Property

Property

“That property in land and liberty among men, in a state of nature, ought to be equal, few, one would fain hope, would be foolish enough to deny. Therefore, taking this to be granted, the country of any people, in a native state, is properly their common, in which each of them has an equal property, with free liberty to sustain himself and connections with the animals, fruits and other products thereof.“

Thomas Spence — Property in land every one’s right (Proved in a LECTURE Read at the Philosophical Society in Newcastle, on the 8th of Nov, 1775 ).

All of the work I’ve been doing over the last few years has drawn me towards questions around the nature of property and possession of land in all of its aspects. There is a strong case to be made for the nature of our relationship with land to have been formed through the application of the Inclosure Act of 1773 and the establishment development of Landscape Gardening that created the bucolic ideal we reference in our current defences of the naturalness of vistas that are entirely man made.

Somehow this thinking has led me to make a series of works that culminate in a way that I can only explain by outlining the process and identifying the influences that are inevitably applied at different stages of making.

property

You should always look down on a circus (maquettes)

In 2002 or 2003 I made a set of small maquettes, like these that I reproduced in 2021 but that might have looked a bit more like these.

Sketchbook pages from 2002/2003

From these wax maquettes I made two drawings, first this one

property

You should always look down a circus (drawing 2003)

And then this one

you should always look down on a circus (spaced)

I made these on Fabriano Accademia 200gsm Cartridge Paper, stretched to a big drawing board leaning against the sideboard in my living room. Which says nothing other than that we can’t always have easels or afford studios.

Moving on, life intervenes, work gets intense, other drawings inveigle themselves into your consciousness and drag you off with their peculiar indulgences. But at the back of your mind you know that this moment of oddness is part of something that hasn’t surfaced yet.

In 2004 I took a Masters in Creative Technology at Salford University having left work to do so and in 2019 after retirement I undertook an ACE National Lottery Funded Project in an empty shop on Scot Lane in Doncaster.

Then Lockdown!

property

emptying the shop for lockdown

In March 2020 I managed to move my kit out of the empty shop just before the Announcement.

Waste Ground

The following month I decided to clear and plant a patch of waste ground that I thought was unadopted rather than anyone’s property, at the back of the garden and that was where the next project began.

Patch dug over

This is the point where I started to think more deeply about my relationship with property and the notion of ownership of the natural world.

This first began to manifest itself through drawings

Balby Garden, April 2020

Made on site initially and developed in sketchbooks and small maquettes…

property

casting stones

Balby Garden Sculpture June 2020

I made a series of Garden Sculptures using casts from stones found in my pseudo allotment and using gold leaf and oil paints.

The set of these are on the website

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Garden Sculpture Web Page

The quotations used as titles for the pieces are mostly from TS Eliot apart from “Fiction is not imagination” which is from Baudrillard’s ‘America’.

I had become concerned with the translation of sources from one media to another with the geranium project (the ACE Project) and it continues to be at the core of the work I do. Translation might not be the most precise word to use but addresses the primary motivation for the activity I engage in. The way I express myself is through the objects and drawings I make and they carry all the varieties of conversation, discourse, polemic, broadside, joking etc.,

One year later, March 2021, I dreamt about the circus drawings and then made a whole series of new drawings and new, simpler, maquettes.

You should always look down on a circus remade

property

New Circus Maquettes

These figures related to the garden sculptures and to the forms I was seeing in the garden, and imagining into the virtual space.

I gradually began to merge the figures into new sets of drawings. I should indicate here that I work on sets of drawings simultaneously and carry marks and textures and colours and patterns across the set as it evolves. The process involves copying, mono-printing, overlaying and waiting for surfaces to dry and can involve collage, usually of the drawings themselves as I search for the form to emerge.

Circus Drawings 2 of 4

I spent the next year working on a series based around tori (toruses) that is currently sitting in abeyance.

property

C-View Studio 2023

In May 2023 I moved into my studio at C-View.

