Wyre Artist in Residence - People Places & Conversation

Wyre Borough Council in partnership with LeftCoast are offering the opportunity of 5 artists in residence commissions for Wyre based contemporary artists.

The residencies will be an opportunity for artists to work in non-familiar locations and use the opportunity to engage with communities, staff and/or the general public to inform the project that is produced.

The residencies will be based within specifically chosen, non-art spaces for the artist to engage with those different audiences.  The commissions are about people and place; finding the stories of the everyday and revealing something about the lives of Wyre.

The artist commissions can be from any art form from digital art, photography, film, to more traditional art forms of drawing, painting or 3D work. The selection panel will be most interested in how this opportunity can be interpreted through ideas and the approach to working with people and location.

Finally the commissioned artists in residence will be invited to bring their projects together into an exhibition or publication to be shown somewhere in Wyre. It will be the role of the exhibiting artists to co-ordinate and curate the exhibition, find a suitable location or touring opportunities. Marketing and organisational support will be provided by Wyre Council and LeftCoast.

It will be the responsibility of the 5 successful artists to co-ordinate when their projects have been completed and when they would like the exhibition to happen. The end of the whole project will need to be no later than the 31 March 2016. 

Photographs in Women in the City - Liverpool Photography Festival

Women in the City

As part of the Liverpool Photography Festival 15 - 31st May 2015 to celebrate the visit of three famous Queens: Mary II, Queen Elizabeth and Queen Victoria,  There was a call for photographers to submit their images celebrating Women in the City, to showcase in our online gallery. From female photographers, to images of the women we admire;shots of majestic liners and Grandmothers entertaining the young, let your imagination run wild, capture and share your moments in Liverpool.

I submitted two photographs from my maternal Grandfathers photograph archive. William Turner had a Tattooing and Photographic studio on Lime Street in the early 1900's. He was well connected with the circus and music hall folk...

The photographs are on an outdoor display in Thomas Steers Way in the Liverpool One shopping mall. The upper one is of my great grandmother preparing Sunday dinner in the backyard. The other is of Annie Jones the bearded woman. A famous member of the Barnum and Bailey Circus. 

Photographs by Johnny Parker

Chang Celebration Artwork Unveiling - Everton FC

Presentation and unveiling of  the Chang Beer Bottle Top art work at Everton Football Club. The artwork was fixed to the wall at the entrance to the Directors Car Park at Goodison Park.

The artwork is constructed from 1500 Chang beer bottle tops selected from over 5000 tops collected by Chang beer outlets over the previous year. The tops were embedded in resin and a laser cut brushed stainless steel outline of the famous Everton club logo applied to the surface along with the words 10 Years to commemorate the longest shirt sponsorship partnership in the Premiership. 

I am grateful to Dot-Art, Liverpool for the commission.

Simulation of Exhibition Installation - The Originary Moment

The video shows a simulation an exhibition installation in which 3 back-projected videos are overlaid by the imaged created by a whole room Camera Obscura.


The concept behind the installation is a simulation of the originary moment in the invention of photography when Henry Fox Talbot viewed the scene of Lake Como from the balcony of his hotel room on the screen of his portable Camera Obscura and dreamt of a way of fixing the image he saw by capturing the light or by painting with the light as he put it. His sole intention being to remember the spectacular view and to be able to share it with others on his return home. The originary moment is contrasted with the reality of his dream, the banal snapshot photograph. Which is represented here by the negative space of a quintessential snapshot pose, In this case the focus of my PhD research , a snapshot of my "first day at school" taken by my father.

The Making of Chang Art Work for Everton FC - Work in Progress

Sorting the good beer bottle tops from the bad... Only an other 5000 to go

Computer generated visual of final artwork...

Everton Crest Logo 

Testing patterns for the tops layout

Resin embedding test piece

Finished polyester resin casting

Full size artwork for laser cut stainless steel 

Positioning stencil for the stainless steel parts

Laser cut stainless steel as received

Stainless steel pieces in-situ

Finished Artwork

The Making of Chang Art Work for Everton FC - Test Piece Video

A short video showing the creation of a test piece fibre glass resin base for the artwork. This was to get the hang of using polyester resin and fibreglass reinforcement.