Just how did I get into this art malarkey? Well, I was always creative as a kid, with dinosaur and military aircraft model kits to assemble and paint, creating Christmas decorations…the list goes on. Lucky for us, there were also loads of creative box sets around at that time, like Shaker Maker and Plasticast – remember them? My imagination could always run wild too living in the countryside making bows and arrows, building dens, etc. Art at school was my favourite subject, and achieving my grade A in ‘O’ level Art was down to my creativity and NOT because the art teacher was my dad’s ex-girlfriend…but lets not go there!

Nothing much happened after school years until 1991 when I was living in Birmingham, UK. Suddenly an artistic pang kicked in and I stretched and stapled a cotton bedsheet over half a ping pong table I found! I dug out some old oil paints that I had squirreled away, and just started painting. The final result was colourful, VERY rough around the edges and boasted a visible seam from the bedsheet. But I liked it, and others seemed to as well. I named it ‘Moving On’.
That old 5ft by 4ft painting is still here with me, as I shipped it across to Canada in 2009. You can see a picture below (and the visible seam!). Unfortunately it’s looking its age now and is hidden away from view in our boiler room.
So, back to the art. From 1991 to 1999 I painted quite a few other pieces on handmade canvasses. I kept to what I loved; bright colours and black, but this time in acrylic. They generally depicted the ‘drama’ I was going through at the time; relationship breakups, the Prozac episode, feeling persecuted as a gay man, inspiration from Priscilla Queen of the Desert (!) etc. Speaking of the latter, inspired by the Aboriginal art shown in that film, I created a piece called ‘The Pod’. On the other half of that abandoned ping pong table using an old sheet again. A picture of ‘The Pod’ is below too, along with an example of my Halloween creativity!
I regret now that I either threw away, gave away or binned any of my art pieces (apart from Embrace II which is in my folk’s lounge in Wales). ‘Moving On’ is one of the few souvenirs from past years. However, in memory of those that didn’t quite make it on here, for whatever reason, you can view some of their ‘lovely’ pictures here…