Yours is no disgrace

I thought I'd share this picture with you mainly because you haven't seen it yet, and because it's (surprisingly to some people) the most important picture to me personally. A long time ago, around 1982, i had an idea for a picture which had as it's central subject, a space ship built in the likeness of Ladybird. It was the first piece I decided to use the dotting technique on to create a glow around stars that were in the sky. That picture set the trend for the rest of my life as I developed my 'Hyperpointillist' style...

The work you see here was created around the time that I had been made redundant from my Social Worker job(2004), and was working partime in a residential Children's home. I had been contemplating the possibility of trying to make my living from my art work and had joined up with a friend of mine to sell prints of my work on Ebay. Then on one particular day I was assaulted by one lad who lived where I worked, I suddenly found all I wanted to do was be as far away from the place I'd found myself in.

It was at this point I made a decision to hand my notice in and take a leap of faith as it were. This did not go down very well at all with Jan as you can imagine..But I felt I had no choice..I had and still do have a totally burning desire to create..I HAVE to put down on paper the images that for want of a better phrase, torment me.

Whilst sitting in my lounge prior to going on shift later in the day, I was listening to a piece of music by 'Yes' called 'Yours is no disgrace'..It was an instant revelation..I was doing the right thing. It was time to trust and move on. And in this same pioneering spirit I felt like I could hold my head up, this was something new, but something that went back to that very first picture all those years ago when I began this voyage as it were.

I therefore placed myself in the picture..a spaceman..an explorer..and the very same Ladybird spaceships were included to show that a connection with my beginnings continued into my present and looked forward to the future. Life is fleetingly short I am coming to realise, and if I don't do this..how can I ever live with myself?..

Can you live with yourself?..do you have a dream?...lift your head fellow explorer...'Yours is no disgrace'!