Zoom Meeting #39, 28th July 2026.
Maps and Ceramics.

• Presenters: Loraine Rutt
• Format: Structured talk, followed by questions & answers
• View the recording here, streaming length: 1h 10m

Clay provides a tangible connection to the earth’s surface, through which Loraine's work explores how maps shape our sense of place and belonging. By playing with scale and volume—whether through a pocket globe that places the world in the palm of the hand, or topography with amplified relief— her work addresses specific themes, including environmental and social inequality, and monumental journeys.

Her talk gives a background on how Ordnance Survey maps kickstarted her career, and how their enduring influence shapes her work today.

Loraine's most recent work was as a Finalist in The Young Masters exhibition, Her Court:  The Role Wimbledon Played in the Suffragette Movement. The installation piece georeferenced Wimbledon locations with ‘Listening Vessels’ each inscribed with the story of a suffragette linked to place and illustrated with details from The OS 25 inch to the mile from 1892-1914.

Her work periodically dips into the Ordnance Survey archives at The National Library of Scotland, selecting historic maps for her pieces examining lost rivers, shifting landscapes, or commemorating a journey.

But she also embraces contemporary OS digital data to render ultra fine relief detail, and shifts scale to bring the almost invisible to the fore. Her works include mapping the Thames from source to sea for Thames Basin and Thames Water, charting the River Wandle for a site specific artwork near its confluence with the Thames, a series of pieces examining the cuts and channels that drain the fens into the Cam, as well as a host of commissioned artworks.

Her practice is honed through three decades of intimate engagement with clay. Relief maps and domestic scale vessels are decorated with cartographically accurate drawings. Many works begin as sculpted, topographically accurate porcelain models, which are then translated— primarily in porcelain—as handmade variable editions. Fine line work is carved into the surface of the clay with custom-made needle tools, creating precise, map-like definition.

Loraine is fascinated by the liminal traces of geographical experience revealed through maps, and by ceramics as a commemorative medium. Drawing on traditions of souvenirs, domestic ware, and studio pottery, her work functions as a means of sharing stories of place. Her work is in the collections of The Royal Museum Greenwich, The London Museum, The Royal Geographical Society, and has been commissioned by an Apollo Astronaut and as gifts for world leaders.

Zoom Meeting #38, 16th March 2026.
Tribute to Rail 200, Railway Mapping of Scotland.

• Presenters: Stuart Dennison & Gilbert McCaul
• Format: Structured talk, followed by questions & answers
• Attendees: 37
• View the recording here, streaming length: 1h 41m

Following the CCS tribute to Rail 200 for England and Wales, time to turn north of the border and explore the rich heritage of railway mapping of Scotland. Starting with a line opening in 1722 followed by mapping of waggonways, the development of the network of lines, Scottish railways at their zenith and terminating in 2025 perhaps it should be Rail 300!

Including OS mapping, historic non OS productions, company maps, Railway Clearing House maps, tourist maps, and a good variety of other mapping of lines built and some which never saw the light of day. There is even a Stephenson connection as a nod to the Rail 200 theme!

Zoom Meeting #37, 12th January 2026.
Bartholomew's Half Inch Maps of England & Wales.
What the plates can tell us about the maps (and vice-versa).

• Presenter: Dr. Rob Wheeler
• Format: Structured talk, followed by questions & answers
• Attendees: 49
• View the recording here, streaming length: 1h 18m

Having realised the importance of patching (see article in Sheetlines 134, page 34) Dr. Rob Wheeler started looking at the early history of the series and how the printed sheets relate to the plates.  He believes the results are instructive.  The talk explains how a country on one projection - Scotland - can be joined to one on another projection - England - or perhaps how it ought not to be done.