Rachel Grant

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 21:14:00 +0000

Ok, for ages and ages my proper website has been offline due to a changeover in hosting packages but I am pleased to say it is now back!
You can find the up to date info at www.Rachel-Grant.com

Making Sense Exhibition with Jane George

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel) — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 11:06:00 +0000

"hopes and dreams" mixed media by Rachel Grant

Making Sense

Bilston Craft Gallery: Dec 6th 08 – Jan 3rd 09

Private View: Saturday 6th December 12:00pm – 3:30pm

This saturday sees the opening of my collaborative show with fellow textile artist Jane George.
It has been an incredible journey and I hope you will come along if you're able to. It is in the first floor gallery at Bilston which is up a staircase just to the left after entering the building. For more information please visit the link above or email georgeandgrant@groups.msn.com

"Black Coat" By Ted Hughes

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel) — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 17:42:00 +0000

"I remember going out there ,
The tide far out, the North shore ice-wind
Cutting me back
To the quick of the blood - that outer edge nostalgia,
The good feeling. My sole memory
Of my black overcoat. Padding the wet sandspit.
I was staring at the sea, I suppose.
Trying to feel thoroughly alone,
Simply myself, with sharp edges -
Me and the sea one big tabula rasa,
As if my returning footprints
Out of the scrim of gleam, that horizon-wide wipe,
Might be a whole new start.

My shoe-sole shapes
My only sign.
My minimal but satisfying discussion with the sea.
Putting my remarks down, for the thin tongue
Of the sea to interpret. Inaudibly.
A therapy,
Instructions too complicated for me
At the moment, but stowed for my black box for later."

The first part of my favourite Ted Hughes poem from the "Birthday Letters" collection.

The beach

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 16:08:00 +0000

I know I have talked about my feelings about beaches on here before but with all the recent soul searching I've been doing for 'Making Sense'(see below) I have once again been reminded of how drawn toward the sea I am every time I need to think.

This week I turned 32(eek!) and on my birthday I spent the day by the beach. Here's a couple of photos and also one of me a little younger in the place where it all began.

Making Sense

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 14:42:00 +0000

In 2007 I joined the Midlands Textile Forum looking for like-minded textile artists to engage and exhibit with. Little did I know that I would meet such a kindred spirit and that we would collaborate on a project that would become so life changing.
At the beginning of December I will be exhibiting a collection of work at Bilston Craft Gallery, produced in collaboration with Jane George, exploring our parallel journeys through motherhood and the effect that this has had on our own identities. The title of the exhibition is 'Making Sense' and indeed this was our initial aim through a process of mutual support and dialogue to make sense of the issues that we felt were facing us as we learnt how to retain or restore a sense of self without compromising our selfless devotion to our children.
Working on this for the last year has led to a lot of soul searching for me and this is ongoing as I am bringing together the thought processes into final pieces for the show.
I have learnt things about myself....some things that were difficult to face....others were unexpected and life-changing...some will only be fully realised in time. Not all of this will make it into the final pieces. It's been interesting working out the boundaries of exhibiting and how much you should express through your work without becoming too exposed or vulnerable. I wanted this exhibiton to be a cathartic experience and in some way come to terms with my sense of unease but as the show gets closer I realise that there are some things that cannot be shown, some elements of people that will always be hidden and that friendships are just as important as art in expressing and working through life's ups and downs.

"Read All About It"!

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 09:16:00 +0000

I am easing myself back into work after the summer break with a commissioned panel for a buyer who saw the "Heirloom" show at Burslem. It is a very personal piece and I am feeling a real connection to it so am loving working on it and it feels brilliant to be back with my tools making again.
I have also just found out my proposal has been selected for a project next month...more on that and other projects later....but for now, if you're interested, I have written a short article on the Longhouse Website titled "Inheritance and Communities" and this month there is an article that has been written about my practice by curator Charlie Levine and features in this months A-N collections publication titled "Community Engagement". If you are an A-N subscriber you can read it here!

More 'Heirloom'

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel) — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 19:28:00 +0000

I am feeling like my blog is being neglected during my summer role change so I thought I'd just add a couple more images from my solo show in July.

