Underpass Mural in Basingstoke 2003/4

When I was in Basingstoke recently for the opening of SKETCH 2013, I took the time to visit Pallant House Gallery in Chichester (see previous blogs) and on the way back, being on the right side of the town, I took a detour to the underpass in Cliddesden Road, close to the entrance to Queen Mary's College, where I used to work so that I could take some photographs of the mural that students and staff worked on together.  I am pleased to say that the mural has withstood the test of time really well; it has lost some of its finer details due to the constant cleaning by the council to remove the regular graffiti but on the whole, it still looks good.

It's a shame the council forget to keep the plaque clean!

The brief was to use colour and shape relating to the theme of the seasons to produce a design that flowed along the walls of the underpass.  There was a lot of prep work done during three tutor's teaching sessions, this work was then simplified and reduced to the final design. Looking at these photos, it seems that we produced one design that was painted onto both walls but obviously, because the walls were opposite one another the design reversed, keeping the overall effect lively.

The design work was also shown to residents so that their feedback could be taken into consideration.  We used a combination of collage, painting, print making and drawing combined with colour studies to explore the theme.  I seemed to be walking around college with several very long pieces of artwork that constitued the final designs under my arm for weeks running up to the completion of the project, because I was terrified of losing them!

I did take quite a lot of photos at the time, of students painting the underpass, but I have no idea what happened to them.  As we gradually sort out all the stuff that's been in store for years, they may turn up.  I remember it was a specialist paint used that is fairly resistant to graffiti.  I also remember the great fun the students all had producing the final piece.

Ennoia - from my archive

Moved to a gallery location, these balloon shapes were originally filled with wild flower seeds and hung from trees in the grounds of Queen Mary's College, where they were to be allowed to decay and deposit the seed on the ground to grow.

I graduated as a mature student in 1995 and was incredibly lucky to "fall" into a teaching post almost immediately.  It was one of those accidents of fate; I was stoney broke, having used a credit card to pay my degree show expenses and was standing around at the local sixth form college waiting for my son to enrol when a lovely teacher I was acquainted with asked me what I was planning to do now that I had graduated.  On my reply that I needed to earn some money, quickly as I had debts to pay off, preferably using my skills, he beckoned me into an office and told me I could teach the Adult Education art and design course.  It was that easy. . . .  I should add that I had begun to know this teacher from conversations about art that we had while I participated in a sculpture workshop that he facilitated during one summer at the college.

I settled into the Adult Ed. curriculum, learning as I went and getting good results, which culminated in my employment as a part time teacher across the curriculum of the day time courses.  It was sheer joy!  I loved working with those young people, however "difficult" some of them were at times.

During this time, working part time during the day and still running the Adult Ed. course, (can you believe, I was actually teaching two courses at once in the evening sessions at times?) I completed the City and Guilds Teaching Certificate parts 1 and 2.  

In the middle of all this, two friends, whom I had met at the brilliant part time foundation course we did at Basingstoke College of Technology, and I formed an artist group.  We were different kinds of practitioners yet we felt we had similar concerns and sensitivities within what we made.  We called ourselves Ennoia, which is a Greek word, if my memory serves me correctly, which roughly means "a thought not yet fully formed".  We thought this was rather lovely both in sound and meaning, allowing for the enigmatic in our art making.  

This sculpture is part of the refurbishment of a small outside but enclosed patio area.  It became, with the help of the Learning Support students, a seaside retreat!  The sculpture consists of small, fired clay shapes, modelled on seaside forms, threaded onto flexible metal poles set into a concrete base.  Surrounded by other forms and ephemera, it was a treasure trove of objects and shapes, just like a real beach!

All three of us had an interest in people that are marginalised within our society; the disabled, elderly etc.  My teaching at Queen Mary's College enabled us to quickly make contact with the Learning Support department and we formed a working relationship with them, which resulted in two residencies on site.

These were early days for digital cameras, so I have been having difficulty finding photographs of these two projects, coupled with the great sadness of the deaths of my two dear friends and colleagues, Sue Offord and Jane Haines, which meant that access to their materials on the subject was impossible.  I am sure that I have some printed photographs in a box somewhere, but for now I present the digital record that I have of our work together.

When I find the rest of the photographs, I'll post them up; I remember that some of them were really lovely and showed the other part of the first residency that included the balloons, which was a series of hanging artworks consisting of small drawings inserted into clear plastic CD covers, stitched together and suspended within the hut space we were using to create art work to walk through.  Happy days!