Cathedrals of Steam

If you look across the Vale of York on a still, sunny day, you'll see something like this:

The three huge power stations of (right to left) Ferrybridge, Eggborough and Drax. The columns of steam  rising from the cooling towers are visible from 30 miles away. It's a magnificent sight. And even more impressive from close up.


Drax;

 Eggborough;

and Ferrybridge;

Catch the view while you can, though: our fuck - witted government, kissing the arse of the EU and their stupid CO2 emissions policy, is forcing Ferrybridge to close in a couple of years. Along with a shitload of other power stations. And they haven't commissioned any replacements. So when you're freezing in the dark thanks to a power cut, don't curse; rejoice! because you're saving the planet! Brussels says so.
 And I'll bet there won't be any power cuts over there.

Professional Options

So, five practitioners who inspire me...

Paul Catherall has cropped up on this blog before. His London-centric linocuts are some of the most impressive I’ve ever seen.

Some of his work is commissioned by Transport for London. They obviously want to revisit the vibe of the 1920’s and 30’s

How to emulate him? He told me that he assembles some of his images like a jigsaw. I’ve tried this, and as yet I can’t get a clean, straight cut. And my cutting and printing skills need improving.

My first task is to start doing multicoloured images. I’m not ready for reduction cuts yet – the finality of destroying the image puts me off. Yet multi – block prints require a lot more cutting; one of the artists  spoke to at Skipton  sticks to reductions because she can’t face the effort of multiple blocks. 

Gail Brodholt is another  linocut artist and printmaker, based in London.  Like Paul Catherall, her images are London – orientated. Much of her work depicts the Underground.

 Her work is ‘concerned with journeys, both actual and temporal, providing an outsider’s narrative on present day London which is tinged with a certain nostalgia for the railways and tube trains.’ A nostalgia I share - bring back railway carriages with compartments! The London thing is difficult to duplicate, though. Manchester doesn’t have the same mystique. Again, more carving and printing practice required.

Barry Bulsara is a graphic designer and printmaker based in Leicester. He produces screenprints of contemporary images – the Tardis, Star Wars, Malcolm Tucker from The Thick Of It. I would have thought he’d have copyright issues, but he says it's not a problem. The images are beautiful and humorous.

I’ve been hitting the print room quite a lot recently, enough to realise I need a lot more practice. As with lino, there’s a knack to translating what the image looks like into what the print will look like. A knack I haven’t acquired yet.

Anthony Burrill is a graphic artist, printmaker and designer. He is keen on traditional techniques  - ‘The integrity lent to the process of image-making by hand-made methods is essential to his practice across all media — from print, to screen-based, to three-dimensional applications’. This chimes with my obsession with old machinery and my recently – acquired love of making things.

 His posters are deceptively plain, but really shout their message out. Some of them are printed from woodblock, a style I’d like to try. Bet it’s pricey, though.

Bit of a theme so far, eh? All printmakers. Well, the fifth one ain’t.

Advertising agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty are responsible for the Levis ads that brought us Nick Kamen in his boxers, Vorsprung durch technik becoming synonymous with Audi, and Sta-Prest’s Flat Eric. The firm has twice been agency of the year at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, and twice won the Queen’s Award for Export. Hegarty’s book is in the college library, and it’s full of insights into the creative process. These people know what they’re doing.

I’m drawn to advertising by the whole puppet-master thing. Making people act one way rather than another.

How to get there? Have more ideas. Study people, and what they want.

Iron Signposts

 

If you go walking in the hills around here, you'll have seen one of these. It's a Peak District and Northern Counties Foot Path Society sign. This society - based on Turncroft Lane in Offerton - selflessly erects beautiful iron signposts for the convenience of walkers. They've been doing it for a while, too - this is the first, from 1905. 

I've always thought these things are beautiful, little green jewels to delight the eye. Some of the older ones even have the altitude on them.

 

 Now you can admire them without the hassle of walking, as their website has most of them on display. Check them out here. 

I've got one quarrel with them, though. At some point they shortened their name to Peak and Northern Footpaths Society. Fair enough; except that some lunatic thought it was a good idea to go round painting out the words 'district' and 'counties from existing signs. And it looks ridiculous.

Voicebox - another made up artist?

  The history of art is full of made-up artists. Some, like Nat Tate, are just elaborate hoaxes. Some, like Pietro Psaier, were attempts to make money. But they're definately not real.

   Then there are ones you're not sure about. They seem real, as in there's a real person out there. But are they genuine, or fake?

