TIM BAKER

When I got my older pre-degree work back, I somehow missed looking through the document tubes – I mentioned some of the pieces I was missing like the red female life drawing, and they were actually there! I looked in there recently and found a lot of work from Ironbridge and Coalbrookdale in Shropshire, Easter 1992. I wasn’t sure of the date until I matched up my sketchbooks I was doing as part of my Foundation, and found several dates and location – Buildwas Abbey 9/4/92 and Ironbridge 7-11/4/92.

A precursor to the modern jaunts, I remember it well, as my mother insisted on going to Shropshire in Easter 1992, even though I was prepping for my end of my foundation and start of my degree. It was a weird place to go. Why? We used to visit there regularly as a child, then after my parents divorce I lived in Much Wenlock for most of a year, until my Dad got custody of me.

A year or two later, my mother sold that cottage and bought a flat in London. So by this time Shropshire was a distant memory, I remember being confused as to why she wanted to go holiday in the cold and wet rains of April, in a caravan no less! And it did rain.

I wanted to keep working and complained this trip was taking me away from my studies, so my mother suggested I work during the Easter trip. Hence why for a short period (I think under a week) there is so many sketches and pieces – also there wasn’t much to do in a grey Ironbridge and Coalbrookdale at Easter to be honest. This collection of work shows my shift from the accurate if rather dead drawing insisted by my school education, to a more fluid free style, that gets child-like in places. That was why I could roughly date it to 1991 or 1992 until I found I had dated a few of them.

• 

• 

Unless they are dated I have no accurate sense of a timeline, but these ones definitely belong together, apart from the street sketch of Ironbridge which belongs with the sketch of the Little Wenlock Rectory at the end. Unusually for this time I was drawing sometimes in pen (I used to use those chunky green plastic Pentel rollerball pens for a minute, along with Papermate Flair felt tips). Still drawing in pencil, yet those super light fine cautious lines have gone, now using quite heavy 4/8B lines or free lines like I was drawing with my non-dominant hand (very likely).

The pen pieces surprised me since as well as being unusual to work in purely ink at this point, my manic ‘many lines’ chaotic style is very much present and correct. Not totally sure if the sheep one belongs here, but it’s the right style, right time period and I dimly remember really wanting to draw and photograph the old kiln and furnace workings during this trip. And then this sheep turned up and posed for me! I think it was either the same place or a similar place to the Limekilns below – which again I remember drawing, unlike the aqueduct and the street scene which I have totally blanked.

• 

• 

One of the places I distinctly remember working is Buildwas Abbey and the remains of Much Wenlock Priory. I knew both these places well, but hadn’t drawn them or taken many photos. I had a film camera with me, not sure whether it was my old motorwind 35mm fixed lens compact still or a DSLR, I think I got a new Praktica K-fit SLR around this time. Reason I mention photographs is not only do I have a photographic record of the visit, I also collaged those photos into a scrapbook calling it the ‘Shropshire Book’.

The photos are mostly around Buildwas, Much Wenlock and Ironbridge, but there are quite a few of the Jackfield Tile museum, which I remember from this trip. I think I walked there from the bridge in the rain, it was quite a wet walk?

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

I seem to have been obsessed with arch shapes at this point – my Foundation sketchbook is packed with them and I know I did sculptures – for I was in the sculpture department at this point – in wire of repeating arch shapes, a bit like the Sydney Opera House. And like now, ruins have always been present in my work. I didn’t usually sketch with paint – most likely still acrylic System 3 tubes here – again something I was introduced to at Foundation, and coloured charcoal and Conte/Charcoal pencil.

Also the stick/end of brush and ink technique as used in this life drawing makes an appearance. Not sure why I didn’t do more of that, it looks really good.

The other thing I was fascinated by was The Iron Bridge itself. The first major cast-iron bridge in the world, opened in 1781, it is a symbol of the Industrial Revolution and an engineering marvel – if an imperfect one. Now the bridge is reddish brown but then it was blueish black, and I was fascinated by the abstract shapes of the spans. Hence the collages in the ‘Shropshire Book’.

• 

• 

Interestingly I didn’t do any sketches of the entire bridge itself, a fact I must’ve realised later becauase I did a sketch from memory, probably the first I’d done like that. The sketches I did of part of the structure are again, unusual for this time and showing experimentation in materials – ink, acrylic, gray pastel or chalk, even mud (probably accidental splash from a rainy day, but I like it). I then took the shapes I saw and made abstract drawings and an ink painting from it – very esoteric/arcane.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

I mentioned a shift in style – before paradoxically dropping drawing entirely for a long time during my degree…I started drawing very fluid, child-like drawings, very dynamic, maybe even with my non-dominant hand. They are some of my favourites, like the Grit Salt below or the many chimneys of the Rectory in Little Wenlock. Very like the old Much Wenlock station is the weird many-chimney building near William Brookes Secondary school. Sadly the line fell foul of Beeching’s cuts in the 1960’s.

I used to live near the old remnants of one of the railway bridges for that line, I passed it every day walking to William Brookes. I think we were staying in or near Little Wenlock.

• 

• 

• 

I’d love to go back to Ironbridge, a fascinating history and lots to see and do, although it and Wenlock area has become a lot more built up cos of nearby Telford knocking on the door. Last time I was there Telford sprawl started over the hill from Ironbridge, and tracking my old route to school via Google Maps I got confused because they built a load of houses on the edge of the playing fields! That area is under threat of being consumed by urban sprawl now.