A series of three illuminating Friday morning talks with Arts & Crafts expert, historian, curator & storyteller Kirsty Hartsiotis
Tickets cost £7 per talk, £6 concessions or £5 for Museum in the Park Members (free to join)
Booking required - book online or call the Museum on 01453 763394
Enjoy a hot drink before or after the talk - ticket holders get 50% discount on Museum cafe tea/coffee/hot chocolate
‘Ridiculous Monstrosities?’
A rather too close a look at the naughtiest and strangest things in Cotswold churches
10.30am, Friday 16 October
Why are our medieval churches chock full of naughty, naughty things? Men and women showing off their naughty bits, strange beasts and monsters. What’s going on? Is the world turned upside down? From our very earliest churches, such as Saxon Deerhurst, grotesque creatures have guarded our churches from what lurks without. Kirsty Hartsiotis explores what these entities represent, how they reflect the world views of the people who built the churches and why there are so many, despite the Victorians tidying things up … We’ll explore the best – or worst? – of Gloucestershire and the Cotswolds’ most curious church sights in this talk!
Image copyight winchcombe pottery
‘Pioneering Potteries’
Studio Pottery in the South West
10.30am, Friday 20 November
From St. Ives to Coleshill to Winchcombe, many of the early studio potteries were in the South West, and were inspired by the vernacular potteries of the area. In this talk Kirsty Hartsiotis explores the history and characters of the ceramics scene in the region since Bernard Leach set up his pottery in Cornwall in 1920, and looks closely at the work of Leach’s first pupils Michael Cardew, whose Winchcombe Pottery, celebrates its centenary this year, and Katherine Pleydell-Bouverie just over the border in Oxfordshire, as well as examining the many potters and country potteries that followed, from Ray Finch, Ivan and Kay Martin, Toff Milway and more.
Kirsty is one of the curators of the fascinating current exhibition, Beneath the Surface: A Century of Studio Ceramics in Britain at Museum and Art Swindon.
‘Christmas Ghosts’
The Tradition of Winter Tales
10.30am, Friday 11 December
We've told supernatural tales at midwinter for a very long time. In this talk Kirsty Hartsiotis takes us back to the earliest winter tales of the Middle Ages and the age of Shakespeare and Marlowe. We then explore the lost years of the 17th and 18th centuries, where it’s often thought that Christmas wasn’t celebrated much – but ghost tales at Christmas-tide were very part of the season. In the 19th century many traditional Christmas ghost tales were collected, and even now it’s considered one of the spookiest times of the years. We’ll draw on midwinter tales from all around Britain and explore links with European midwinter traditions.
