Exploring the collections at Bradford Museums, Emilie Taylor was drawn to the collection of earthenware and slipware pots held at Cliffe Castle, and their connection to the productive ‘Soil Hill’ pottery in Denholme in the nineteenth century. Slipware holds longstanding interest for Taylor as a meeting point within communities sharing communal meals, and in its depiction of both personal and political goings on in the community and society where it is made.
At Cartwright Hall the artist enjoyed looking at the paintings of women working the land and providing for their children some in the rural countryside, On the Dykes by William Lee-Hankey (1869-1952); some in industrial towns, Granny's Blessing by Henry John Dobson (1858-1928); and some women newly arrived in the country, Russian Peasant Girl (1926) by Mark Gertler. The collection of David Hockney’s studies of the Bradford townhouses and topography were also an inspiration.
Bradford Distrtict Museums & Galleries, with the support of the Contemporary Art Society, commissioned two large scale pots, in a traditional slipware palette depicting women working the land within the urban landscape of Bradford utilising the pockets of green space to provide for their families, particularly as in light of continuing food poverty in Britain today. Taylor made studies from life at the Refugee Allotment, a short distance from Cartwright Hall Art Gallery, and the women there were involved in how they wished to be represented on the pots as well as attending workshops learning the skill of slipware.
