My wallpaper for Sheffield Bazaar at Castle House is inspired by the up/down motion of the lifts it surrounds. With two opposing arrows against the tops of the doors which signal the movement of repetative behaviour, once enacted in the busy store of Sheffield Co-Ooperative, the vertical arrangement of my pattern is a hypnotic affirmation of the remaining space. Up. Down. Up. Down.
Situated at the bottom of the spiral staircase, the paper might be luxurious decor or a forgotten memory. It is made of two tiles: birds and squares filled with stripes. Nature and geometry. Nature for the wildness of the building’s abandoned interior, flown through by dust, rubble and now my swallow like creatures, who echo the same fligh path as the previous public journeying on the lifts. Geometry for the 60’s modernist grids of shape, line and blockiness. Castle House boasts columns and walkways and boxed rooms from floor to ceiling.
I wanted to play with the idea of a vertical pattern set against a decidedly horizontal wall. Birds that flock outward from the walls will eventually deviate from their path in origami form.
Making the paper was the resultof a carefully mapped process and an unpredicatble rhythm. Ink, print, pull. Ink, print, pull. Ink, print, pull. Hang, Repeat. Coming back again and again to fill in the areas of unmarked surface where the ink was waiting to dry. Like laying a table first by fork, then knife, then spoon and circumnavigating each place before moving onto the next.
In the studios at APG Works Sheffield, I watched and learned the art of a lull and a flurry – slow waiting and methodical movement, furious printing at the fast hurried rolls of paper. I hope this is echoed in my work as the walls are soothed with the familiarity of a vertical motion and made alive with the frantic flight of birds.
