I have not been working on this mosaic as I been installing my mosaics and someone elses sculptures in Newcastle.
I have had a great time. Working with lead artist Charlie Carter and the paving masons on a team of construction workers in Newcastle.
The week has been a whirlwind of work and play including SWAT team raids and a hired van less than a year old with a water leek and green grocer businnes that uses the street as a open air ware house, which causes lorry mayhem in the street. And the truly most amazing reaction to a piece of public sculpture I have yet encounterd?
When I was sticking the mosaics onto a stone bench, one of the green grocers comes up and says,
‘What have we got a piece of Paki sculpture for’?
‘What makes you say that’
Because look, these are colourfull and got stripes’????????????
He said exactley the same thing when we bolted a piece of sculpture to the pavement close to the shop where he works.
He say’s, ‘Im white, he’s white, your white, so why have we got a piece of Paki Sculpture that we dont want’?
He went on to tell us his views on some of the residents of the area, using several words I had actually forgotten existed, and insisted he was’nt racist!
I really thought I had seen it all, but I was wrong, and this takes the biscuit. There is actually a more complicated issue behind these remarks, than it first appears. Even so..a real eye opener.
I am very pleased to have been involved in this project and hats off to my friend Charlie who has spent the best part of two years trying to make things better in this area of Newcastle.
