The Wall.

This afternoon, we finished The Wall, a 15 metre wide painting on breezeblock inside the newly-built premises of Briggs Hillier creators of retail environments for the likes of Schuh, Nike, Adidas, JD Sports, Screwfix and River Island.

It's been a big one, both creatively and in terms of logistical challenges - the building was still being constructed as we began work, and we had no power, no light and only a ladder to the first floor mural location. As the most prominent part of a creative space in which the entire BH team have to work, this had to be something inspirational, devoid of cheese or platitudes, timeless and beautiful.  We asked the client what they wanted. The answer was 'we leave it totally up to you'. Ah. Gulp, then.

I started by looking at what the company did, and where they did it. Adrian, the Briggs half of the company, travels almost constantly to clients in exotic locations like Dubai, Shanghai, Jordan, Tokyo, Bucharest and Riyadh. He also has a thing for shoes, as well as working for some of the globe's biggest shoe retailers and manufacturers (which becomes relevant later). Here's Adrian and his building. (Note: he isn't mincing, he's demonstrating the height of the eventual cupboards).

I was taken by the twin ideas of the different languages spoken in these countries, and the universal appeal of shopping - particularly in the UAE where I had visions of beautifully-kohl'd women perusing racks of gloriously coloured sparkling garments, shoes and jewellery: the love of retail. I was all for a swirling mass of Arabic and Hindi and jewel-like colours... till a mate reminded me 'yeah, but they work for Screwfix as well'.

Quite. Back to the drawing board then for a more inclusive and down to earth approach, this time focusing on the Briggs Hillier end of things - their creative process.

Adrian and Jenny (the Hillier part of the company) don't do things in the most predictable way. Their new building - although still a shell - was already looking like proof of that. So sketching over architect's drawings of the wall, I settled on a choice of two things:, a famous quote about shopping by Bo Derek (one of several), seen in one of the early sketches below, or one by Dieter Rams. And Dieter won.

The design became a combination of two sketches. I surrounded the Dieter quote with 'starbursts' either side of some of the myriad things BH's clients sell, with, of course, the emphasis on shoes. The whole assembly was punctuated at the bottom with a multitool of the type sold by Black's (another client), re-engineered to represent the many-skilled single weapon of mass creation that is BH. The most important thing for such a massive wall was to give it movement, and energy, and the shape of wall lent it an eye-like feel into which I put a 'pupil', 'iris' and white edges. At either corner, the buildings of BH's conquered cities were to glow white, alongside the word 'shopping' in their respective languages.

Each element of the design was first drawn up on paper in ink, with the centre lockup at A2 size; languages, objects, and buildings too.

Here's the finished illustration mocked up on screen. (Nigel Axon of Axon Architects was kind enough to donate a 2 metre print of the digital mockup, so we could start to see how it was going to look at scale):

And here's the real thing:

The journey from desk to breezeblock took four people nearly two weeks, working 14-hour generator-powered days and nights in dingy conditions, rainstorms, thunder, chill and with way too many chips for sustenance. With Leigh in project management and base prep modes and Graham and Tiffany on painting duty, it took form shape by shape, layer by painful layer (we had no idea breezeblock took three coats - every line of the illustration has been painted three times!) with a painting method more akin to rendering plaster and Polyfilla-ing. We all got extremely comfortable at heights too, with scaffolds and vertiginous ladders becoming our friends very quickly.

In all, it was quite an awesome experience from beginning to exhausted end, along the way discovering new techniques, methods and reserves of grit. And we're all incredibly pleased with the result, especially the clients Adrian and Jenny, to whom we're very grateful for letting us have free creative rein over their huge wall. Thanks must also go to Graham and Tiffany for their heroic efforts beyond any reasonable human endeavour, and the little blue van which trundled us there day after day.

Here are some action shots, starting with a time lapse by Graham. Can you hear the rain? Smell the paint? Feel the height...?

Mum's sausage sandwiches delivered with all condiments and delivered by Dad were most gratefully consumed on a particularly rainy Sunday afternoon:

71 + The Little Hidden People.

Graham's just painted us a new 71 on the front door. We like to ask guests to do this for us sometimes - we had Richard Hogg make us a geometric turquoise one when he had his show here, and the last one by Brook Valentine was in vulgar gold in my choice of much-loved Cooper Black.

Graham's was a nice surprise. If you come round to see his work currently adorning our walls, come and knock! And count the hidden people while you wait for us to answer.

A Joyous Discovery.

Imagine you are rummaging through a little cupboard built in the wall of the very old building you rent as your shop, and squinting into the dark you come across a sealed box. You've got no idea what's in there, but when you blow off the dust and peel off the dry, flaking packing tape, you find...packets and packets of jewellery. Ordered by a client, and never sent.

Not only that, it's jewellery you made in 1985...magnificently of the period, slightly tarnished but with its glitter undiminished and it's been holding its breath for 25 years awaiting that crack of daylight so it can finally begin its journey out to find earlobes, necks and wrists to adorn.

