WOOL IS MY BREAD

During the depths of winter, it takes little imagination to agree with the age old description of Kendal as being an ‘Auld Grey Town’.

More especially when the incessant rain pours almost daily out of a drab and dismal Atlantic sky, and a semi opaque veil appears to form

across the local dull grey limestone, from which the majority of it’s houses are built. On the other hand, on fine summer days in the

‘Gateway to the Lakes’, as Kendal is also known, the town fairly dazzles when it’s quaint architecture and charming riverside promenades

are lit by radiant sunlight. Sadly, it has to be said, that fine summer days are a bit thin on the ground in South Cumbria. Therefore one

would be hard pressed to call Kendal anything other than an ‘old grey town’.

I have been an inhabitant of this ‘old grey town’ for the best part of twenty years now, and so you could say that I have been here long

enough to call it my home. Consequently, these last two decades have given me plenty of time to become accustomed to it’s layout, as

well as many of the town’s idiosyncrasies and foibles. Most, but not all, of the towns well trodden paths have been explored, and

thousands of images have been recorded along the way. I make a point of always having my camera on hand, no matter how familiar or

routine my walk about town has become. In consequence it could be said that I have become an urban “flaneur”. Around a dozen or so

years ago I came to the conclusion that this familiar world adjoining my doorstep would be a good place to start a long term photographic

project. Historically, for around three hundred years until the mid seventeen hundreds, Kendal’s main source of income came from the

manufacture of woollen textiles. More especially a coarse green one known as ‘Kendal Green’ - allegedly worn by the famous bowmen of

Agincourt - hence the town’s Latin motto ‘Pannus Mihi Panis’ or ‘Wool Is My Bread’. Whilst in more recent times footwear manufacture

was a prominent source of revenue.

Nowadays not a lot survives of this once thriving textile industry, or for that matter the shoe trade, and the town is more likely to be

associated with Kendal Mint Cake and the more obvious charms of the Lake District with it’s inherent booming tourist industry. Besides

these however, all sorts of smaller industries, businesses and services make up the economic back drop. Life and work carries on

regardless of its historic roots and today these have now become the ‘Wool’ that makes the ‘Bread’ that feeds the town. ‘Wool Is My

Bread’ then, seemed to be a suitable and logical title for the huge collection of images of the town that I have seen and created.

Being the ‘Gateway to the Lake District’, I guess that most peoples vision of Kendal would be similar to that found on such items as

calendars, postcards, guidebooks and chocolate boxes. These pictures tend to be a formalised vision of what the area should look like.

For those who crave this outlook, the soft centred images found on and in these ‘chocolate boxes’ may well indeed provide a sugary kick.

But for me, they just contain empty calories with little or no substance or sustenance in their compositions to satisfy my creative appetite.

I like to get to the core of a subject by stripping away the layers that conceal the true picture. This is where the essential nutrients are

stored, and subconsciously for me, this is the place where other pathways lead off into different unimagined directions.

So, this collection of images represents a personal view of a place that I have become increasingly familiar with and fond of. This is a

record of how I see things. This is a story about the unremarkable corners, crevices and thoroughfares of Kendal that are all to often

travelled along, vaguely looked at, but rarely seen. This is the story of the mundane, the unremarkable, the seedy trappings and leftovers

of industry, commerce and human occupation. It is a visual description of every day life in Kendal that wanders incidentally and randomly

into my view. The images range from almost abstract to ironic, to strangely comical and even a mixture of all three. I believe that beauty

and prettiness should never be confused. The majority of these images are definitely not pretty and much like other places, there are

parts of Kendal town that would not win any awards for aesthetics, but in my eyes at least, they do have a certain beauty. I want images

that aren’t immediately comprehensible. I want the viewer to stop and look, and then question what they are looking at. For the most part

my images contradict the notion of an ‘Old Grey Town’. Even on a comparatively grey day the captured colours collude with the content

to provide stimulus and expression - what’s more important for me is that they strive to tell the truth.