Ever since DPG

Ever since Dead Pigeon Gallery I've thought about having my own gallery, I mean, I keep coming back to that particular project and that moment in time. Some projects can have that effect but this is stronger and ongoing and doesn't look like it's going away. But in the meantime...

Having had this time to reflect, half a year on, I can now see how much of a positive impact it had, not just on my own mental health but a continued sense of camaraderie with those of us involved. The space itself has gone on to become somewhere that houses art as the norm, something that wasn't on the cards initially. But, it doesn't belong to us, it has it's own proud owners, and it did make me think again about what it must feel like to actually own our own building.

It also made me feel incredibly proud of our Dead Pigeon Gallery for trailblazing the way for other artists to get involved and take over the space which is now a beacon in the newly emerging Fabric District in Liverpool.

Infographic produced by the Arts Council based on key findings from evidence review study: 

The Value of Arts and Culture to People and Society

Full report: The Value of Arts and Culture to People and Society
https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/sites/default/files/download-file/Value_arts_culture_evidence_review.pdf

WE all know the minute an artist steps their foot inside a building it adds value, but quick fix development schemes haven't the patience for it, yet they all want 'one that looks like that', once an area has been given time to build and flourish with creative businesses at the heart. Recognising the value of artists and how they're so often the first to take on spaces has to be addressed. The majority of the time doing it on our own time, without being paid, but for the love of what we do and knowing 100% for sure that we can be catalysts for regeneration. I found the above infograph by The Arts Council valuable as a 'go to' when constantly asked to justify what it is you do as an artist, a sure sign I had to fill out too many forms lately. But, worth sharing with my peers as we're mostly all in the same boat and always somehow end up with no long term solution to our own aims which is to remain and continue being conductors for culture, social well being and economic growth.

Back to reflecting, most of the time my work simply develops from who I'm spending time with. I think being open to see what develops regarding the chosen medium (in art terms, painting, sculpture, film etc) is something I realised I actually like and gained through various residencies. Allowing yourself to not know what you're going to do, because you're going to respond to this next group of people, within a whole new parameter is where the idea will come from. Every single idea can't be developed. There's too many. Then one day you get one that takes you by surprise almost, they're the stayers, the ones you can't sleep at night over until you've followed that line of enquiry.

Dead Pigeon Gallery is still very much one of those lines of enquiry.

I've learnt the hard way to follow the paths that connect with what you're already doing, what you're about, your natural instincts, interests and passions. I often get asked or told I should be here or there, or doing this or that, it used to wind me up, but now I think maybe it would be worse if nobody had any thoughts or feelings as to where they thought I should or shouldn't be. But I have to take my thoughts home with me at the end of the day, and I need to be able to sit well with them. I want them to be my mates.

Since I decided to actively feel ok using the words 'no thanks' plus leave facebook, the noise and constant chatter has begun to settle down and given me some space for new ideas.

I've got three projects coming up, all based on the above theory, in that they've come along naturally from day to day activity, helping to both ignite something and ease something.

Jeremy Corbyn, Yoga and Sketching.

The timing of Jeremy Corbyn's emergence in 2015 was fate as far as I'm concerned.
A few weeks after losing my Mum he was speaking at The Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool, I didn't even really know who he was but his name had filtered through at time when nothing else was and I just had to be there. The hotel was packed, more people outside the room than inside where he spoke, I was spellbound. There before me was this normal fella, just speaking...normally. He talked openly and honestly. Slowly and calmly, no drama. I found this both inspiring and endearing. I thought, he's not arsed about being popular, he cares about us.

After he'd finished speaking I was having a drink with my Dad and a friend, the friend had got up to go the toilet and I was having a scan of the room when my heart skipped a beat, 'Dad, there's Jeremy,' pointing behind my left shoulder. My Dad who isn't phased or that impressed by anything or anyone to be fair said, 'Yeah and? You going to talk to him?' I still have no idea where it came from but it's like someone else stood me up and plonked me directly into his path. Literally plonked. He stopped immediately and then proceeded to stop everyone else around him from moving me on, they were just trying to usher him through the crowd. Understandably I must add as it'd been a long night. Within about 5 seconds we were having a full on conversation, it was one of the most poignant moments of my life and will live with me forever. I began telling Jeremy Corbyn, a complete stranger all about my Mum and what had just happened, the rest of the conversation is special to me, so not for a blog post but needless to say I'll always be grateful for what he said, and it helped. A lot. In all that noise and chaos going on around us, he just shut it all out and let me speak and listened.

Merseyside TUC Rally at The Adelphi Hotel, August 2015

Yoga was something I'd always wanted to try but never quite got around to it. Then last summer up popped Positivity Inc's Summer of Yoga, an opportunity to try out free yoga classes held outdoors in North Liverpool parks. A chance conversation with my friend Angela led to us heading down to The Rotunda's urban garden for our first session in the baking sunshine around a tree.

