Loo with view of ceramic art

Jan 16 2009 by David Whetstone, The Journal

VISITORS to a North East gallery can now spend a penny in an art installation. While attending to a call of nature at Northern Print, they can feast their eyes on nature itself – bluebottles, dragonflies, swallows, doves, dense brambles and towering trees.

All feature on the tiled walls and porcelain fittings, prompting thoughts of wood engraver Thomas Bewick or the once ubiquitous willow pattern design.

These were two sources of inspiration for Cumbrian ceramic artist Paul Scott when he was commissioned to create a loo with a view for the print studios and gallery at Newcastle’s Stepney Bank.

Anna Wilkinson, director of Northern Print, said yesterday: “We always wanted to work with Paul, so the original drawings were made in advance of us moving into the building in October 2006.

“But there was such a short space of time between signing the contract and moving in that it wasn’t feasible for it to be finished until now.”

She said the loo before had been “very plain and uninspiring. We wanted to have an accessible loo but in my experience they are often very institutional and clinical.” Paul Scott, one of Britain’s best known ceramic artists, enjoys blending old and new. His versions of willow pattern often feature factory chimneys or the Sellafield plant in Cumbria.

One of his trademark low-flying jets zooms across the entrance to the Northern Print loo.

But the natural features are the most eye-catching, including the moth, called a willow beauty, which appears to have alighted on the washbasin. Paul said: “Northern Print is on the site of the old Woods pottery factory so I wanted to make some reference to that as well as to the current use of the building.”

He explained that he had taken elements of famous Bewick prints, including ones of a greyhound and a Chillingham bull, and blended them with material from other sources to create the finished effect.

In making the work, he had created 33 silkscreen prints, transferred them on to the porcelain tiles and re-fired them in a kiln.

Among Paul’s best known work in the North East is a series of life-sized images of cows and sheep in Ponteland.

But he is no stranger to loo art. A few years ago he arranged for artists to work at a sanitary ware factory near Stockholm. It resulted in a series of customised loos which were shown to great acclaim in Scandinavia and then, with an Arts Council grant, at galleries in Britain, including the Hatton at Newcastle University.

In creating this new work, Paul worked closely with Newcastle architects Mosedale Gillatt. The art loo was officially opened last night with a new display by the Society of Wood Engravers.