26 Thursday Apr 2012
Tags
Balloons, Birds, Illustrations, Manchester, Manchester Street Art, Photography, Posca Pens, Street Art
This started off as a weird thought that popped into my head and I put down on paper. Suddenly they are turning up across Manchester, I wonder if Darwin predicted this marriage between nature and plastic?
28 Tuesday Feb 2012
Posted in Digital Photography, Manchester, Manchester Street Art, Street Art
If any of you know Manchester you’ll probably be aware that it rains, alot! I was thinking about ways to make the best of this soggy situation and remember being inspired by people filling potholes with flowers and plants. What better way is there to fill a puddle than with miniature rubber ducks that also glow in the dark?!
24 Friday Feb 2012
Posted in Manchester, Medium Format, Rolleiflex
…Sometimes accidents turn out the best! I left this film in my Rolleiflex TLR for maybe over a month and the light slowly seeped in creating this weird surreal world, the pictures haven’t been edited.
23 Thursday Feb 2012
Posted in Calligraphy, Digital Photography, Manchester, Manchester Street Art, Street Art
Tags
Calligraphy, Einstein, Handmade Paper, Inspirational Words, Manchester, Manchester Street Art, Posca Pens, Street Art
After reading this beautiful quote by Einstein I wanted to spread the word so I hand wrote it onto nice textured paper and me and two friends stuck it along a wall in Moss Side. This is what the quote said:
“A human being is part of the whole called by us the ‘universal’, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest, a kind of optical illusion of our consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free us from this prison by widening our circle of understanding and compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and her beauty.” Albert Einstein.
Photographs taken by Boyd Sleator and edited by me.
20 Monday Feb 2012
Tags
Art Against the Cuts, Epicurus, Illustrations, Inspirational Words, Manchester Street Art, Photography, Street Art
After reading the philosophies and sayings of Epicurus and watching Alain De Botton’s documentaries on happiness I became inspired to recreate Diogenes’ wall that he built also as an inspired Epicurian! The beautiful thing about this wall was that Diogenes main concern was not how much his townsfolk spent but how happy they were! I felt this idea had gotten a little lost so I would bring it back to life with some drawings and some of Epicurus’ sayings. It also became part of an exhibition a friend put on at The Art Corner in response to the austerity cuts of the tory government. You can see a couple of reviews on these websites…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/manchester/hi/people_and_places/arts_and_culture/newsid_9349000/9349524.stm
http://www.pycsessions.com/2011/01/cuts-and-grazes/
19 Sunday Feb 2012
Posted in Digital Photography, Manchester, Manchester Street Art, Street Art
To make Manchester a much nicer city I decided to carry on my project of bringing the comforts of inside the home out onto the streets. Here are some of the items I subtley changed the streets with.
18 Saturday Feb 2012
Tags
Letter Press, Manchester, Manchester Street Art, Photography, Screen Printing, Street Art, Wallpaper
A couple of years ago me and a fellow artist friend did a little collaboration project to bring some homely comforts onto the streets of Manchester. She designed the wallpaper patterns and then we stuck them up alongside some framed photographs that I had taken. For some of the pieces I also included some letter-pressed text I made.
17 Friday Feb 2012
Posted in Digital Photography, Manchester, Manchester Street Art, Street Art
Tags
Environment, Grow your own, Letter Press, Manchester, Manchester Street Art, Photography, Self Sufficiency, Street Art
This is part of a project I started a couple of summers ago, the idea was to make the streets a more homely and comforting place. The message with the strawberry plants was also to try and get people thinking about growing their own produce and the urban environment as a place for this. Oh and Sam is gay, according to the writings on the wall!
16 Thursday Feb 2012
Posted in Manchester, Medium Format, Rolleiflex, Urban Explore
Tags
Abandoned Buildings, Manchester, Medium Format, Photography, Rolleiflex, Traditional, Train Station, Urban Explore
I went an on explore to an abandoned train station in Manchester town centre, it was a weird derelict world right in the centre of all this growth and business. I took my Rolleiflex TLR, some of the shots didn’t come out that well because of the darkness and lack of tripod. On the way out we got warned away by the police so it’s a bit of a risky one which is a shame because it is a great place to explore.
14 Tuesday Feb 2012
Posted in Illustrations, Posca Pens
I have just finished reading Jane Bowles ‘Plain Pleasures’. There was a beautiful line in one of the stories that inspired me to make these two drawings. A friend also received some sad news that reminded me of the fragility, and delicacy of us, so these are for Bob and Seb. The line is: “But her voice seemed to fly away behind her like a ribbon caught in the wind.”