Positivity Inc's Summer of Yoga - The Rotunda, 2017

Eve, who delivers the sessions and I got talking afterwards and pretty much never stopped. That was almost a year ago now. I think she took me under her wing a bit to be fair, little bit like Corbyn. I think people who are sensitive enough know when someone needs a bit of TLC.

So, these two paths had opened up at the same time I'd had an urge to start drawing and sketching again. I hadn't done it for years and not really ever with any continuity. It'd always simply been a tool to help explain an idea to someone or something, I thought I just didn't have the patience for it.

I took some time out and went on an artist residency in Corris in Wales for two weeks. That was it, I got over my fear of it, and probably most importantly what the 'art world' would make of it, over thinking my urge to draw for drawings sake. I think I realise now that sitting there looking at nature that way, intently, forcing myself to sit still and just look gave me a bit of an anchor in the world for an hour or two. Highly recommend this residency too if anyone's interested, https://stiwdiomaelor.com/

So that's the context I suppose and the lead up to where I'm heading.

North End Sketch Club is first up, I'm super happy about this as sketching was key to my personal well being, as was the yoga, so to be supported by the same company, @Positivity_Liv to run the sketch club is kind of perfect.

All details here on this flyer but basically, every Wednesday, for 6 weeks, 1-2.30pm from 23rd May we'll go and have a sketch together. It's that simple. All welcome.

flyer front

flyer back

The next project developed out of wanting to not only do something for Corbyn but find other ways to engage in local politics and ongoing chats over the years about art, politics, footie and our shared local community with Ian Byrne.

I met Dan Carden, MP for Walton now in North Liverpool (who Ian now works with), during the 2017 general election campaign when myself and Sally Anne Watkiss from Homebaked dreamt up PiesForCorbyn (essentially asking people to sponsor a pie that we could take to our nearest marginal seats to provide proper sustenance for the door knockers.) It was an absolutely brilliant election day, we raised over £600 for Homebaked, our local community bakery, and door knockers had full bellies, it was a win win. But most importantly it highlighted that when heads come together from different walks of life that creative spark can lead to such positive engagement in politics, which for many still remains a scary and complicated entity. I liked that Dan was also approachable and open to it, and also paid for lots of pies!

Political Education Officer, Lena Simic of Walton CLP (constituency labour party) organised an event earlier this year at The Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool for local Labour Party members to visit shows by Lubaina Himid and The Singh Twins. She asked if I'd lead a discussion afterwards about art and it's relationship to politics generally and what we all thought about the work. This led to thinking about what skills/talents we have within the group and how it would be a great resource and platform to stage an event to find out what each other does, a great way to get to know the community and be supportive of it. It could also lead to finding alternative ways to engage people who belong to the Labour Party but as stated before, are not sure how to get involved or interact with it.

The thought developed into a CALL OUT to all Walton CLP members, this covers the districts in Liverpool of, Everton, Anfield, Clubmoor, County, Fazakerley and Warbreck.

As before, all details on the flyer but essentially, GET IN TOUCH and simply tell us what you do. That's it, from the responses we receive we'll develop a way of sharing this information to each other, it maybe a new business you've set up or that you have a boss collection of model airplanes, doesn't matter, it's just about finding out what's out there, in the community, in the Unknown!

flyer front

flyer back

I think it's a good job I only write blog posts about three times a year, I'm fully aware of making peoples heads fall off and I think that's me done for now.

I'll pick up on the third project when it's all been boxed and confirmed. But needless to say it involves art in the community.

Here's some photos to give your head a break from words.

Thanks for reading.

Lubaina Himid, The Walker Art Gallery, 2018

Lubaina Himid, The Walker Art Gallery, 2018

Lubaina Himid, The Walker Art Gallery, 2018

The Singh Twins, The Walker Art Gallery, 2018

The Singh Twins, The Walker Art Gallery, 2018

And, one last pic for The Mighty Reds.

Before the City game en route to Kiev, 2018

Dead Pigeon Gallery and beyond...

Stranger Things made me write 'and beyond...' after the title of this blog and I probably need stop ending things with divvy 'spooky' sayings - but it's a temporary wonder and will fade! 

It's a cracking bit of telly though and did ultimately get me thinking about our recent show and the creation of Dead Pigeon Gallery in the then semi derelict warehouse on Kempston St, around the back of TJ's, Liverpool.

