For me Yorkshire is usually
filed away in my prejudice records as being full of big-headed cricketers,
brass bands, and fixed opinions – well that’s my fixed opinion anyway.
Fortunately, I have
to go to fair in Harrogate to gather the newest sparkly things before the
winter season, and it tends to promise new companies and a broader palate than
the hords of ‘lord-of-the rings statues’ that crowd the halls of Birmingham’s
trade fair, so this gives my narrow-minded ideas a chance to breath some fresh
opinions from the boggy moors.
So when the rain finally ebbed away as we escaped London up
the M1, it was into a golden, sunlit upland that we arrived, to a county
looking more English, more fertile, with the kind of rolling hills only that bloke who directed gladiator
would come up with, and more all-round excellent than I could have imagined.
We took my mum on the outing, and as a born and bred
northerner, from Rotherham no less, she was as
prejudiced in her worship of ‘gods own county’ as you would expect
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ooh they don’t make tea like that anywere else..ooh the
grass is definitely greener up here…ooh, the people are happier and nicer than
anywhere on earth!!
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To amuse, I thought we had better get a day out - I was
attracted by the sound of Saltaire, an old mill bought by a school-friend of
David Hockney on the edge of Bradford , and
converted to house his collection of original art.
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I asked for
directions from our hotel reception:
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‘David oo?’
Never ‘eard of ‘im.’
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Just to remind
me that gay painters in white fedoras might feel more at home in San Francisco
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Well, I’ve never
seen anything quite like it, not even in 'the arty south' - the confidence it must
have taken to use the huge industrial spaces over four floors of this epic
industrial monument – the building, or actually the mini city of mills, built
by an inspired philanthropist who shaped the whole surrounding area to give his
workers a fulsome environment, with sports areas, shops, homes all in georgeous,
fudge-coloured york-stone.
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All the original
spirit has been restored, preserved and continued by its current owner, who
shows massive respect for its origins, for the machinery and barebrick of the
time it was functioning, while daringly breaking conventions with the display
of Hockneys’ not insignificant works. The space between objects, the distance
your eye is allowed to travel, the air that is allowed to live around the
precious things, making them live, and not rest in aspic.
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The facilities, cafes, huge shop (more of a museum of
retail with its mouth-watering card and stationary collection – every art card
we had dreamed of showing they had and more!)
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original Hockney
canvases are generously and openly displayed, seminal works that I never have
expected to see close up. \here, You felt as though Hockney himself probably
pops in to re-arrange the pictures, between cups of T and fags (he’s very big
on smoking, in an un-reconstructed way.)
-
Hockney has gravitated to apple devices, iphone and
ipad for a quantity of his latest creations, using amongst others, an app.
called ‘brush’ to bang out lovely flower studies every day before emailing them
to friends; he is anarchically toying with the concept of image ownership, and
copyright, in an age were the younger generation think nothing of
asset-stripping the entire western hemispheres song catalogue daily, with the
impunity of Lord Canarvon and his mummies – the digital creations still bear
his style, sense of colour and impatience with preciousness. The gallery,
equally, were not touchy about my taking photos as long as no flash was used –
my god, I was nearly taken to the tower
of London
Any way we made it to Bettys tea rooms and gloried in the
cake and the scone; as a retailer I envied the 3 floors stuffed with custom,
piano tinkling away in the lounge while Bettys staff made it feel like the
upper class bit of the titanic, all whit estarched young ladies and gents,
bril-creamed and polite.
Fantastic.
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