Won't be long now until I'm back on the ball though, the girls return to school next week and I have so much to catch up on!

Newcastle-upon-Tyne

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 17:22:00 +0000

We decided last week to have a quick overnight break in Newcastle. We were looking for somewhere to go that we'd never been before and I found the idea on another knitter's blog. Not that this trip had anything to do with knitting, although we wanted to call into Sheffield on the way back for the 'Get knitted' exhibition there wasn't time in the end.

I was incredibly disappointed with the photos when I got back as I realised I had the camera set on lo-res. which is really bad for my camera which isn't particularly high res. on the highest setting. Am looking into a new one but they send me into a confused state every time I look at them so it's still on my to-do list.

We went to the Baltic Centre, stayed over night in a cheap hotel overlooking the Tyne and went to Seven Stories childrens book centre the following day.

I was shocked by the size of the river and the bridges and the buildings although I couldn't put my finger on why seeing as they are the same size as in any other city!

I think it was to do with the road we went in on and the way one minute it's just some random road and then it turns a corner and wham - you're underneath the Tyne bridge and it's all just...huge!

I was impressed with the Baltic as a really accessible and interesting place to visit with plenty to do with the children and they were really interacting with the work and the environment in which it was shown. I also thought there was a really good mixture of 2d on the wall stuff and more unusual 3d type stuff, with a bit of film/installation/other things mixed in.

So aside from this, with my show long gone and the children still off school there is little progress being made on my own stuff. I have loads buzzing round my head and maybe a bit too much really to achieve any kind of focus right now. But there's plenty of time for work in September, I'll sort it all out then I think.

Summer

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel) — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 17:40:00 +0000

Well the show is in its last week now so anyone wanting to visit needs to act now! The last day being Monday 4th August.
The children broke up for summer holidays over a week ago now and things have come to a standstill workwise as a result.
I am hoping to get a couple of days in here and there because I have a number of projects in the planning but apart from that I am focussing on spending time with my little girls. These are days I can never get back once they're gone and know I must make the most of every moment. Sometimes this is difficult to appreciate, so to keep a few moments just for me I have my knitting and two books on the go, to be able to say this would have been only a dream a few years ago. The children really are at a lovely age where I actuallyhave a few moments in between the madness!

The first book is Ted Hughes collection of poems "Birthday Letters". I bought this as a present to myself for graduating uni. in 1999!!! I have been dipping in and out of it ever since and as time has gone on I've realised the biographical nature of the work means it really should be read cover to cover like a novel. So that's what I am doing. You have to read it really kind of fast and furiously in parts to absorb the pouring of memory onto the page. It is very moving(think love, loss and death!!) but takes me to a whole other place in my mind which is just what I need when sitting in the playground with my brain slowly melting into oblivion.

The other is "Dear Tom" by Tom Courtenay. This was a gift from someone at a workshop I did earlier this year, again this is biographical, a combination of the author's life story but with an equal emphasis on his mother's life story. It's basically a story of living in a place that feels like home and yet doesn't reflect who you are or what you want from life. Belonging and not belonging all rolled into one.

This is how I feel about my relationship with Stoke-on-Trent, full of strange contradictions.

Last weekend we went away to Borth near Aberystwyth. After the initial sense of panic that's developed every time I leave home had passed I was so thrilled to be by the sea.

Having lived by the sea when I was young there is something about it that I just cannot explain that leaves me feeling balanced and refreshed just by being near it. For me it is the only thing that Stoke-on-Trent lacks.

I was also very pleased to find a couple of crumbling buildings to feed my addiction.

Show's UP!

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 12:21:00 +0000

Ok it's a been a few weeks since I posted but the 'Heirloom' exhibition is up and I am pretty pleased with how it looks. Less cluttered than last time and I actually brought a couple of pieces back home with me because I didn't want to hang one above another.
I like to think that this collection is more considered than previous work and therefore wanted a more minimal layout.
It is on at Burslem School of Art until Monday 4th August 2008 and here's the pic's!

