DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN ...............

It's been quite a while since I last posted on here ; put it down to working hard on the last part of my MA course , or sheer laziness.............

whatever.

Anyway , to return . Having relocated the entire family up to Manchester in 1980  and starting a new career / partnership in the area , one of the first projects I remember working on was Paddy's Goose , a city centre pub on Bloom Street at the back of Chorlton street bus station. seems a lifetime ago ..............

More recently I have been working pretty much next door at Richmond House on Bloom Street ,  both on the design of the Richmond Street Tea Rooms and - more figuratively - on The House Of The Book Lover , a source for a number of works on my MA course , so I pass Paddy's Goose quite regularly.....

And here it is again...........

...... this time the subject of a painting by Anne Aspinall , someone I know quite well as one of the artists running the Longden Gallery in Macclesfield.. It had never occurred to me that it might be a nice exterior to paint , but here it is in all its' glory............

Check out Anne's work and the rest of the artists at the Longden Gallery at www.longdengallery.co.uk.........
and I should be back on here shortly with my final MA work and news of an exhibition........

....WHEN YOU WALK IN THE ROOM......

....An installation at Jordangate House , Macclesfield , until sunday 30th June , and when you walk into the room this is what you should see..............

..........and the worst thing about exhibiting - the bit they don't tell you about - is the invigilation.......boring ..........so anyone who wants to come along and have a chat........please ?!

......THE ART MOBS OUT TONIGHT...

I suppose it's a bit late to be posting this , but better late than never ; my only excuse is that real life has tended to get in the way these last few weeks , as it does...........Anyway.................

THE BARNABY ART's TRAIL - Macclesfield's Art Festival , is happening 14th / 30th June  - and we have an installation at Jordangate House , Jordangate , in the centre of town.  ' We ' are Angela Davies ( who is doing an MA alongside me at MMU ) , Noel Connor and myself , and the installation concerns itself with buildings and memories.......................A lot of the work I have produced for my MA over the past year or so will be on display , together with Angela's structures and Noel's photographs. If you can get into Macclesfield it's well worth a visit as there are some forty venues open over the fortnight.

In the meantime its back to the MA work..............and I will post some pictures of our installation as soon as I have some .

...LIPSTICK , POWDER AND PAINT......

' Lipstick , powder and paint.......
  Lipstick , powder and paint
  Lipstick , powder and paint
  .....is you is ?.....or is you ain't ? '

Back to the MA - and ' work in progress '...............Having already sketched out some ideas for
a ' Tunnel Of Love ' ride down in the basements , linking the House Of The Art Lover through to the House Of The Dominatrix , this piece takes it a stage further, I suppose to a ' more finished ' state. The idea of the ' ride ' , the ' journey ' is taken here to a more advanced state , starting to tell a story . Our hero buys his ticket - Admit One - and enters with trepidation , as so he should ........for this is a journey that takes him well away from his comfort zone ...........a journey cross the divide ,a journey of trans-formation.........and the ' Reveal ' is a surprise to us all.

Lipstick and paint.......well , you have to make your choices here ; the colours are all there to help you in the predela..............

So put your penny in the slot and take your ticket...............

' ...Then the lights go out and it's just the two of us

     You me and all that stuff we're so scared of........

     Gotta ride down baby into this tunnel of love.....

......But the house is haunted and the ride gets rough

     And you've got to learn to live with what you can't rise above.....'

 

...IT AIN'T WHAT YOU DO.......

' It ain't what you do , it's the way that you do it..
  that's what gets results '..........................

I suppose that having spent most of my professional career designing and/or illustrating interiors for the Leisure Industry then restaurant interiors should figure more often here..............so lets start off with a couple in Manchester.

First one up is Australasia , another one of Tim Bacon's creations and positioned at the entrance to Spingingfields on Deansgate - although if you blinked you would miss it , as the whole of the restaurant apart from the minimalist entrance is undercover , below ground...........................

