gift

Returning to E17, I have a feeling of home. Trotting about my old haunts I'm alert to and grateful for this after my unhomely years in Sheffield.

I walked as a stranger, a player in a film about my life. Watching myself be, monitoring my moves, recording it as an experience I knew wouldn't last. As yet I don't understand why, one day I'll join the dots but for now its simply somewhere that wasn't home. This was my dirty little secret as most Sheffield folk were horrified and perplexed at any mention of not liking the city, my southern accent (that belies my North East Scottish heritage) jumped on as a reason for not coping with The North. City as body, as a pulse that runs through flesh, as a site where words can wound.

What an amazing stepping stone Sheffield was in creating a path to greater self awareness and focusing my thinking towards creating what I want in my life, being strategic for the first time EVER. What a gift. I'm sitting with this now, questions forming, answers yet to materialise - I'm liberated, hopeful, unsure.

park hill

Last weekend I finally climbed the hill behind Sheffield train station and saw British Modern Remade in the Park Hill Estate. Met a Creative practitioner colleague from Hepworth and swooshed upwards in the lift to the 12th floor to see painting, sculpture and collage (missed the film bit...) from the Arts Council Collection. Felt like an intruder as we snooped around the empty flats oohing at stripped back surfaces and smooth sliding doors. The view of Sheffield was astonishing: nestled between tree covered hills, the city laid out like an architects model. And of course there was the art, beautifully staged and appearing as if it had always existed within the space. The work mirrored the permanent collect at The Hepworth Wakefield, and one of the sculptures will be winging its way to the gallery from this show.

I'm on the brink of leaving Sheffield and returning to my pined for London, city of my birth that has invisible threads tugging and pulling me back. To see Sheffield laid before me reaffirmed how little I know of this place and I'm looking forward to returning as a visitor, with time to take in, be in and explore this city.

My colleague/friend Liz then took me to Sheffield Museum for a treat of tea and cake, so all in all this leaving lark has its benefits! 

I'm very glad I moved to Sheffield, I'm leaving with different understandings that wouldn't have been gained if i'd not taken the plunge and I'll carry this knowledge into the next chapter. I've also gained a brace of Yorkshire friends who will provide their own threads to draw me back in the future.

upperthorpe

Today I wondered the boundary of Upperthorpe in Sheffield. Walking anti clockwise with Upperthorpe to my left, meandering along paths and streets that were new to me, quietly observing the edge of the neighbourhood. A man told me, 'there are dogs up there, they may growl but don't worry, they won't do anything'. I trotted on, heart thudding and upon seeing the pack attempted to project a casual attitude. This lasted seconds before I clocked the dogs had friendly eyes and was rewarded with wags and strokes and dog hairs on my navy jacket. Later while trudging up hill sweating, I yearned for the flat (note to self - get fitter). Near the end of my boundary walk I found a yellow post it note stating 'Who Why', sensible questions if you ask me. 

This wandering has been inspired by the Occursus Project, led by Dr Amanda Crawley Jackson (University of Sheffield) in collaboration with Bloc and Site Gallery.

owlerton

Last week I jumped on the number 66 bus from Sheffield city centre and traveled to Owlerton, an unpromising journey to the side of a busy road, out of town casino and dog track and Hillsborough College with cannabis smoking youth outside. Crossing the A61, I walked up Livesey Street, over a bridge across the River Don and climbed stone steps to a dirt path surrounded by trees. Unmarked on the Sheffield A to Z is a cemetery in a patch of slopping woodland. It climbs up to and is contained by a train track, and crisscrossed with well trodden paths. While a handful of people passed by as I snooped about, it is an unpeopled spot and I kept my wits about me. I experienced that odd sense of feeling alone while next to the traffic hum, police siren wail, clatter of industry and prickly pylon buzz. 

Picking my way between the headstones I was in my element, woods and graves combined! I'm fascinated by the stories the headstones tell of Mary, Thomas, Clara and George and the unfortunate roll call of dead children carved into slate. While wandering graveyards I think about the current population being interred, Kyle's and Kylie's one day taking their place by Edith and Arthur - these current names, one day holding nostalgia of times past.

I found a newly dead pigeon, colours still vibrant, flies beginning to land. I found trees hugging headstones, branches wrapped as a comforting arm, a steadying hug and in some cases an overwhelming embrace. I talked to a man with a dog and he told me, 'these are war veterans these'.

creature

This creature totally brightens my day, I always look out for it when traveling in and out of the city centre. It lives at the city end of Ecclesall Road, Sheffield.

less new

I'm less new than I was. The area of the city that I regularly walk is becoming familiar, I'm aware of being at the cusp of not looking so intently, at staging my way with landmarks and personal way-markers of things I've noticed. My walk can also be timed by the passing of familiar but unknown people at particular times of the day.

These past few months have been stressful, more so than I was expecting. Its been an odd time of limbo. As if I'm waiting for my life to start, soon I'll be busy and plugged into the city, with work, with friends, with my own memories being laid unseen upon the topography of streets. But for now these notions are of a future I've yet to meet, as if unseen ghosts are haunting this future and yet to take form.

On one level I love this time, (practically though, not earning money is just plain crap!) but sometimes I allow myself to feel the energy of being unknown, incognito, that at least my future is not planned out, I really do not know what tomorrow will bring.

A familiar refrain from people I meet who ask 'Why Sheffield?', is that I am brave and I somehow find this hard to take in. On many levels I am brave, I'm a freelancer and have never had a regular income my entire adult life. Though I may not have the possessions of others I own a flexibility and resourcefulness that has provided me with an abundant life in many ways. Sometimes change is the only path, by turning a situation on its head old doors close, new doors open and having faith that it will all work out is a mantra worth repeating. AND staying where I was wasn't an option.

we walk

These are the sights that greet me on my way to the studio. I’m assuming the large text works were commissioned by the council: EVERYONE’S A WINNER and YOU CAN’T GO WRONG enliven the walls around the redevelopment of The Moor shopping area.

My route tells the story of a manufacturing past, buildings in varied states of dereliction line the streets just fives minutes walk from the city centre. Being drawn to places like this I'm happy to observe the present rubbing shoulders with the past.

Some interventions are quietly glued to the city. I especially like broad ribbed warrior maidens. Large text works and graphic's by Kid Acne.

My window, 'K' marks the spot.

The Avec Building, isn't she lovely?