I was brought up in the Stroud valleys which were once a flourishing wool and cloth producing centre but have now fallen into decline, leaving many impressive monuments of an active past in the form of mills, chimneys, weavers' cottages and a canal...
My link with the area was reinforced by my fascination with the recovery of Victorian refuse from the rubbish dumps of the era... My early digs were to find curious bottles but my interests gradually turned towards less ostentatious items such as toothbrushes, pins, broken ornaments, spoon and bedknobs...
Excavation became a ritualistic activity: the digging of holes, the carrying of spades...on journeys by road and rail all over the country. From these rituals rose a dialogue with the industrial vistas of northern towns and their relationship to the geography of the area...
In Victoria burial grounds such as Highgate in London, containing the graves of the poor alongside the monumental follies and mausoleums of the rich, I found almost identical qualities and atmospheres to those I had experienced in the Stroud valleys or whilst excavating dumps in Barnsley or Huddersfield...
A series of parallels began to emerge: decaying mills and canals, decadent cemeteries and their monuments, material qualities of mysterious objects I was unearthing, acted upon by time, had gained similar qualities of decaying lock gates or the corroded cast iron doors of a mausoleum...
The relationships of which I have so far become aware are probably a reflection of myself and my histories. A vision of decay which seemed to come alive for me, that I might look forward through it