Extracts from the accompanying written piece which is available at the gallery or by emailing me via the website http://www.rachel-grant.com/

"While creating this collection of new work I have been interested in the questions relating to the ‘evidence of our past’, from buildings and homes right through to tiny artefacts and found items, many of which are on display in varying ways within this exhibition. Wallpaper removed from terraces in the process of being demolished for example, shards of pottery embedded within felted knit, a 1929 sixpence sitting amongst thumbnail images of a scarred city and family history correspondence hanging without apparent function.
Both as individuals and communities we are faced with the decisions of what we should preserve and what we can safely discard, and equally who should be responsible for these decisions."

"We cannot live in the past but equally we cannot live in the future. It is easy to perceive the regeneration programme as a remedial process, with a defined beginning and end. Indeed the funding may have a clear start and finish but improvement is ongoing and cannot be defined by any one set of indicators. This idea is expressed in the two linen panels titled ‘Unfinished’. The first, Winchester Cathedral, was passed to me from a Great Aunt who had begun to embroider over the transfer background, and my grandmother had then continued it. Included with the embroidery was a skein of matching thread, with the intention that I pick up where they had left off. In the same way I have created the second panel with a transfer of the Sadler’s Park housing development in Burslem. The initial stitches are made, the matching thread attached, it is now ready to be passed on to the next generation for them to make their own mark." Rachel Grant ©2008

Heirloom Exhibition

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 12:45:00 +0000

In the final weeks before my second solo show at Burslem School of Art. Everything seems under control, quite a few pieces are still in an unfinished state but there's not much thinking work left to do.

Here is the flyer and if you are reading this within travelling distance of Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, do come along and have a look at what I've been busying myself with just lately.

Because this project has been self-funded there won't be a private view but I am more than happy to meet individuals or groups at the gallery, just drop me an email via my website http://www.rachel-grant.com/ to arrange an appointment.

News just in - I have also heard today that the two panels bought by the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent have gone up on display. They are on the ground floor on the bricked walls alongside the Spitfire gallery.

Social Cleansing?

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel) — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 16:51:00 +0000

I began my practice as an artist around 2003 as the regeneration process began to be revealed here in Stoke-on-Trent.

During the first few years I was moved to respond creatively to my outrage at the process of pressurising residents into selling their homes for demolition.

As I researched more I moved more to the centre in terms of opinion. When faced with strong arguments from all sides it was difficult to form my own judgement.
In 2007 when I exhibited a full collection of work in response to all this I was very clear that I took the neutral ground as an observer.

More recently however, after five years I am increasingly at odds with the entire housing market renewal programme and there are no longer arguments that can sway me to the centre.

The money that has been brought into the city is phenomenal and could have made such an impact. We could have shown that regeneration can really work for the good of the existing communities as well as attracting more people to the live here. Unlike the cities of Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool for example where regeneration has managed to highlight the divide between rich and poor, creating central areas of affluence that are deemed a success, whilst leaving other areas to fall further and further into extreme deprivation.
The original Prescott statement of decent homes for all could have really worked if we'd focussed on refurbishment, building more social housing and on the slow demolition of outdated housing stock. One or two streets at a time perhaps, slowly moving residents into other temporary accomodation while a home of equal value was built for them, ensuring no financial loss for the homeowners. Yes this would've been a slower, possibly more arduous task and possibly more costly but very possibly more successful than letting developers set the agenda.

The demolition is too far down the line to be reversed so I will watch with interest at what happens next. Maybe I'll be proved wrong and I hope for my children's sake I am.
To see the effect of housing market renewal on ordinary people have a look at this. I can't believe anyone after seeing this could possibly argue that mass demolition is an ethical way to 'transform a city'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkKptVrlfvQ

Have strength in your own convictions.

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 08:48:00 +0000

Well after my complete crisis before half-term, things are looking up again. I am writing an accompanying essay for the exhibition that structures the whole show, with quotes from it being displayed with the work in order to set the visuals in context. Here is the brief summary about the collection:

“This collection of new work is concerned with the natural evolution of communities through “inheritance”.
It explores the issues we face in terms of what tangible evidence (buildings, artefacts etc) from the past we preserve and what we discard.
In addition, the work aims to challenge the audience to consider the possibility that large scale intervention could in practice hinder the natural development of a community and indeed disinherit an entire generation in the process."

