Smith Art Gallery & Museum | Details | Barbara Davidson Pottery

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Actions Displays	Barbara Davidson Pottery Remove from selection Add to selection Reproduction Download mediaDownload as zip file Object number20934.03 TitleBarbara Davidson Pottery CreatorLarbert Pottery (maker)‎ DescriptionThis ceramic jam jar was made around the 1980s at the Larbert Pottery by Barbara Davidson. Brought up at Inverary in Argyll, she moved to Glasgow to study ceramics at Glasgow School of Art in 1964. After graduating and teaching for a couple of years, Davidson set up the Larbert Pottery in an old dairy with her fiancé in 1969, making hand thrown stoneware. Over the years, she made tableware for restaurants in Glasgow and Edinburgh, and in the 1970s created a large ceramic mural for the Ladies’ waiting room at Glasgow’s Queen Street Station. Davidson now works to commission, inspired by the patterns found in nature – particularly the sea, sky and shore. The jam jar was made for a project run at Cornton Vale prison, where the inmates produced jam from local fruit. The results were sold in hand crafted jars like this one – it would have made a nice gift. Its traditional shape and simple decoration are very much in keeping with the vintage style of studio pottery being made at that time. Cornton Vale was built on the site of a former farm colony and Borstal Institution in 1975. For many years it was the main women’s prison in Scotland, easily accessible because of its central location. At the time, it was a bright, modern facility, very different to the old-fashioned prison in Greenock, which it replaced. In recent years it was determined that the prison service for women in Scotland needed upgrading and improvement. A smaller national facility is planned for Cornton Vale, to work alongside other regional units around the country. Object nameJar, ceramic jam jar social history, Crime & Punishment Materialceramic TechniqueMoulded Dimensions whole Height: 100 mm whole Diameter: 275 mm

Reproduction

Download mediaDownload as zip file

Object number20934.03

TitleBarbara Davidson Pottery

DescriptionThis ceramic jam jar was made around the 1980s at the Larbert Pottery by Barbara Davidson. Brought up at Inverary in Argyll, she moved to Glasgow to study ceramics at Glasgow School of Art in 1964. After graduating and teaching for a couple of years, Davidson set up the Larbert Pottery in an old dairy with her fiancé in 1969, making hand thrown stoneware. Over the years, she made tableware for restaurants in Glasgow and Edinburgh, and in the 1970s created a large ceramic mural for the Ladies’ waiting room at Glasgow’s Queen Street Station. Davidson now works to commission, inspired by the patterns found in nature – particularly the sea, sky and shore. The jam jar was made for a project run at Cornton Vale prison, where the inmates produced jam from local fruit. The results were sold in hand crafted jars like this one – it would have made a nice gift. Its traditional shape and simple decoration are very much in keeping with the vintage style of studio pottery being made at that time. Cornton Vale was built on the site of a former farm colony and Borstal Institution in 1975. For many years it was the main women’s prison in Scotland, easily accessible because of its central location. At the time, it was a bright, modern facility, very different to the old-fashioned prison in Greenock, which it replaced. In recent years it was determined that the prison service for women in Scotland needed upgrading and improvement. A smaller national facility is planned for Cornton Vale, to work alongside other regional units around the country.

Object nameJar, ceramic jam jar

social history, Crime & Punishment

Materialceramic

TechniqueMoulded

Dimensions

whole Height: 100 mm
whole Diameter: 275 mm