Why? Well, it's stupidly simple, they both made me really happy. There's some connect between enjoying the process and the camaraderie of making DPG happen, and the joy of having your nostalgia button pinged by a show that openly nods to all your faves from growing up in the 80's. I think it's technically known as glee. Glee and feeling fulfilled. We honestly felt like kids at times during the gallery open days, something we all commented on but nobody really talks about as being something really important to a project, the behind the scenes stuff and the ability to laugh. I think laughing is very underestimated, we tend to take things a little too seriously at times and I was determined to keep the group open and friendly (another overlooked word) and have laughter and piss taking as standard fair.

post show catch-up at The Cally minus Patrick, Erika and Col

This experience is a shared history now, and that's a solid thing to have with a group of people you like working with, a good platform, just like the communal glow of remembering scenes from Stand By Me or E.T and The Goonies. (Or insert your 'go to' film) I think there's still a lot of snobbery around Fine Art, people feeling they can't compare or reference popular culture or use words such as 'friendly' or 'nice' or 'Goonies' - but I've never bought into that. In fact I'm fed up of people generally judging other people as to what they may or may not watch on TV or choose to read. 

Erika Rushton, Plasterers Pigeon Lady 1, 2017

This issue of language and acceptance of certain styles and approaches was highlighted of late in having to write an artist statement, I could never do 'art speak' and always maintain that the art work should speak for itself, but I know there's got to be an intro to what you do and accept that. It's the specific art language, the uniform style I find tedious and disconnected. I know some reading this from the art world may think it's just standard practice so get over it, but does anyone anywhere honestly find artist statements interesting? Unless you come across one that isn't 'artist statementy'!? 
To everyone else reading this who doesn't know what I'm talking about you're missing absolutely nothing!

I still haven't written one.

Anyway, I digressed.

In between the show and now there was a trip to the States with Pa to en*joy*dure, an epic tale if ever there was, 'training it' as in, on a train, from NY to Boston to Chicago to Kansas to Phoenix. The trips were long, the trains where tired, the passengers were noisy when you wouldn't expect them to be, the views incredible. My Dad lost a hearing aid on day two.

Josie Jenkins, Willow Pattern Stories, 2017 acrylic on canvas

Jane MacNeil, Workers at Coming Home's First House, 2017 digital c-type prints

The show had just come down when we set off for America so it was really fresh in my mind. I got to share and talk about it with some of my friends dotted across the States, it was like having a new fresh audience, the feeling was positive and one of the most noted things was the acceptance of the name, and the fact that everyone seems to warm to it. I'd felt it had legs months ago but this was a good nod that there was something to build on here.

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a    g    l                           

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Jason Hollis, Coalescense, 2017 spray paint and plaster on plaster board

I've talked about how the name and project came about but for anyone who doesn't know the outline is...

Whilst working on Coming Home Liverpool, (set up to look at why houses where empty and what could be done about it), photographer Jane McNeil came along on site visits with us documenting the people working on site doing up a house. I was particularly taken with four shots she'd taken of plasterers, I felt they had a beautiful poetic quality and equally felt the subject matter was something intrinsic to the project and the amount of time, people and work it takes to do up a house and therefor a compelling aspect to hone in on. The lads from Penny Lane Builders where really good letting us take their photos and I'll come back to them in a bit.

Clementine Simon, Joe's Pigeon, 2017

Joe Farrag

my work, The Plasterers, patiently being put up by Frank Moore

I took the photos and ran with it a while, eventually having the idea to invite other artists and writers to respond too, in the end there were ten of us plus two works by Adrian Henry. This was a surprising and totally unexpected addition coming after chatting to Polly Mossley who said she thought of Adrian's work, specifically his dead city birds paintings, after reading about Dead Pigeon Gallery in my previous blog post.. This led to meeting Catherine Marcangeli and selecting two works of his to be in the show. I was thrilled about this.

Catherine Marcangeli - picking up in Adrian's work in Marie Gray's car (who would ever see that coming, Marie is my former maths teacher from Notre Dame that became an honorary DPG member)

The space, a former printers plus many other uses over the years owned by Jason Abbot, had been empty a good while when we first showed up and, as now I think everyone knows, was literally full of dead pigeons so was referred to as the 'bit with dead pigeons in', 'the gallery space with the light on the top floor', the 'Dead Pigeon Gallery'.

'yanno...the bit with the dead pigeons, the gallery space with the light, the 'dead pigeon gallery'

The artists and writers responded to themes connected to Coming Home Liverpool in general, plasterers or some took the dead pigeon route. 

What resulted was a show, the first I'd curated on my own, in a series of works made specifically for the exhibition that also all shared the exact same timeline. The works resonated with each other and the space. There was a solid relationship as everything had developed from the exact same starting point. 

The space itself had become a building site, cleared of dead birds and filled with noise and workmen with their radio station tuned to 80's classics. That was perfect as the whole story of the exhibition was inspired by building work. We worked alongside the lads from DROSINOS who accommodated us being there and went out of their way to help us get the space fit enough for public entry (after signing a disclaimer obviously!) 

OK, to the work. Marie Gray (my former Notre Dame maths teacher) and I went for a drive the other day to The Lakes and she started asking me questions about what kind of influences had gone into the work I'd done from the show. 

