Picture this, a day in December

 

These are exposures I've hoarded up from my Pentax Spotmatic for months, posted with apologies for being so shamefully out of season. It's all for smug hindsight on the relentlessly deep snow now the clocks have gone forward!

 ...Spot the snowball mid-flight?

Recent press - Sheffield Telegraph / MissieCindz web blog

Sheffield Telegraph preview of the Site Canteen makeover

"AROUND 80 people booked in for a special dinner at the Site Gallery on Friday night. 

Guests from a cross section of Sheffield’s cultural scene were invited to bring along one book which had special significance to them ...

"Thus young design team We Are Click contributed light shades of strands of wool and a structure of a pair of tree trunks from Ecclesall Woods. Neon artist Richard Wheater provided a window sign and Sheffield furniture-maker Finbar Lucas designed the tables to go alongside Sixties chairs featured in This is England and originally made in Chesterfield. 

There is also a facia board above the food counter proclaiming the local produce which was created by Jane Faram, an illustrator and member of Site staff"...


Cindy Cheung/ Missiecindz reviews the redesign
"PJ Taste Site Gallery's NEW tasteful and refreshing interiors. Beautiful illustrations" ...

Site Canteen at Site Gallery - NEW frieze

Last week a rather spectacular dinner party was held at Site Gallery to introduce new Director Laura Sillars, previously programme Director at FACT Liverpool. The dinner saw the launch of Site’s ‘Ex-Libris’ - a public library housed in the gallery. Offering a stock of titles donated by creative talent in the city, with handwritten  personal accounts inside the covers to inspire the reader. Note that Jarvis Cocker, Ian Anderson, Tim Etchells and Russel Senior have obliged!

Site Canteen where the library is based has undergone a whirlwind transformation. Wooden furniture maker Finbar, and Sheffield’s hot young design trio ’We are Click’ (who have built a stunning shelving structure for the new library, with books stacked between silver birch trees on steel angular shelves. It's a gorgeous creation. Dotted around the space are their wool and resin lights hung at varied heights for reading/coffee drinking/boozing.

I was commissioned to work alongside We are Click to produce a frieze for the wall of the Canteen.  PJ Taste are the local food connoisseurs resident at Site Canteen. Sourcing produce from all over Sheffield, foraging in the woodlands, digging up from their own allotments and supporting Sheffield’s city farms. Their ethical production and commitment to source locally, preparing fresh food in a responsible way with notable creativity,  led to the idea of a frieze. The work combines a map of Sheffield and their key producers with a menu board of sorts, to narrate the process from planting to devouring!

The wall is surfaced with peg board, so the frieze is in flux and goes with the seasons -  I'll produce new fruits to grow from the tree, or animals to graze the farmland. We Are Click cut these pieces from plywood based on my drawings, and inserted dowel for them to be plugged in anywhere on the pegboard. 

I painted seven hills of Sheffield (including a hill of milk bottles!) as an underlay environment for a varied foreground of food, farms and local contributors to the PJ Taste table. 

It was a real privilege to help transform Site’s café into Site Canteen, a hot-spot for Sheffield where inspirational ideas, talent & happenings will find a base over the coming years. You really have to see it, you probably can’t miss it actually - there’s a new neon artwork installed by artist Richard William Wheater screaming OPEN at you from the window. 

Article magazine - CITIES issue is out!

The delay in recent news is wholly down to an exciting whirlwind of a past month. Since the Stars in Stripes Rotherham exhibition ended I’ve been working hard with Article Magazine to have the latest issue ready, and strongly suggest (insist) that you get your mitts on  a copy of the Cities Issue. Distributed in...

The issue launch was held last Wednesday, we took over the Great Gatsby on Division Street in Sheffield to present the new copy, we made cardboard cities, and screened films such as City on the Move the classic promotion film for Sheffield in the 70’s which features two Swedish beauties landing in steel / sex city as tourists. Just look at all the discos, department stores and friendly policemen on patrol!

 We had excellent stickers to go with the issue (and illustrated inner spread on 24 hour city) by Nick Deakin (also a Stars in Stripes member). 

The clumpy, retro tv sets on the night linked up with my interview in this issue with then Programme Director at FACT Liverpool, Laura Sillars, on the world’s first video artist Nam June Paik, ‘Life is half natural and half technological’.

Also featured is my interview with Louise Hutchinson, Curator at S1 Artspace (artist-led organisation) about the new premises and gorgeous exhibition by Eva Berendes. We’ve noted the really bright future for Northern cities, this issue of Article is all about those who aren’t waiting around for the funding to flood in, like numerous independent projects across Britain - thoughtful and significant work is happening regardless.

Look at Rotherham and the Old Market Gallery, about to be transformed into a cinema and artspace by Peter Martin, a lovely Liverpudlian with an unrelenting passion for transforming place through artistic strategy,. (He’s written on it this in the issue too - ‘Rotherham is the New Berlin’. Page 50!)

My feature on city architect J.L.Womersely is the main suspect for my tiredness! A marathon scavenge for any information on the man who designed an array of the post-slum city constructions we now love, or love to despise. Hours spent in Sheffield’s Local studies centre with OAP’s (who have a troubling cut throat commitment to their family histories). Anyway, what I thought I knew about Sheffield and Manchesters ‘landmark brutalism’ was nothing without knowing Womersley’s hand in it (It’s a lengthy piece, page 14). 

ALSO an interview with Peter Saville, designer of the prolific Factory Records record covers. Needn’t say more. 

A ton of reviews, previews and guidance on what you can enjoy seeing in your city right now. Get your copy and read it over coffee, in fact, several coffees till the next issue emerges. Article goes from strength to strength.