(karl)sin(field)design(er)

I’m happy to say I’m working on a poster for a fascinating and powerful film at the moment. It’s called The Arbor, and it’s about Bradford playwright Andrea Dunbar, who wrote the brilliant Rita Sue and Bob Too. As part of the campaign, we have licensed the above photograph by late great Guardian photographer Don McPhee. The picture, shown above, is wonderfully shot, in an atmospheric hallway, composed in available light by simply opening the door. And now I have the full resolution file, I can see more clearly the details; the stains on the stairs, and the fact that the tiles have been stolen from the floor. But the best detail is this: Andrea Dunbar is wearing carpet slippers. The man from the Guardian has come to photograph her because her play will be showing in the National Theatre in London, and she’s wearing carpet slippers. A great insight into the character of the woman, and also into the eye and process of a sadly missed photographer.

Everyone round here has a coal shed in their back yard. I doubt anyone still uses it for coal. Mine contains bikes, tools, and cobwebs, but the deep dusty layer on the floor is black all the way down.

from the office window, 04/01/08

Just before Xmas I went to Bollington, a small town near Macclesfield, not too far from here. Its notable landmark is White Nancy, a small, sealed, slightly lopsided folly, perched like a Pope’s hat on a hillside above the town. Here is some history.

I’ve been doing some work helping to set up a local community orchard. The trees have only just been planted, so we won’t see any fruit for a year or so, but it’ll be great to see it come to fruition, literally.

And it certainly makes a change from the film industry…

hope you all find what you’re looking for in 2007…

This used to grace our back bedroom. I loved it, but it had to go…

wanderings lead to wonderings - I have have a germ of an idea, but which way to take it? Perhaps I’ll find myself back on a familiar path, but this time, with a better map and stronger boots…

One evening every year this town congregates at one end of the gorge on which it sits and shuffles through it, carrying homemade willow and tissue-paper candle-powered lanterns…great opportunity to say hi to the neighbours, witness some amazing fire sculptures, eat drink and generally be merry.

Clearly we had angered the gods, though - this year it culminated in an impressive downpour - fortunately the assurances that tissue paper lanterns are more-or-less waterproof were correct.