Past works.

Close 2018

A posthumous exploration of intimate everyday objects.

Made in England, Sheffield Steel.

A Retrospective of Quality assured.

Drifting

What are we become?

An island and a half

Cut away, set adrift,

Manufacturers no longer making

A nation of shopkeepers.

With little left to sell

And few going to buy.

Virtual sales,

Not on the high street.

Goods and needs set adrift.

Quality assured now origin unknown

Loss of nation

National pride

An identity cherry picked for happier times.

Turning bad, masquerading as honesty.

Vulgarity and bigotry are being dressed as patriotism.

It’s out in the open, we haven’t moved on.

Our stiff upper lips and past strengths are falling away,

Flaking like rust.

The reality and hardships have been forgotten.

Advancements are taken for granted. “Those were the days”

“Great Britain” But what made Britain Great?

Industry, manufacturing, pulling together.

Steely determination.

The promise of rights, equality and a better future and an understanding of what we had to lose.

Of strength in numbers, of unity.

Of having pride in being resourceful enough and having the resources needed to do a good job.

Now pointing fingers and corroded by frustration, a disjointed nation is left brittle and angry, unheard or unaware of what they have to lose.

Flaked 2016-17

No news

“He will come back alive, I can see him walking up the path”

I believe her name was Mrs Prichard, the Rectors wife at North Wraxal, around the time of the Second World War.

She was also known to have some psychic ability, saw things it was said.

My Uncle was missing at the time, as it turned out a prisoner of war.

But nobody knew….

When all feared the arrival of a telegram….

Time was going by

No news.

“He will come back, I can see him walking up the path”.

Words of reassurance applied like a salve.

To the rawness of not knowing.

Years later it was often referred to by my Mum,

but I never asked if it helped to ease, I wish I had, or if anyone even believed.

This was a very different faith.

"Shabby metal, grey green dull with a sheen of bloomed tarnish, individual with use, time etched. Touched.

Hard plastics, bright, Bakelite crust edges, pie lidded, ivory and black.

Paint flaked".

Brasso

I remember sitting on the carpet with Mum.

Worn, red woollen with white sprigs.

Threads are starting to show through from the backing,

Another afternoon we will colour these with a felt pen.

This is a holiday job, along with polishing the parquet in the hall.

All of the brass is spread over the floor on sheets of newspaper

ready for cleaning,

Pungent liquid is poured carefully from the can.

A pile of old dusters

One wipes the Brasso on and then rubs it off,

Another will be for the polishing after. My job.

It’s done and old lustre sits on smudged newsprint.

Our fingers coated, drying and uncomfortable.

A metallic tang and tarnish blackened cloths.

Layers caused by time, obscuring the detail, the image, spread like fat, smears of butter,

Buttered greaseproof.

Raw

Old portrait photographs.

Pared back colour, simplified by age and process.

Not black and white, definitely coloured. Warm, bleached, honeyed, buttered. Creamed cake mix, honey and fresh butter on white bread, warm baked.

The details too are simplified in places. Enough remains. Maybe it was never there. Just what needs to be. What needs to be seen is seen.

The edge of nicety. The basics, with soft frills, sweetened without excess. Slab cake.

Honey was always Gales. Set. Pale, creamy, with a soothing colour.

Soft mat and rich, with a bloom like cotton velvet. Smooth sticky. Nature's plenty. Humble abundance.

Iced Gems 2014-15

Some years back I found a tiny arm on a beach, another time a leg, the best a tiny torso, perfect, statue like, a miniature Elgin but perfect in scale for tiny hands.

I was amazed that what had always seemed a fragile and inappropriate material for a children’s toy could also be so resilient to the natural wear and tumble of the waves, a remnant of childhood lingering. Biscuit baked fragility turned to strength, vulnerability to solid. Commonplace now curio.