It’s the economy, stupid!
James Carville. (Bill Clinton strategist 1992)
Recently I was at a meeting of local shopkeepers. I shall declare my interest at the outset; I was there to present to the panel a public sculpture project that I am currently working on for the purpose of gaining some funding to help us achieve our goal. This was the second time I have done this for the same group, but more on that in a future article, maybe! My representations to the group were, for the second time unsuccessful. Whilst I could be accused of masochism, in reality I like to remain blithely optimistic. Luckily, I have a hide thick enough to absorb the impact of such rejections. Across the year I am regularly making applications to arts funding bodies to try and help us achieve what we want to do with art in this area, roughly one in thirty is successful, admittedly not a great success rate but I suspect that the majority of those rejections are based on the sheer weight of application numbers. Because of this most rejection feedback is pretty worthless, but with this rejection though I was intrigued by the response given, and I am quoting from memory here…
It’s the children that are the future of the businesses, we don’t see how art will help the businesses on Dewsbury Road
Ex-Dewsbury Road Shopkeeper
The royal ‘We’ was presumably in reference to those who had voted no to my proposal, as I did actually get a number of yes votes, just not enough to make a successful bid. As always after a proposal is rejected I spend a bit of time trying to work what went wrong; did I not present the idea clearly enough, was it the wrong project for the application, and numerous other thoughts. The more that I thought about the response the more I realised just how wrong that statement was.
As those of you who may have read my articles in South Leeds Life over the last few years, or even attended any of our events at BasementArtsProject will know, we have created what I refer to as “a pocket sculpture park” at the corner of Dewsbury and Tunstall Road. Since getting ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ in place two years ago and having since landscaped around it, we have ultimately changed the nature of the space it now occupies. Even at difficult times such as these it never gets as bad as it was before ‘The Corner’ Pocket Sculpture Park came into being, the behaviour and litter issues are manageable and fairly easily solved. At the best of times, we have run carving workshops and concerts and it is regularly used by families having picnics on the benches, made by the community, or to just let the children free to run whilst the parents wait for the 86.
So, how does art help the businesses on Dewsbury Road?
The answer to this is that it provides people in the locality with an outdoor area in which they can hang. Even with the madness that often happens on this corner it is still a little oasis amongst the trees that feels reasonably calm and relaxed. On a corner where people never used to stop, chivvied on by other less than savoury things occurring in that space, they do now, and they buy food from the local shops which they then sit on ‘The Corner’ and consume. Despite the increased al fresco food consumption the litter is still nominal, people are, on the whole, respecting the work that has been done and are keeping it tidy. In fact the most difficult thing to keep on top of now is the collaborative project between the wind and overflowing public bins. Basement will be installing a new public bin at the edge of the land at some point in the next couple of months in the hopes of easing the pressure on the street bins.
But this is not just about people buying sandwiches and drinks at local shops, maybe having a sit down and then having a wander around the nearby charity shop after lunch. It is about much more than that. It is about a long-term plan for the area that seeks to improve the quality of the environment in a pleasant and interesting way with the involvement , or at least support, of the community. To this end BasementArtsProject has three, potentially four, other projects that could change an entire hundred yard stretch of road from the Middleton Steam Railway up to the junction of Tunstall and Dewsbury.
With regards to the project mentioned at the top of this article; BasementArtsProject are still working with the artist Annabelle Richmond-Wright to produce the artwork intended for the planter at the junction next to St Luke’s Cares Charity Shop, by hook or by crook we will find a way of raising the money to do it, it will just take a bit longer than we hoped. The project is roughly halfway through, having worked on producing some of the sculptural elements with the children of St Luke’s Primary School, New Bewerley Primary School and Cockburn John Charles Academy; as well as with members of the local community through the Hamara Centre and St Luke’s Cares Charity Shop. This brings me to the other point in that original statement “the children are the future of the businesses on Dewsbury Road”. Through art we, BasementArtsProject, regularly engage with the community through our work in a way that adds value to the environment. Art is subjective; what one person loves another hates, but that is fine. What we must acknowledge is that its presence in the public realm can help people. Involving people in the creation of artworks can be a part of what it means to build a community that is invested in its own future. At this point I will point back to my statement last month that “One has to be able to imagine a future in order to start planning for it.”
If we succeed in creating our sculpture at the junction of Dewsbury Road, many people, years down the line from now, may be able to look at it and say – that is my hand, that is my portrait, that is my flower, I did that twenty, thirty, forty years ago when I was at school. It was not just children, but adults too through the community centres. As with the benches, made by the community to accompany ‘Jacob’s Ladder’, people will be able to look with pride at something that they were involved in and know that they made a difference. Imagine, a litter-free Tunstall/Dewsbury Road with more trees, public art, maybe some cafés not trading in fast-food and cheap alcohol.
A final thought regarding the meeting that opened this piece. At an earlier meeting I was singled out by one of the members of the board as being someone who has sat there at previous meetings “tapping away at his laptop like [name redacted] over there, but nothing ever gets done”. I would argue that ‘The Corner’ Pocket Sculpture Park, conceived and designed by myself, with ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ by Keith Ackerman at the heart of it, are evidence of Basement and those who support our ambition getting things done. I would challenge the naysayers of that meeting to look at their own contributions and ask themselves what their contributions to the community have been.
To those who gave me thumbs up. Thank you! We will succeed, and we will make this corner of South Leeds a nice and desirable place to be, with its own culture, built from within! Watch this space and feel free to join us…
I am currently writing a future post regarding sculptures for Dewsbury Road and an update on the work by Dominic Hopkinson.
