Subject: Surreal

The setting for the easels is an old picture, that I had half completed and ‘put on the back burner’. It is a view of a corner of a room in an alcove by a chimney breast, looking up at the ceiling. Above it is the bottom of some net curtains. Every year St. Benedicts closes off the road and has a street party. These artists easels were going to be used for the general public to have a painting experience session, courtesy of the local art society. I was able to arrange them, from the different photos I took. My conceit was to duplicate the image, rearrange the easels, and then put that image on the bottom canvas holder of the ‘rebel’ easel.

The skylight and wall below is in the Norwich School Of Art, my Alma Mater. I was attending an end of year show, and was stunned to see how much the building has been refurbished. Kids today eh?… don’t know how good they’ve got it! Anyway.. the Harley Davidson, which was parked up outside the Micawbers Tavern, looked good in the sunshine. And there it remained, stretched in the skylight until I came back to the picture a few months later, and added the handlebar photograph. This was a scooter that was asking to be captured. The sun direction complimented the existent image, so I included the collage. The mirrors of course, reflected me, so I grafted a photograph from my Australian trip and invented the sun.

I think this picture strangely works. There is the cut away part of an electric guitar, keeping a switch and volume control, that I repositioned. A repaired manhole cover in a road that I came across, and a rearview side mirror, with its cover missing, that occupies the left side of the picture

The bunting was stretched across the streets of Cromer, during their summer festival season. I will photograph scenes or objects that take my fancy, without having any preconceived idea of what to do with them. And so it is with this picture. When I was isolating the flags from their original background, I used a magic wand tool. This erased most of the sky (in this instance), but left trails of speckled dots behind. With a black background it looked very astral.

The chest of drawers are upstairs in the bedroom by the window. I liked the way the light was striking it. The picture is set downstairs in the back room. The tank was being exhibited at an air show in Suffolk along with other military hardware. The glass of Champagne with the strawberry came from Australia, thanks Claire. If you can see it, I have written on the wall; INCREDIBLY EXTRAORDINARY, which is my comment on the scene.