I have completed my gloves for the piece 'follow me' and they hang quite nicely together.

Each mitten is knitted from an old book of patterns that I inherited, published in 1903. The ribbon threaded through is printed with the names of some of my female family members and ancestors. It suggests the way that we learn from the women around us, each generation passing onto the next skills, qualities and attributes. Each mitten is slightly different, even though worked from the same pattern, through the process of the making I often found fault with the previous one and tried to make the next one better. Each time I would alter the pattern just a little in order to improve the glove. In the same way, each generation takes the pattern of it's predecessors and alters it to improve it, all the while knowing that the next generation will go through the exact same process.

Over the half-term I have thought a lot about the direction of this collection and what I am trying to say through it. With a little help from a friend http://www.blogger.com/profile/12648229748088235109

.....and a quote from Richard Billingham:"It's your work that matters; you haven't got to bother what people think. You've just got to concentrate on your work and not be distracted......... but you have to have strength in your own convictions".

Sometimes it's hard not to get distracted by what you think you should be doing or what you think other people might like you to do or, in my case, what might be more 'exciting' to the world of contemporary practice. I will always struggle against textiles in this respect and indeed in today's atmosphere of almost anti-beauty within contemporary art. The further something is from traditional art, the more appreciated it is.
Now I love contemporary art, I like to see installations, I like to be challenged, I even like to see screen based media(sometimes!) but what I like to create is probably more traditional. I just like beautiful things and I like the good old fashioned ability to hang something on a wall!
I think there is room for all approaches in contemorary art and so I must indeed concentrate on my work and "not be distracted".

On a lighter note, at the weekend we went to Etruria Canal Festival as we do every year. We walked along the Cauldon Canal which is very close to our home and it took about twenty minutes. May have been quicker if I hadn't been taking a load of photos! Here's just a few.

Rethinking

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel) — Thu, 22 May 2008 14:33:00 +0000

If I were to adda picture to this post it would have to be one of a wheelie bin. Because that is where three pieces of work in progress ended up today!
Do you ever find yourself being constantly pulled to creating something that you know you just don't have the skill to produce?
I am like this with 3d work. I have all sorts of fantastic ideas but the reality is - I am a 2d person. It's just the way I work best, a nice flat surface that won't budge no matter what I apply to it.
So I am now three pieces down. What next? It's interesting that I have spent years trying to establish my own 'stlye' of working and now I have, I seem to be spending all my time trying to create work that shows I can do more than just my 'style'.
More soon no doubt......

Excavation

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel) — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:16:00 +0000

Once, when I was about seven years old and still living in Felixstowe, we had a school trip to the site of an anglo saxon settlement. It had been recreated with the little huts and models of children dressed in authentic clothing. There were lots of remnants lying around of original tools and living items that had been excavated at the site. I was awestruck!
My love of history continued from there but it was always the tangible that excited me. I was gutted to find myself on an A'level history course examining political history. Looking at various *yawn* leaders and their *yawn* policies. I like to see the real - the evidence I suppose that what the books say happened years ago - really did happen!
So, to bring things up to the here and now, I have been excavating in the soil left around the demolition area in Balfour Street/Tintern Street etc.

I have found some fascinating stuff. It is amazing how under large areas there is absolutely nothing in terms of pottery waste and then under a particular area, obviously a specific waste location, there was just so much I couldn't have picked it all up myself.

One of the most exciting finds was a piece of waste clay that someone has, whether intentionally or not, squeezed with their hand and left immaculate finger prints embedded on the surface.

I have found lots of handles and hundreds of these little conical things that I think were used as kind of supports for other items in the kiln. I am hoping that when they go on show in Burslem someone will soon give me a definite on that.

Here is a few of them on my kitchen drainer - not a great photo but more to follow. I am currently embedding them into felted knit.

