Profile and history

Education

• Rottingdean Primary School
• Longhill Secondary School
• Eastbourne Art College (Foundation & Graphics)
• Brief work experience
• Chine Furnaces; taught to weld and fabricate heavy-duty steels for Melting Furnaces.
• Access Design; tubular hand railing, staircases and fire escapes all over U.K.
• Cash Bases; light gauge sheet metal, punch and form. Accurate Tig welding.
• Ranalah Moulds; steel fabricated moulds for concrete, feeler gauge accuracy with manual arc welding.
• Screen Solutions; Team leader running entire engineering shop, from estimating, quoting, trouble shooting and overseeing entire production of bracketry for the office furniture market.


Present day

• Self Employed as Urban Scavenger designing and producing my own Creations.
• Also using fully equipped workshop for sub contracting welding and engineering work as part income for above. • Attended Art College, one-year foundation but only half of Graphics course. Moved into family business. Should have stayed.
• Enjoyed metal fabrication because it was hands on while also creating an object.
• Travelled all over UK with working access to scrap yards and acquired a fascination with the found objects.
• Always rummaging at markets and car boots for objects that are not found by most sources.
• Keith Murray designer for Wedgewood in the thirties has inspired me with his machined lines and form in his ceramics.
• Ron Arad has been my major influence. During the eighties I supplied some Rover seats to One Off. This gave me an insight into the world of design and what could be achieved.
• Art Deco design, from the Odeon buildings, Bakelite and chrome furniture.
• “Automobile Art” was a market stall in the mid eighties in Brighton. Hi-Tech was all the rage but despite orders with Pete Waterman for car seating in his recording studio and Gearbox stools in a top B`ton bar it was a lack of business knowledge that forced me back to full time welding.
• Metal Guru sponsored me for the Brighton Festival of 2001. A good article in the Telegraph and IDFX magazine made this very successful and generated many sales. Working out of a garden garage was not ideal and with now raising a family with two growing boys I could not take the chance of expanding. So my designs were put on the back burner.
• Time moves on. Life changes. I am now back with determination and a clear direction of creativeness.