welcome
As a young artist the motivation to draw and paint was accompanied by an interest in ceramics and extended to collage and constructions using wood, lead, aluminium foil. Joining in the traditional Derbyshire custom of Well Dressing gave me a sense of the picture as tableau, which combined with landscapes reflecting the ancestry and social relations of life in the Peak District. An interest in Buddhism and other world faiths combined with the influences of modern art, and with the visual remains of ancient communities worldwide. Then, anchored in my spiritual homeland of the Peak District, while experiencing the wider world through work as an educator, my interests have been like those of an intellectual magpie, resulting in a wide range of ideas and images, in publications and pictures.
Well Dressing
(personal collection)
Burnt foil
(personal collection)
During five years in the Solomon Islands (1968 – 72) paintings included motifs from ancestor worship, bonito fishing, and the human life cycle, preoccupations of the Melanesians of the Eastern Solomons.The image of the guardian canoe prow figure ‘Gnuzugnuzu’ of the Western Solomons and images from other anthropological and archaeological activities – especially a study of Polynesian tattooing and cave excavation on Guadalcanal - were also used in paintings.
Mural in Honiara
(personal collection)
Bonito canoe
(personal collection)
Sa’engeika
(personal collection)
Ancestors
(personal collection)
Working in Hong Kong more recently reinforced my interest in the devotional faiths of Asia, which began through the study of Japanese art and ceramics in the 1960’s – ancient mother goddesses, Buddhism, Taoism, Sufism, and Hinduism, as well as Christian mysticism, all fascinate me.
Seated Buddha
(personal collection)
Turning The Other Cheek
(in Icons list)
Vishnu Dreaming The Universe
(in Icons list)
Recently subject matter has tended to diverge, with parallel series devoted to Buddhist themes, and to figures of devotion from other world faiths, but also nearer home, to landscapes and themes of ancestry in the Derbyshire Peak District, and to the landscapes and birds of Norfolk, where I live.
Towards Lathkill from Arbor Low
(private collection)
Migration From Middleton
(personal collection)
The picture Migration From Middleton
This painting includes each of the elements of living in, on, and with the land. It features three generations of my recently discovered Sheldon ancestors. Christiana (born Wilson in 1830, daughter of a Wirksworth lead miner) and her lead miner second husband Joseph Sheldon (1825-1908) feature on the right. Christiana’s two sons John and Samuel and daughter Mary, from her first marriage to Joseph’s brother Samuel (1827-1867) who died from a fractured spine in a lead mining accident, are close to her. Joseph’s three sons John, Joseph, and Henry from two previous marriages (both of his wives died young) are alongside. Christiana and Joseph’s lead miner son Daniel is also present. The large vague central figures are the previous Sheldon lead miner generation - Joseph (1800-1828) and his wife Elizabeth (nee Spencer, born 1801).
The three T’Owd Man figures represent three of the six sons, who, according to family legend, walked from Derbyshire to Manchester in search of work. In fact, all the family moved to Gorton during the 1870’s in the face of unemployment and poverty, as lead mining declined. Along with other migrant neighbours they joined the proletarian urban workforce, as iron founders, and building- and railway-workers. Joseph, Christiana and Daniel returned to Middleton-by-Wirksworth, where the parents lived until 1908 and 1911 respectively. In 1914 Daniel enlisted in the tunnelling corps of the Royal Engineers and was killed in Flanders a year later. His is the first name on the war memorial in Middleton-by-Wirksworth Church.
The centre backdrop of the painting is a view of Hillside, Middleton-by-Wirksworth, and its quarries. In the left middle distance is Wirksworth, the centre of lead mining since Roman times. Above right are the former Cromford and High Peak Railway embankments, beyond Harborough Rocks, close by Minninglow Hill. Beyond is the distant horizon, its scale and beauty hiding the magnetic muck and misery of Manchester.