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I trained as a graphic designer many years ago at Newcastle Polytechnic, this was in the days before everything was a university - my primary school is now Wingrove University.
As often happens, when I left college the last thing I wanted to be was a graphic designer so I landed up working on a motorway construction site near Ross on Wye, where because I'd been to college they made me foreman!!!
I must have weighed about ten stone, knew nothing at all about building roads and they put me in charge of a crowd of people, some of who were on the run from the police! It was never going to work.
About six weeks later after a variety of incidents including cattle being let out onto the motorway, hired caravans being sold to unsuspecting farmers and generally very poor workmanship, everyone was sacked, including the bloke who promoted me.
I eventually drifted into journalism and spent a brief but wonderfully happy time as the only man working for a feminist magazine called City Girl. Never heard of it? Not surprising since newsagents, not bothering to read it, put it in with young girls magazines like Bunty.
When City Girl folded I drifted in and out of a few jobs, one of which was with a nightclub in Liverpool where I occasionally doubled as bouncer. A silly job for a coward really but thankfully I was just the mouthpiece. The huge guys behind me did the important stuff.
From there it was back into journalism and I became, eventually, the editor of a courtesy magazine. My time there came to an end when I wrote off my company car in unusual circumstances and the atmosphere became decidedly frosty. So I decided to go back to my roots and become a graphic designer again.
Throughout all my working life I have painted so when the 'credit crunch' started to bite and getting design clients became harder, I decided to add painting to my portfolio. I still do the design work, at which I’m very good and I’m even a marketing consultant for a company in Sussex but my first love is still painting.
Most of my work, apart from the commissioned stuff, can be seen at Dove Galleries in Worcester.
What will I do when it takes off? Probably get a flat in Barcelona and paint Spain, missing out La Rambla where I was once chased down the street by a prostitute. But that's another story. Enjoy my art.
Stu
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