and fired, then decorated and glazed and fired again.
There were about three or four big rooms in the factory. The rooms that the employees were working at were cosy and bright. They had their own workstation, decorating the pottery.
It wasn’t that busy but there were quite a few people working around the place.
There were some nice pottery pieces around. I liked the chicken but I am not often into pottery.
After the tour, we made our own plates using stamps and paint.
I created a plate with duck, flowers and stars. They gave us a bunch of different coloured paints and sponges. They said we could freestyle a plate or use stamps for perfect ones. I just used the stamps. They glazed it for us, fired it and sent it around a week later. It was a nice environment to work in and I learnt how stamps work with the decorating pottery. You have to make sure the stamp is fully on and carefully taken off. It is good to make a nice plate. You can make a plate if you want to have it in your own house.
After painting the plates, we went to the café. It was nice and cosy, and I had a nice soup. The food was nice. The shop sold everything they make in the factory.
I would recommend the tour.
It was interesting to know that all the pottery was handmade because I didn’t know that.
The decorating bit was my favourite part of the tour because it was interesting to see how they did it using stamps. If you get two pieces of the same pottery it will be slightly out.
It impacted me as I saw how creative everything is done as everything is made by hand. I appreciate how hard the employees work on the pottery. It is amazing.
I didn’t like travelling there because it was far away and we hit a lot of traffic on the M6, but I enjoyed the experience of being at the factory.
Thank you for reading. As part of my Arts Award, please can you leave me some feedback using the comments so I can show evidence in my award.