We were standing in John Ruskin's house at the time and looking at wallpaper he'd designed, Marie had remarked on how he'd taken one symbol from one place and incorporated it into his design. This led to telling her how my final piece for the show had been heavily influenced by a trip to Chester Cathedral and specifically the tiles on the floor, which in turn reminded me of the tiles I'd photographed and drawn in domestic settings in Portugal. This was all incorporated into the final piece after waking up one night with this doodle in my head involving one of the plasterers surrounded by elaborate and brightly coloured tiles.

a middle of the night sketch - plasterer and tiles

She asked if anyone else knew this and that it should documented, I told her only famous artists get their work documented! But I did see her point, that I hadn't really spoken about the making of the work itself.

I had four works, each work made up of four sheets of A1 laid out on the studio floor, the photo of a plasterer taped up near to the ground so I could see it. I used sticks about a meter long, with either charcoal/pencil/acrylic pen or an oil based paint pen taped to the end to draw with. 

big pencil taped to the end of a stick to draw with

This was for two main reasons. I liked the scrappy style of drawings I'd been making with an edding pen (water soluble pen) in my smaller sketch books and was trying to get that same 'feel' to that quality of line but on a much larger scale. Catherine (Dalton) had suggested using the 'stick and ink' technique, as that would give me less control of the marks, I liked this idea and remembered I'd tried it before while at the Bridge Guard Residency in Slovakia. It also meant I could stand up and see the whole drawing while working on it rather than be close to one particular area at a time. 

It was also very reminisce of painting and decorating and constantly having to fashion brushes on the end of sticks or poles with masking tape to reach difficult bits of ceilings...This of course then tied into the subject of the artwork too and it made sense to me that the actual making of the piece itself was very active, standing in it like when you're painting a room or a plasterer is plastering a wall.

original photo's by Jane MacNiel of Penny Lane Builders working on a house in Walton - a Coming Home house

Attaching various things to the end of sticks and drawing - standing in the drawing! This one is a fat charcoal stick

charcoal smudger

process

drawing made with an oil based pen on a stick then areas painted over with emulsion house paint

hanging the drawings out on the line

Then came the trip to Chester Cathedral to see a show called ARK - it was an incredible sculpture show, the work and the relationship with the space was an joy to behold. It's finished now but there's a link here showing the some of the work and artists involved:

https://chestercathedral.com/ark-exhibition/

I started looking in more detail at the floors in the cathedral when I got home, it reminded me of being in Portugal and loving the tiles there, not just in historic sites but everyday domestic settings. I started playing about with all these images together, examining the ideas of possibilities within an everyday domestic setting and on an everyday building site, plasterers, pigeons, art, tiles...

Chester Cathedral floor tiles

Chester Cathedral floor tiles

Collage - Chester cathedral and Lisbon tiles, plasterers and dead pigeons

Collage - top left Chester Cathedral tiles, top right plasterers buckets, bottom, tiles from Sintra, Portugal

Collage - plasterers, tiles, dead pigeon

sketch - composition ideas - plasterer, tiles, dead pigeon, ladder

composition ideas - tiles, wallpaper, dead pigeon

Collage - plasterers, pigeons, buckets tiles, patterns, compositions

chosen composition from A5 (14cm x 21cm) sketch book scaled up to 118cm x 168cm

figure drawn out using the pocsa pen on the end of the stick - paint brush attached to the other end to blend the line using water 

image and design drawn out and starting to add colour

 

detail - final piece - top right hand corner 

This work was sold to Penny Lane Builders, seems like the most apt end and I'm looking forward to seeing it up in their offices this week.

They also bought some of Jane's photographs of their workers too who also helped myself and Josie run the work around Liverpool in their vans. I'd like to thank Gerard Mcevoy, Steve Ross and all the lads involved and I hope it encourages keeping an open mind when the next artist approaches them with an idea! 

I have a ton of thoughts and ideas with regard to the future of Dead Pigeon Gallery but think this has been a long enough blog post, but the upshot is I don't see it as a one show thing.

Til then, then.

one of Andrea Ku's bees

Patrick Kirk-Smith, Cathedral, 2017 paper, laser jet ink, gold leaf 

Deborah Morgan, centre, our 'writer in residence' chatting to Ange and Pop

I'd like to thank all of the artists involved, for saying yes and making some incredible work and a special thanks to Josie Jenkins who helped me with all the running around towards the end and admin stuff plus hiring and driving a van for the first time!

Patches, DPG mascot 

Josie doing some proper graft

Miss (Marie Gray) chatting to Mark Loudon

Andrea Ku - Observation 2017, observation hive and honey bees.

Colette Lilley, Plasterer and Process, colour pencil on wall.

Catherine Dalton - Curtains 2017, cotton fabric, lino cut, block printing ink, fabric dye.