View Larger Map

busy days

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel) — Fri, 02 May 2008 17:40:00 +0000

Well I just feel like I'm flying from one thing to the next at the moment. The school day feels like it's shrunk from six hours to about two and although I am making progress it still feels far too slow!

I can feel the pressure of the 'Heirloom' show at Burslem now as I'm in the last eight weeks. I have so many different pieces on the go. I am stitching paper, knitting gloves, excavating pieces of discarded pottery from demolished homes, printing, machine knitting, felting, painting, photographing, mapping, collecting wallpaper, archiving and glue gunning - so it should be an interesting show!

Here is just a little glimpse of a few bits and bobs on file at the moment.

Bournes Bank - Burslem

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel) — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 09:23:00 +0000

Back in February B Arts were commissioned as part of the Place, Space and Identity programme to produce a live performance titled 'Clay'. The action began in the school of art but soon moved down in procession to the 'Bournes bank'. This is - well how would I describe it? - it is a large piece of derelict land, not an unfamiliar sight around here. At the bottom of the hill there are some listed bottle kilns and that night I fell in love with the place! To see why check out Liz and Mishka's blog link on the place, space & identity website for the photos - it was so atmospheric and emotional. Actually just click here!!! So anyway rumour has it that a developer bought the land for houses then found that it was too steep an incline to make it worth the bother(financially!!!!!) - that is rumour so don't quote me on it! The land is sitting there looking ugly at the moment so an online campaign has just started last week to turn it into a wildflower meadow and I have signed up. If you are reading this and are local to Stoke-On-Trent please join us in what would be not only a very worthwhile activity but also a great community builder. There is a campaign link box at the bottom of the page. Read more about it, join, then let others know.

Correspondence

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 06:06:00 +0000

My Gran is amazing! After she heard I was asking for old things that were of no function and yet people hung onto because they were too important to discard - she knew exactly what I meant and donated a massive envelope full of personal correspondence. Brilliantly, the majority of this correspondence relates to her family history research in the Yorkshire Dales. But the most wonderful thing is that handwritten element. Some of the letters are even written in real ink!!!!
So I have been busy working on them to create a hanging.
I have printed over them with various images from my collection and have been dyeing them in coffee, removing a lot of the personal addresses while the paper was still wet.
I have more to do yet. I was going to hang them with mono-filament and then heard on the radio that this stuff takes 600 years to degrade!! So now I am wondering if there is a more earth friendly way of doing it that is strong enough to hold them.

What a find!

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel) — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 11:58:00 +0000

Walking home from school yesterday I found these metal panels in the road!(Left) They have circular and square cut outs and remind me of the pair of stitched canvas panels I did for Place, Space & Identity.(Above)

Not sure what I am going to do with them yet(or how I'm going to mount them on the wall for exhibition!) but after a bit of experimenting I'm hoping to use paint, thread and possibly knit to create lace like patterns/timelines/maps??!!!!

Then and now

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 12:53:00 +0000

Recording change in Stoke-on-Trent is a major part of my practice but realistically as one person there is a limit to the amount that I can physically take in and document. Therefore it makes sense that I choose a small specific area to work in. For me this is the Wellington Road area of Hanley. I visit it everyday taking my children to school and being a clearance area it is a constant source of change. At the moment I am looking at the photos I took during the Place, Space & Identity project back in Nov.07 and comparing them to the new photos I have taken this week. Here's a couple of them. Note the spots on the pavement which are my 'viewing points' painted on 25th October 07. More 'then' and 'now's to follow!

Dream Home

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel) — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 13:14:00 +0000

Thinking on from my previous post about homes and housing, I was thinking about how my expectations or desires are influenced by finances. (For more info read comments added after the post beginning 'the importance of the replacement')
I thought I'd share with you my dream home! It is an old vicarage which is hidden away behind St.Lukes Primary school in Hanley. The rest of the road is full of small terraces and there is a big 7ft hedge(!) that conceals it with just this little gate, where you can see a lovely big house that goes quite a way back and has a view of the playground from the garden I think! The old windows are rotten and need replacing, the roof needs work too and it's never been up for sale anyway so it remains a dream!