    Mr. Brainwash, for one. You watch 'Exit through the gift shop'  - a really fine film - and wonder: is he for real? It might be one of Banksy's more elaborate hoaxes, after all.So you google him.  He does Warhol -type stuff, mass-produced art based on other people's images - even down to the soup cans, except his are aerosols. So he's a plagiarist, if there's such a thing in art. And he's got a significant online footprint. Looks real enough. But still...

   Banksy's real enough. Except he might be more than one person.

   Which brings me to Voicebox.

   He's got posters up all over the college.

   Is he real, a bluffer, a fraud, a hoax, or a scam?

   He hasn't got much of an online footprint. Just a tumblr blog.

   His work seems to be mostly pictures of posters with smartarsed graffiti sprayed on them. Some of it looks familiar too. So looks like he's a plagiarist as well. He's nicked his image from Fonejacker, for god's sake

   He claims to have political ambitions, says he's going to stand as Stockport's next MP and Manchester's next police commissioner. No chance of winning, of course. So must be a stunt.

   Or is he a real, deluded fool? Or an attempt at hype? Or a joke by a higher profile, real version of his imaginary self?

   When you start thinking about this stuff, you get lost in a maze of bluff and double-bluff - who are these lying bastards, and why are they lying? It's like being George Smiley. Except, for him, the outcome mattered. For me, I soon stopped caring either way. Just tell yourself  'it's all art', and have another drink.

  

Colourful Dinner

  Stir fry last night. Healthy AND photogenic.

Shopping Arcades

  Before the Trafford Centre, we had the arcade. Forget the shops, just admire the ironwork and glass.

Cool Beer Ads

   Saw these nice beer posters in a pub in Leeds.

 

This is my favourite. I'll have one of those!

Art Deco window frames

   My partner's daughter has just moved into a 1920/30's flat in Didsbury. Art Deco a-go-go!

    What I really love about these buildings are the metal window and door frames. Very elegant.

  

   There's another type of metal window frame from that period that I love even more. Some houses with bay windows had curved panes of glass at the ends.

 

   See how the windows curve in towards the front door?

   A bloke who lived in one told me that the owners of the newly-built houses were given a form with a catalogue number. Should they break one of the curved panes, they had to contact Pilkingtons glass at St. Helens, who would then make them a new pane. Of course this cost about twenty times the price of a normal flat one. These windows have all but disappeared now, victims of the double-glazing salesman. But the road in Bramall where I took these shots has four houses still hanging on to them. Some people are prepared to sacrifice comfort for style. Hats off to them, I say.

John Byrne

   Last night I watched 'What artists do all day?'. It's well worth a look. The star this week was John Byrne, a scottish artist I'd never heard of until then. He's a very industrious chap, putting in 12 to 15 hours a day painting, or at his other job of theatre set designer. He also wrote 'Tutti Frutti', a rather good tv drama from 1987 that set light to the careers of Robbie Coltrane and Emma Thompson.
  
    The odd thing about him, though, is that a lot of his output is made up of portraits of himself.


   Why on earth would he do that? And why are people queueing up to buy them?

    Then I had a go myself.

    Number one in a series of five million. Any buyers?

Aubrey Beardsley

 

 
    Now this fellow knew how to wind the victorians up.
    Wierd sexual images in stark black and white were Beardsley's forte. He was heavily influenced by japanese woodcuts and Toulouse-Lautrec's poster art. In his turn he influenced the art nouveau movement.
    I'm fascinated by the white/black contrast. Maybe it's a consequence of being slightly colourblind. It's what draws be to printmaking.
    Aubrey Beardsley died in 1898, only 26 yers old, with most of his work in the last six years. In his last year he got religion and ordered his publisher to destroy his more salacious works. So he may well have churned out decades of dull work had he lived longer. Thankfully the publisher ignored his demands.
 

IKEA

  I've always been very suspicious of men who like shopping. Shops, to me, are places men are driven to by necessity, or are dragged to by their partners. I love IKEA, though. The stuff is displayed in a n interesting way. It's usually well designed - I walk along thinking 'Wow!'. It has amusing names, like 'Snott', 'Minj' or 'Arsse'. And all the stuff I've bought has been pretty tough. Most people bitching about IKEA furniture don't seem to have grasped the fact that you're not supposed to dismantle flatpack furniture.

  Even the steelwork looks nice...

  And check out this light. It's about three feet across. Reminds me of the 'Exploding Tableware' light in the design section of Manchester Art Gallery. Fantastic.