...................a restaurant in a basement , no natural daylight - and no way of seeing in from the outside ; a recipe for disaster , especially when you are looking for a good lunchtime trade. The interior , however , is particularly impressive without ever being too pretentious - you can eat here quite happily for around £20,00 for a light lunch . Light , bright , airy , this is one of the nicest interiors that I have seen for a long long time . The colour is predominantly white , offset by pale natural materials - bleached wood , linen fabrics , pale lights - and there is no feeling of being locked away underground , it is so light and airy . It took me a while to realise in fact that the interior would probably not work so well if there was natural daylight coming in ; daylight is too variable , whilst in an enclosed space you have full control over the lighting.

 

 All in all a particularly nice interior ; I have worked myself for this particular client and know the designers who created it ; could I have done it any better ? ........I seriously doubt it............... 

 

 

 A really nice experience - and the food is good too..........................

 

 

Meanwhile , across town , another restaurant , another interior - and another client I have worked for.

The new ' French ' restaurant at the Midland Hotel , fronted up by signature chef Simon Rogan with a view to securing the first Michelin starred restaurant for the City .

  

 

Unfortunately  this interior doesn't do it for me - stark Scandinavian furniture sitting in that large open space ? A carpet designed to look like floorboards ? The interior to me lacks warmth and comfort , and does little to enhance the dining experience...............too cold , too overawed by the historical ' not to be touched ' interior........

 

A Michelin star experience ? maybe ..................but meanwhile ,  somewhere in Manchester , Tim Bacon and his team are also working towards a new restaurant with Michelin star aspirations................

 

I know who my money is on.

..PICTURE THIS..............

 

' All I want is a room with a view......

  A sight worth seeing , a vision of you.....' 

 

A  socially inept amateur photographer , an undeveloped roll of film , dodgy nude pin-ups from the late 50s/early 60s , and a mystery............and wonderful illustrations - what more could you want from a book ?

 

Opening up the latest edition of Varoom magazine , an illustration at the bottom of one page caught my eye - Graham Rawle ? ' Diary of an Amateur Photographer ' ? ....never heard of him - or it - and all literally cut out and pasted together like some anonymous note ?...............no technical artifice ? no computer generated images ?

 

Hmmm - a mystery about a mystery............... 

 

 

 

 ........and having tracked down a copy of the book it did not disappoint . The story aside - which is excellent - the way the book is designed and assembled is most impressive . Constructed ( ? - designed ) as a diary / scrapbook each page is lovingly and individually assembled , pages overlapping each other in a way so that you suddenly realise that what appears to be an error in continuity is in fact the previous - or next  - page reappearing as the page you are actually reading is smaller - and stapled in. Each page looks cut and pasted up , just as a real paste-up diary scrapbook....... 

 

 

.........and just in case you think that this is just computer trickery , a photo of the designers desk shows his working method.......boxes and boxes of cut-out type , waiting to be selected and pasted up, 

 

 

Dating from 1997/98 this is real cut-and-paste - ant the seedy world of the late fifties amateur photographer - and the adverts offering various ' services ' live again.

 

Wonderful............. 

' All I want is 20-20 vision..........A total portrait with no omissions..........'

..COCKTAILS FOR THREE

Ohhh cocktails for three.....
It's not natural to me
Hey not for me and you
Should be.....cocktails for two

Working as an interior visualiser , the visuals produced are always at the front end of a project where you have little more than a plan and a mood board to go on - if you are lucky. Its always interesting , therefore , to see a finished project , particularly if it is not one of your own . Does it look like the sketch ?

 

 

Having done this sketch quite a while ago - last autumn ? - for Dre Masso for his new cocktail bar Opium in Gerrard St , Soho , it was quite interesting to actually get to have a drink there last thursday night with Dre.............and , yes , it did look like the sketch although I didn't get to take a picture from the same viewpoint.............

 

 

 

 

The cocktail of choice was Opium No 2........which arrived as a three part drink , complete with smoke...............

 

 

 

 

.............and all the graphics and the sketches on the menu were by Jonathan at www.artistictype.co.uk who introduced me to Dre in the first place . Jonathan's blog posting from 13th march shows some of the sketches he did............

 

 

 

 

.....' Cocktails For Three ' ?

 

Check out Terry Allen's ' Lubbock on Everything '. 

 

 

 

 

 ..........and thankyou , Dre , for the drinks.