What I've done with the wallpaper

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel) — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 18:14:00 +0000

A few weeks back I managed to salvage some wallpaper from a home in Balfour Street(See previous post for a photo of it) I had to find a demolition worker who was round the back of the houses and ask him to go in search of it and remove a chunk for me! He was very, very kind and went in and out of the houses trying to find from the back which house I had seen the paper in the front of. Eventually he returned with a big strip of it and here it is in my latest panel. It's amazing wallpaper, the panel has yet to be titled and as usual it's mixed media.

The importance of the replacement in justifying the loss.

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 21:52:00 +0000

Yesterday I spent most of the day in Solihull, giving a talk to the 'Embroiderers Guild'. Wherever I go and talk about my work, there are always people who can relate to it and it brings home the far reaching consequences of regeneration on post-industrial cities all over the country. The discussions are not always negative and although within my practice I always try to remain neutral and position myself as an observer, it has to be noted that I am also a resident within an area of major intervention within a regeneration programme and as a resident the changes have touched my own life in both negative and positive ways.
One of the things that occurred to me last night after talking to people from the Birmingham and Solihull area was the importance of what replaces demolished homes. It seems clear that if there were a universally agreed solution as to what type of housing replaced the terraces for example, as a community we may well have viewed the necessity of demolition in a different light.
As of this paragraph I speak from personal opinion and with the understanding that I have no real archictectural or strategic knowledge to support my opinion! However, this is how I feel. With my Artist's head on I think this is just beautiful......

....BUT I don't live in one, I have lived in one in the past but when it came to buying a home I chose a functional twenty year old modern box. To me it is the equivalent of what a terraced home was when it was first built but time adds beauty.

So during the last regeneration we got these(above)!!!!! But I actually think I prefer them to these(below)!!!!!! Perhaps that's just because I associate the modern apartment with everything I feel is negative about regeneration. Demolishing communities in order to squeeze in more housing units and make more money for the developer, not benefiting the original community in any way, shape or form.

So if I'm honest what I really want is based on a very subjective opinion of what I like to live in. Which is....something cheap, square, functional, no-frills, a family size, with a garden, low maintenance. Well time will tell but this development between Botteslow Street and Lichfield Street is looking promising to me.....I know, I know, there is nothing architecturally brilliant in them and the front doors look like the doors to my old 'Halls of Residence' but hey, purely with my low income, family resident hat on....they fit the bill.

Whether they'll be affordable(or even available to buy) I've yet to find out.

Goodbye Balfour Street

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel) — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 16:49:00 +0000

As part of the 'Place Space & Identity' programme last year, I was commissioned to produce my project 'Inside Out'. Which basically involved me creating 15 stitched and mixed media panels that were exhibited on the external walls of houses awaiting demolition in the Wellington Road area of Hanley. The panels created a journey around the homes and there was a map to follow. The first two images above are from that and above those is the same area now as the bulldozers have moved in and are stripping the buildings back. The interiors are just amazing, it's a poignant scene and yet there is something very exciting for me in the process. I am offered a glimpse of something private and hidden, it becomes like a whole other world that is being revealed, layers and layers of history. When it's completely gone and flattened - that's the sad bit for me.

Gone Public

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel) — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 08:18:00 +0000

Just before the Easter break I finalised the sale of two panels(pictured below) to The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery for their public collection.
I am so pleased that my work has gone into this collection, it feels like I've left a legacy for my children and their children to see in years to come. My practice is based in and on Stoke-on-Trent so to be represented in the local gallery like this is an immense privelege for me.

Existing Clearance Area 2006
This piece is 60x80cms(photo is a detail shot) and was one of the first ones I created within my current practice. It looks at the semi-demolished terraces off Lichfield Street, Hanley, where the back extensions had already been pulled down.

Moving In-Moving Out 2008
This is 60x60cms and is my most recent piece which includes some of my scaffolding and new build photos(as print) This new influence reflects the way that the new builds are fast moving in across our views and creating this juxtaposition of old and new. The way that the 'Redrow' flag doninates the sklyine and the (unintentional) likeness of the scaffolding to the spitfire, seem to give the painting a weird kind of wartime feel to it.