#30

On home

The illusive role of ‘Artist’, until forever-death, contains a compulsion never to be rid: the want to wonder. To know and understand, to self-actualise ones’ axis of identity, and affirm that Earthly purpose. Faltering to the floor, on bloody knees I exclaim: “Who am I? Where am I from, and where am I going?”

Through various documents and daguerreotypes, records from churches long gone, I have come to find that my Black Country heritage steeps back centuries, from welders and miners to factory workers and clerks. Lineage is a strange thing - only ever awakened in times of death to steady the storm, to feel centred and whole once more. I look to my palms and see ink, oil, sweat and tears.

Moira Shearer in The Red Shoes (1948) dir. Emeric Powell and Michael Pressburger.

Lace-net curtains, white cotton doilies: flimsy, prim and proper. Making the most of making do. A large family, pale-white faces, huddle around a crowded table in what looks to be a sitting room, black-and-white and modest. Girls’ curls pursed, a thin swipe of victory red. Work shirts and tired hands. Brylcreem, Vaseline. If only they were to know I look at them, looking at me. A second image  - awash in sepia, marred by time - depicts another Leah. My great-grandmother sits softly, biting her lip before the lens. Three children in tow, perched, placed and agitated, cloth creased and well worn, Leah looks on to a hidden figure beyond. I wish to hold her hand.

I sit alone, here, now, reflecting on that love and loss of Walsall. An unmoved fixture within my life, transformed by death of industry. A first kiss beneath the bus station as heavy rain hits the roof. Friends flocking to the shopping centre, pining for clothes I couldn’t quite afford. The limestone church in all its amber beauty - lavender scented and beckoning.

Heart divine, Mother and my hands clasped ever so gently, as a starstruck darling I recall cobbled streets flooded with floral market stalls: silks and ribbons and berries galore. Butcher’s meat and frilled lingerie hang side-by-side in the midsummer air. Deep voices call out a concoction of offers, deals and bargains, two-for-a-pound, two-for-a-pound.

Bounding up through this here town, spindly spun sugar in the air, I run past the Saddlers’ hot-heavy leather scent and beg for blue candy floss. The grease-ridden glimmer of grilled onions rings around me as a boy slathers relish onto a stale bun. Silken pigeons, speckled sage and lilac, flurry and flutter in search of breadcrumbs. The sun beams down onto Sister Dora.

Cyd Charisse and Gene Kelly in Singin’ in the Rain (1952) dir. Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen.

At the top of the town, bountifully shrouded by shoe shops, clothes shops, pound shops, now dead and buried, lies a portal to a new life. A babe in arms, starry-bright, this spectral monolith stands here before me hidden away and eclipsed by shade: the New Art Gallery Walsall. As a girl-thing living still, now, in these here Middle Lands - clouds of black smoke pool above, my love - the gallery continues to hold an affectionate place within my heart.

Peculiar, true, to feel such fondness for brick and mortar.

A colossal Modernist monument of concrete, steel and stone, invariably at odds with the world around her, the gallery became my sole entry point to the possibilities of becoming an artist. Cladded silver, sparkling, upon first visit I recall drinking in its dreamscape with fullness, feeling whole and home within its still and tranquil space. A glossy wash of black pools beneath me, reflecting back the warm ochre grain which flourishes its walls. As I return, still, now, bold block type by Bob and Roberta Smith spans the space: ‘See Esther, Walsall’s Mona Lisa’.

Art is a magic thing. An escape from a life not-quite-living, to a dream, a fantasy, an otherworld.

Marjorie Cameron in Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954) dir. Kenneth Anger.

It is oftentimes a pre requisite for art galleries, and exhibition spaces in particular, to be callous, cold, unforgiving. A fine and imperceptible barrier between those who ‘know’ and those who do not. This gallery, I have found, to be the contrary. Its space, generous and proud, possesses a necessity for the town in which it sits. Warmth, shelter, solace. A space for families and children to make, do and play. A library stocked head-to-toe with books and journals abound. Teak seats for friends and lovers to laugh and reflect on the world around them.

When I contemplate my work in the here and now, ruby red palms, sweat-pearls above my brow, I see and feel and know the influence that this gallery has had upon my practice and life, for days and nights and decades. I recall, with fervent glee, the unbridled delight of it all - stifling so. Anticipation rose as I ascended the elevator to meet a tall window overlooking the length of the canal. A small, wooden boat departs - bottle green, cherry red - adorned in hand-swashed posies. The sky sits pure-blue and cloudless, as birds fly overhead. I know home here.

A dozen steps beyond, through frosted glass I come to be immersed in Hirst in front of me. Beaming naive, as a youngling I held no worldly knowing of the work surrounding me. No concrete context, no, no, only a love of the new, strange and unfamiliar. A glimmering chill I felt wandering through, past a small woollen body preserved, encased and split in two. Up, up, up, to what - with love - I misremember as medicine cabinets, the warm-white bulb within my mind began to flicker and hum frenetically with excitement.

As I age, I return still to the gallery as a site of solace, only this time now I see and feel before me pink-puffed paper clouds, wisps of light abound. As Black’s powder-peppermint craters softly settle into dust, and pastel ribbons descend from above, I still feel that warm-white light burning, hot to the touch. Art is a precious thing: to cradle and nurture and value, with urgency. Those weekends spent within ochre walls, glossed-black floors, led me fruitfully to learn, to try, to chance, to risk, to dream. From Littleton Street to Margaret Street, and now my own artists’ studio, that art-spirit-urge has never once left me.

And then I come to find, somehow, years later, my work within its space - surrounded by others who, too, share a love for this here town.

I think of other younglings, true and tall in their ambition, who need the arts in order to live and dream. Contemporary galleries, in all corners of the country, are feeling this unyielding pressure. No longer only a space for escapism, but rather a cataclysm of all that is missing within our present communities. Without fair warning, we continue to see essential resources flail, flounder and disappear: youth and community centres, libraries, swimming baths and so on, have continued to buckle under the untimely weight of it all. In its chasm lies only the gallery, one of the few remaining spaces for all to sit, draw, write and hope, for free.

Where are we now, and where are we going? If not for this here gallery nestled deep-down in the heart of town, glossed black and brown, where would I be?