Red Garden Three 2023

In October I returned to the garden to start working on the Red Garden Series of drawings and sculptures.

property

Three Trees, Red Gardens, in progress

These figures were based on forms of trees in the garden and the strangeness of the red films.

I spent several moths working on iterations of these sculptures using anything I had to hand.

Three Trees Half Size

Dancing Partners

Studio 30/05/2024

Having the space in the studio was what enabled me to build out into the garden, does that make sense? Perhaps it should be to build in from the garden.

All the time transferring these objects into the VR environment by scanning into Poly.cam and importing those objects into Blender, then to Unity.

 

Studio 03/07/24

Towards the end of the year I started to extend the world of the garden in VR and decided I needed to be able to play with scale in the developing environment. I had at this point been led to read much more about enclosure and how tied in to British Politics it was in the 17th Century alongside the development of landscape gardens and the engineering of what we now regard as the countryside.

Property

Flowerbed October 2024

The flowerbed drawings and sculptures came along at this point.

 

property

Flowerbed Sculpture 2024

You Should Always Look down on a Circus 2025

The sculptures from 2003 have been made at full size now and the VR world is all there, although there are still some refinements to do including sound issues and perhaps the start position.

Drawing

I’ve continued to draw every day;

The July drawings can be seen here

and the June images here

There is a link to the previous month’s Gallery on each page.

Or you can go the Galleries page on the top menu

The drawings are posted to  Instagram each day.

 

hackwork

Hackwork

Another New Studio (although its getting old now)

This last month was not nearly as frustrating as last month but hasn’t involved a lot of development of theory.

Beginning with the completion of the ‘Circus Horse Model’ with the acrobat.

hackwork

Circus Horse 09 06 2025

Tumbler 020 06 2025

hackwork

Tumbler 04 06 2025

hackwork

Tumbler 06 06 2025

Tumbler 09 06 2025

Tumbler 18 06 2025

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Tumber Detail 20 06 2025

Tumbler 20 06 2025

The ‘Tumbler’ was taken to a finish by the 20th June, the finish inspired by Picasso’s ‘Harlequin with Glass‘ from 1905.

The previous images show the process as it continues through sanding, filling and priming before the paint finish and eventual varnishing.

The effect I want to achieve is that the rough finish with an imprecise pattern and a messiness that reflects the character of the figure.

Most of the month was spent on this sort of hackwork.

The next set of photographs show the building of the ‘Large Harlequin’ and the simpler parts of the installation.

Large Harlequin 06 06 2025

Large Harlequin 09 06 2025

Large Harlequin 18 06 2025

Large Harlequin and Bowl 25 06 2025

hackwork

You should always look down on a circus 27 06 2025

More views of the Circus development and drawings are on the website

Drawing

I’ve continued to draw every day;

The June drawings can be seen here

and the May images here

There is a link to the previous month’s Gallery on each page.

Or you can go the Galleries page on the top menu

The drawings are posted to  Instagram each day.

 

MASS OBSERVATION DIARY

MASS OBSERVATION DIARY

12 May 2025

Introduction

I am a 65 year old Male, retired, and I live in Doncaster, South Yorkshire. I’m married and have siblings who live in Lancashire, close to my Mother and Germany. I worked in Further and Higher Education ending my career after a succession of jobs ass Head of Department. Since retirement I have continued to make Art because that is what I do and I have the luxury and privilege to do so.

I donate my 12th May diary to the Mass Observation Archive . I consent to it being made publicly available as part of the Archive and assign my copyright in the diary to the Mass Observation Archive Trustees so that it can be reproduced in full or in part on websites, in publications and in broadcasts as approved by the Mass Observation Trustees. I agree to the Mass Observation Archive assuming the role of Data Controller and the Archive will be responsible for the collection and processing of personal data and ensuring that such data complies with the DPA.

