Welcome to all new visitors. Happy February! I have two drawings and one giclee print in the Association of Animal Artists’ Exhibition at Woodlands Gallery, 58 Woodlands Road in Ansdell, UK until this Saturday, 6th February. Please do come and have  a look.

The Blackpool Artist in Residence Art is complete!

It is now a part of the Grundy Art Gallery’s permanent art

collection and object loan programme  and will be available

to schools and community groups to use as a focus for study.

For more information about how you can borrow the artwork

please phone the Education Officer at the Grundy on: 01253 478170.

Blackpool, Inside Out

It has been a very busy week. This past Friday especially. Thanks to Terry Lambe I had a tour of the Blackpool Football Club. One must remember the colour for the Club is tangerine not orange.

In the afternoon I met with Regina Cairoli, Charlie Cairoli’s daughter. I heard all about the Circus and her father. Her parents both came from long time circus families. The Cairoli’s originally in Italy then France - The Fratallinis in France.  I discovered that there used to be 3 hour shows. It used to be that you would book just for the Circus and there would be two shows a day. Also, the activities in the pool in the middle of the Circus was taken away because of pollution. Health and safety reasons. Regina’s friend Daniel was there as well who used to train the animals. Daniel is French and his father was Russian who used to take Daniel to the Russian Circus when he was young so he could learn to speak Russian. Daniel’s mother wouldn’t allow his father to speak Russian at home. Daniel said, “All those Circus people brought me a happy life’.

After Regina’s brilliant hospitality and a lovely cup of coffee it was mid afternoon and I went to the Tower where Geoff Sage so kindly gave me a personal Tour. It was dark and the lights were flipped on and off as we went from room to room and floor to floor. This sounds a bit dodgy but The Tower is not open every day as of yet, therefore the lights weren’t totally on. Season is nearly started. I forgot how beautiful the Tower Ballroom is. 

Saturday found me interviewing Mike Vettese at Notarianni’s Ice Cream located on Waterloo Road right off the Prom. Lovely ice cream!  Italy was very poor in the early 1900s and many Italians emigrated to Scotland and then filtered down the coast to the seaside towns. Notarianni’s has been in Blackpool since @1930. Mike came to Blackpool when he was about 20. He said, ‘I love Blackpool. Down to earth. Straight talk. No pretenses. It is what it is.’

Today I led a workshop at Holy Trinity, thank you Dave, Mike, Sue, Louise and Sam for participating.  Happy Tuesday everybody!

For all you Northern Soul Fans… The sign from the Mecca was moved into the Boathouse today. 

I have been very busy with workshops at Holy Trinity Church and Coast working on more torsos. I met the Revoe First Steps Centre after school group last week and helped them make soap for Mother’s Day. I will be working with this group in April. I have interviewed Carol, a Revoe gal who lives in one of the oldest houses on Dean Street. I was able to view the original deed to the house with all the really cool red seals. I also interviewed Margaret who ran two hotels along the sea front and Val who had a cafe for the staff and coach drivers at Pleasure Beach. She also had a cafe on South Pier and sold ice cream for a couple of years. Today, I spoke to the Revoe Over 55s group (who were very welcoming) and shared with them some of the interesting objects I have acquired along my journey. Someone asked if I had spoken to the Lifeboat People yet and I commented that it was on my list. Tomorrow I must set the Blackpool Project aside and get into a different head space. I will be participating in the Green Close Studio Event…

The Village Art Show (http://www.greenclose.org/html/latest_news.html). There are 6 Lune Valley Schools involved. I led workshops in November with Wray Primary School and we made vegetable characters and vegetable villages and paper mache pumpkin and tomato people. In honour of this event I made myself a pumpkin person hat…photos to come later. It’s madness. That’s it for now. Next week will be photos to share. Happy Thursday.

Today I worked with The Future’s Group at Holy Trinity Church. The outside of the torsos represent what people see around them in Blackpool or how they think others perceive themselves from the outside. The back side of the torso represents the individual inside. The plan is throughout the project alongside my own work, to have at least 50 of these torsos all done by different people and then have an exhibition of these all together. 

Viv enjoyed thinking about what she had done in her life. She said that ‘it is nice this, ’cause it brings back all your memories.’

This young lady filled the inside with pictures of models and shoes.

This represents seeing lap dancers in Blackpool.

Keys and button were found in an alley off Rawcliffe Street. The sewing needle and parking ticket were found on Bond Street and the funky shoe lace was found on Miller Street.

Some interesting quotes…

In reference to The Mecca:  

‘End of an era. Can’t stand in the way of education.’ Terry              

‘Smashing dance floor. Great place that.’ Norman

In discussing heritage:      

‘It is so easy for things to get thrown away, people don’t realise                                                         the significance or importance of the things they’re surrounded with everyday.’  Bryan

Memories of the sea front:

‘My dad used to take me down to the front to dodge the waves and                                               they’d come over the sea wall and they’d be huge.’  Anna

In reference to the area of Revoe:

‘You could be married your whole life and you’d still be called by your maiden name.’ Carol

Discussing the Monmarte Theatre and its shows:

‘I remember this big giant rat - Some kind of animal out of Mexico way.’ Mickey

I went to watch them make Blackpool rock at Rock City Superstore along the Prom, South Shore last Thursday. Fascinating. It is the third time I’ve popped in. The first time they were making wedding rock for a couple, Lisa and Adam. The couple filmed the process so I didn’t take photos that time. The second time they were making Black Jack but my photos were rubbish. This time they were making rock that said Derry on the inside.