Maryport is an historic harbour town on the
West Cumbrian coast. Past industries included shipbuilding and
fishing, but now the town is re-inventing itself in post-industrial
West Cumbria…
I have worked on a number of commissions for the town starting
in 2002 with North Harbour.
In 2008 I was commissioned by Capita Symonds to help in the development
of a signage strategy for the town, and to design signage and interpretation
panels for the River Ellen corridor and Shipping Brow areas which
were subject to renovation and re-development.
In 2009 I was commissioned to integrate artwork into the new Maryport
Business Centre being built on the site of the old Hornflowa button
factory.
Commission for Allerdale Borough Council, 2002.
A civil engineering project to create a new flood defence wall
on renovating disintegrating the North harbour wall allowed scope
for artworks..
Commissioned to create an artwork involving the sandstone flood
defence wall, consultations took place with the townspeople,
who were asked to provide images of the town, recollections and
memories.
Further research involved the town’s Maritime and Senhouse
(Roman) Museums, and the Cumbria County Council archive at Carlisle
Library.
As a result I accumulated hundreds of images of the town, maps,
postcards, old photographs, roman images, an engraving of a ship
entering the harbour during a storm, tiles from a butchers shop,
bits of old wallpaper and willow pattern lino; and very distinct
impressions of individual pride in the town, and some anger over
its post-industrial decline (the demolition of the towns fabulous
railway station in post Beeching Britain particularly bitterly
felt)…
The tile commission for North Harbour flood defence wall is a
patterned narrative based on elements of the town’s history.
Screen-printed in-glaze colbalt blue images and patterns on porcelain
tiles, inset
into the sandstone wall, they are a permanent installation, which
should last for hundreds of years…
A vaguely chronological sequence starts at Tongue Pier, and heads
towards the town…. Of course many may start a walk along
the wall from the town end towards Tongue Pier, in which case
the sequence noted here is reversed…
Tiles depicting waves are based on images from an engraving showing
a ship entering the harbour in a storm.
Patterned fish tiles refer to varieties fish traditionally landed
in Maryport for hundreds (probably thousands) of years.
The Roman presence and influence on the area are recognised by
a series of patterned tiles made up from images of objects (sculptures
and details) sourced from the Senhouse Museum.
Throughout the mural, repeated details of old maps make patterns
on a larger scale, referencing changed places; the location of
old shipyards, railway lines and evidence of other activities and
presences, which enabled the town to develop.
Other patterns are made up from images of side-launched ships,
buttons referencing the old hornflower factory (which used to
make buttons and other products from animal horn). The bull tile
was
created by using a map detail (trees), and a print from Logan’s
(now closed) butcher’s shop paper carrier bag. It not only
references the agricultural hinterland of the town and a local
business, but also the old trade of importing cattle from Ireland.
Two tile patterns contain very domestic references, after all Maryport
is a home to thousands of people; they are composed from fragments
of wallpaper found in a local Georgian house.
Finally looking from South Quay, where the detailed patterns of
each tile are on the whole too fine for easy contemplation, the
arrangement of tiles in the wall, although constrained by structural
and engineering considerations, does have logic. They are not randomly
patterned as may appear at first sight, but have been deliberately
placed using Morse code as the arbiter.