Mass Observation Morning

This morning I woke later than usual, at 7:45 am. This might be the single greatest benefit of retirement after twenty odd years of 6:00 am starts. I have my routine so I feed the cat whilst my wife wakes up and then shower and dress. I had toast and the last of the marmalade along with my cup of tea. I read the Guardian on my iPad and listen to 6 music on the radio. At 8:40 am, as I was late, I went into the garden to feed the birds and open the greenhouse for the day. I’m growing a lot of tomatoes this year which are still mostly seedlings and encouraging the native wildflowers in the garden alongside judiciously placed perennials. I returned to the kitchen for a second cup of tea and to do my daily drawing.

A drawing of a chopping board behind a tap made in coloured pens for the mass observation blog post

12th May Drawing ‘Chopping Board’

I have drawn sitting at the kitchen table at around 8:30 to 9:00 am since 6th May 2020, a lockdown activity that has become a ritual. The drawing is always something I can see from my seat, the sink, the dishes, the windowsill or the whole kitchen and occasionally an ornament bought to the table and placed next to me. I take between 20 and 40 minutes depending on the drawing, today’s was the short end of twenty minutes.

When I finished the drawing I left the house and walked the two and a half miles to my studio in the centre of Doncaster. I rent a unit in the former Art School that stands next to St. George’s Minster. The first I did when I arrived at 10:30 am was put the kettle on.

A model of a white horse with a truncated torus on its back for the mass observation post

Circus Horse after Seurat

Through the morning I set to work repairing a maquette for a sculpture I’m developing. One of my many freedoms now is the ability to do what I want when I want which is as much a curse as a blessing. The lack of a need to make things for exhibitions or to sell can put you in a place where where your natural dilettantism comes to the fore and you end up producing little that challenges. The solution is to try to enjoy the process of making for its own sake, well, it is for me. I stopped for lunch at 12:45 and eat a salad I bought on the way into the studio, I should really make it at home but I’m far too lazy. I usually take 30 to 45 minutes for lunch and read the paper on line while I eat. The news today centred on Kier Starmer’s determination to appeal to the lowest common denominator with an appalling assault on immigration, and therefore immigrants, with an ill thought through policy with so many holes you can only despair of the intellect of his spads and his own venality. It does not help my digestion. I have found that the only way to maintain your own equilibrium in the face of our collective exceptionalism and ignorance is to ignore. I have always voted but the last couple of times I’ve been very tempted not to. The salad, though probably unhealthy, was very nice.

Mass Observation Afternoon

In the afternoon I continued to work on a larger model of the horse. The piece combines strands of work I’ve been pursuing over the last couple of years and is impossible to articulate except through this media. The image shows the revised version sitting on a balustrade I painted for a photographer, Richard, who has the space next to mine. At a quarter to four I bumped into him while I was washing my hands, I don’t have running water in the studio and gave him the balustrade and had a chat about his studio equipment and the state of photography education. I’ve reached an age where I try not to lament but I find it hard to look backwards without rose tinted spectacles.

A model of the white horse of uffington made from polystyrene for the mass observation post

(Uffington) White Horse

As usual I left the studio at four thirty with the intention of walking home, but today it was 24 degrees C so I caught the bus. 12th of May 2025 it costs £2.50 to travel two and a half miles and you don’t even need cash, just swipe the card.

I arrived home at five to five and fed the cat before checking my greenhouse and pond and making sure things were watered after such a hot day. The soil where I live is clay so water is retained very well, too well in the winter, so only plants in pots need watering very regularly.

Mass Observation evening

My wife and I had tea at six thirty, a seasonally appropriate chicken casserole, and I read the paper while I ate and we discussed the news in a piecemeal way. These days it’s difficult to get into big discussions without getting upset with the way things are so we tend to avoid big discussions about current affairs unless we find a point of difference or one of us needs to unload.

At seven thirty I washed the dishes and we settled down to watch TV. Monday is quiz night so we watched Only Connect on BBC2 followed by University Challenge and then turned to Netflix to watch an episode of ‘The Four Seasons’ after which we retired to bed and read for a half hour or forty minutes before going to sleep. An that is my day, fairly typical and infinitely varied.