Closing Time....

The Public, West Bromwich

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(I don’t seem to have much time to write the blog lately, despite having lots to say. Other things-family, work, studio- have been the necessary priority at what seems like a time of year where every last ounce of my time seems squeezed out of me).

The Public, West Bromwich’s ill-fated arts centre, sadly closed it’s big pink doors to the public on the 16^th November. I found myself outside the silver, Star Wars like, back door a few days later to pick up a few large portraits from my ‘Seek My Face’ project that I had donated to the centre a couple of years ago. It was either I come and get them or they ended up in a skip I’m guessing, although I was just told that ‘their safety could not be guaranteed after the end of the month’, when Sandwell College takes the building over and turns it in a Sixth Form (just at a time when I learnt today that many Sixth Form Colleges could be losing up to 40% of their funding next year). 

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It was a sorry sight to behold, as I was escorted to the back of the rather fabulous theatre that has really been a showcase for some national touring acts in comedy and theatre, a thing unheard of for years in the town, to pick up my paintings by a very angry and bitter senior member of staff. There was this unique, bespoke building being stripped apart and dismantled, expensive equipment being shoved in the backs of transit vans by hungry vultures, probably other desperate community and arts organizations.  

 'Shinda', one of my reclaimed paintings. I always like this one.

I don’t get it, as The Public in it’s weird, fish tank looking way, now seems to have found it’s place amongst West Bromwich’s recently built New Square, a complex of new branded high street shops, after four years of struggle to get the local community to take it to it’s heart. After a sky-rocketing budget of £72 million though to originally get it built, which did much to fuel local people’s anger towards it, I’m not sure that ever happened, but it was now becoming well-used, and a certain warmth towards it from the locals was being felt, as all sorts of community groups started to meet and hold events there. Their loss was really palpable as I watched their testimonies to the place on the local news.

But I do get it too, as one of my oldest friends is a councillor in West Bromwich, and involved in the decision to close it. He explained how it was a stark choice between shutting The Public, or cutting funding to essential frontline services in Sandwell, an already extremely impoverished area. And now, once again, culturally impoverished, with the closure of this major regional arts centre. Our regions really need place like this. You just can’t win in these desperate times under this desperate government. 

 The Public's space age interior

 

'Seek My Face' exhibited at The Public in 2008

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I picked up my portraits and headed off. I’m not sure why I really bothered donated them. I had hoped that they may occasionally find a continued lease of life on the walls of The Public, but I don’t think they had moved from the back of the theatre since the day I gifted them. Which actually says a lot about my own rather strained relationship with the place since being one of the first artists to exhibit there in 2008, when it first opened it’s doors. But that’s another story, maybe one for my kids! Collecting the paintings sort of felt a bit like picking my children up. 

Black Country Legend....

'Alfie', oil on canvas, 120 x 180cms, 2007

I received a phone call last night from Stuart, his son, that Alfie Smith, Black Country poet and comedian had sadly passed way last night aged 72 after quite a long period of illness. Alfie was also a subject for one of my portrait paintings in 2006, when I was working in  Sandwell with a research grant  with the intention of trying to open up my portrait work.  In fact, Alfie was the first subject to pose for me in his home in West Bromwich, which backed onto my old junior school. Only when I started chatting with him did I realise that I also been to school with Stu, who I met once again at Alfie’s seventieth birthday party which readers of this blog may remember me posting nearly two years ago to the day.

Alfie was a very funny man, and very generous with the tea and biscuits on the very rainy morning I visited him to draw. He was very proud of his Black Country roots and his poetry, spoken in his rich and thick local accent reflected this,  his performances attracting quite a following.  I’m very grateful for the time I spent with him, in which I made two good drawings,  that helped give me the confidence to pursue what would eventually develop into a major portrait painting commission that would last over two years, depicting the residents of Sandwell.  My painting of ‘Alfie’, a very large portrait, was the first painting that I made from the extensive drawings I made in the community.  I’m never sure to this day whether he liked it or not, but he affirmed that he did. He gave a brilliant speech at the opening to my exhibition of all this work in 2008 at West Bromwich Town Hall- it had a real edge that drew everyone in. The painting is now permanently on display at the Council House in Sandwell, where he used to work, which seems fitting. He will be really missed.

'Alfie', drypoint, 2008