Well, we happened to be at Ten2 Art Studio, Gallery and Cafe, our local art store, gallery and cafe, when this very event occurred. Our friend Rose Allinson, a jeweller by trade, opened her art shop in the late 1980s and I was among the first to rush in and buy the supplies I'd hitherto had to travel into the nearest city for. Still at school at the time, I watched and admired this busy woman single-handedly framing, creating things, teaching on the BCU jewellery degree and running her shop which was then on the first floor of one of Hinckley's oldest stretch of buildings; chilly, but with an impressive floor-to ceiling window and all sorts of intriguing corners. Rose was in fact my very first 'rep' of sorts, stocking my terribly abstract embroidered card creations in her shop (for about £2 each, expensive then - she did the same for Richard Hogg) occasionally handing over a few surprise quid when I'd pop in for scalpel blades or ink:

20-something years later, she's still overseeing the shop (without my cards in it!), but has over the years added workshops, a suite of rentable studios, a cafe, gallery and a Nepal-based charity, as well as continuing to make her jewellery. Along the way she's been joined by partner Linda, who brought some additional business savvy and ideas, and the pair have remained resolutely at the top of Castle Street when other shops in the town have come and gone in the blink of several recessional eyes. And so we shared their excitement and delight at the discovery of this amazing treasure trove as it sparked together the two ends of their story.

Here it is in all its glory. Made of hand-cut red, orange and blue perspex, inset with cubic zirconia, it is so perfectly early-to-mid 80s. The little cards the jewellery sit on are hand-cut, with pencil marks on the back for the earring posts. The hand-drawn linear design for the collar clip card is exquisite, and the choice of font perfect. You'd wear this, of course, on a loud coloured blouse with shoulder pads, and possibly some lace and/or pearl buttons, your hair teased to largesse, sprayed hard and with possibly one earring only (she has those too - single feather earrings, should they be to your taste).

The rubber bracelet closes snugly about any size of wrist, its connections looking like a cross between a Liquorice Allsort and bits of a motherboard from an Apple Lisa. The story goes that the whole lot was ordered by a Danish firm, made, and the order then cancelled.

 

Well, the Danes' loss is our gain. This is my stash. Sorry. But should you desire some of your own (I know Fig Taylor does, and it has raised envious eyebrows wherever it's been seen) it will be available for sale in our shop soon. It requires a little buffing and re-packing before it's fit to be sold, but hang on in there - it will appear in due course.

The jewellery has joined some other pieces from my collection. I've kept as much jewellery as I possibly can - that which didn't surrender to the rigours of a teenager's dusty bedroom, a humid bathroom, neglect, ozone-destroying hairpspray and time itself. Much is lost to the recycling bins, but these pieces survived and are still regularly worn today. If only I'd done the same for my clothes!


Top Shop, 1987 - as big as they look!

Trip to USA, 1989 - not as heavy as they look!

Gift from parents - vintage store - dates from 1985; lovely eh?

Trip to Toronto with ex-boyfriend's parents, 1988, and made of painted leather:

Adventures with Dick and (Sarah) Jane.

It's not very often we have somebody for a whole week at the Inkymole studio. We have the accounts lady Anne who comes in once a week, and punctuates her forensic accountancy with button-buying, politics and cats juggling sausages on YouTube. We have the occasional student. We've had a series of magic helpers who come and join us in the lead-up to a show or special event. And of course we've had no choice but to share the workspace with an endless stream of tradesmen, craftsmen and engineers of all sorts over the last two years.

But it's not like we ever get a MATE to come round and do homework with us. Homework which is the same but different - like being at the same school at the same time but in different art classes.

Which is actually what happened to me and Richard Hogg. Two years apart at school is a gulf, the sort of gulf that ensures you'll never cross paths (unless you have a sibling who bridges the gap and grants you a portal to 'the other level'), but we did go the same school at the same time, and did art. We remember only one mutual schoolmate's name, but apart from that, a sixth-form girl and a fourth-year boy would rarely speak, unless it was to hurl rudeness over the balcony.

Richard grew up in Hinckley but moved to London to do his degree and has lived there ever since. The chance to come back to stay with family and draw on our walls was eagerly accepted, and we're so glad it was. It was a completely new experience to work alongside another illustrator - whose day-to-day hassles were the same but different - and to watch another full-time creative person's day progress and take shape.

It's reassuring to see there's an equal amount of buggering about. There is the same time spent emailing. The same pacing and tea-brewing. And the pie-chart of the illustrator's time, were it to be scribbled out, would have roughly equal chunks marked 'Googling', 'food' and 'worrying'.

I liked watching Richard work, but tried not to stare. Or copy. Which is easy too do when you're a fan. They say every day's a school day, and during the week we were allowed to look into his sketchbooks and his toolboxes, and bits of his brain. We all had our work to get on with of course, so every pause to look at newly-Googled 'thing' or put on a record was chastened by a feeling that 'we need to get on', but the work flowed, in a surprisingly grown-up kind of way. We even stopped for lunch and boiled sweets every day. And only played Richard's game a bit.

Wacom notes were exchanged, Illustrator tips begged; iPhone games discovered and new colours investigated. Chips were eaten and soup was made. And we were ready an hour early.

From behind her invoices, a watchful Anne In Accounts declared Dick 'a bad influence', but only because our days must have reminded her of me and my best mate 'doing homework' together after school, and doing it in spite of a massive stream of continual distraction (yep, she's my Mum). I weathered Dick's cheerful jibe that it was interesting to see 'how little work other illustrators do' (ahem, well I WAS running about preparing for a show and you DID keep showing me animal videos) but it was interesting, actually, to simply see 'how other illustrators do'.

Cheers Dick! Come again.

You can read about the show itself here: www.factoryroadgallery.net and see the show in this gallery: http://gallery.me.com/inkymole#100021 and pumpkin carving the next day: http://gallery.me.com/inkymole#100028