When I lived on Dalkeith Road in Edinburgh, my life was rich, our telly broke and we decided not to repair or replace it.  TV-free and creative.  This was 1998, years before Youtube or the i-player existed.

Invention and Manufacture

Before we threw it out, I opened up the back of the TV to see what was inside. I was stunned and delighted to find four coils of fine copper wire, with which I might knit pan scourers, weave very heavy mats or plait jewellery or belts. Big Fun. I needed more. And back when I lived in Edinburgh from 1997 to 2004, everyone was replacing their fat old vacuum-tube televisions with lean flat-screen ones.

The old ones were mostly left on the pavement for the council to deal with. Before the councils got there (they’re not very quick, city councils) I nipped in with my screwdriver and pinched the 4 coils in the belly of every beast.

Less utilitarian (than pan-scourers etc) use came first with the idea of trees. These started off quite gangly and weird, but became quite short and chunky and appealed to collectors of ornament, art and miniature scenery.

I even tried to sell some trees (and candles made from fruit) in a nice little shop near the Royal Mile called “Thistle Image”. The wise woman proprietress of Thistle Image, suggested I make a little character, some creature that would sit below the tree.

Dragons

I did dragons first because no-one can say “Look at the Dragon in the zoo – the back legs on your dragon are all wrong!”. Getting dragons right was easy for someone with my history of imagining what dragons looked like, and I soon got very confident manifesting what I was thinking of, with my three-dimensional scribbles.

The things I drew most when I was a child were horses, so they naturally followed, with the variants of unicorn/pegasus easy to work in. Nowadays, I’ll do anything anyone wants – I have made cats, cows, llamas, mermaids, krakens, foxes, geese, phoenixes, rocs, hydras, dogs, wolves, werewolves, kangaroos (with Joeys), snakes, lizards, cerberuses, fairies and just one angel.

Sales History

I don’t think I ever actually sold a tree through Thistle Image, but I did sell a lot of candles made from carefully scraped out fruit (oranges, kiwis, pineapples). I don’t think this shop exists any more.

I sold a lot of trees and dragons through Black Lion Games, and at one or two editions of the excellent convention “Compulsion” run by the war-gamers/role-players GEAS (Grand Edinburgh Adventuring Society)

I sold tonnes of trees, creatures and newly invented jewelry forms with my good friend Becka www.beckasinsects.co.uk at the West End craft market on Prince’s street in Edinburgh, and at “2D3D” craft fairs. Also at small craft fairs in Penicuik and Roslin Glen as well as big ones like the Royal Highland Show. A particular highlight was the “Heart of Darkness Gothic Valentine Weekend Fair” Which included the “Goth petting zoo” – snakes, lizards, giant milipedes and my favourite Flash the Owl.

In Aberdeenshire I sold in Tarts and Crafts and Merlin’s Grove, briefly.

In Glastonbury I might still have a little stock in “The Cat and Cauldron”.

In Hebden Bridge I sold in the Arts Festival Shop, the workshops near the Centre for Alternative Technology, Spirals and Earth Spirit.

2D work

Back in Edinburgh I also painted, drew and printed so much that I sold some. This state of affairs will return when I have the time. Watch this space.  (Current guess: 2024!)

This mixed-media painting of Princess Leia in The Empire Strikes Back isn’t being shown in its best light, but young me is clearly very proud.

I paid rent in Edinburgh for seven years, then had 7 years designer-homeless, constantly volunteering at places and projects I found worthwhile.  I’m now paying rent again in Wheatstone House, Earthworm Housing Co-op, which is roomy enough for a workshop of sorts, in my own bedroom once more.

A Break In Transmission

From 2004 to 2014 though, there was no wire work available.  I stopped making and selling and apart from keeping a sketch book diary, I pretty much ceased 3D work of a purely arty nature, to get stuck in to permaculture and activism – all manner of campaigning, tree-planting, low-impact house-building, community allotment set-up, helping communities with planning applications, WWOOFING (see www.wwoof.org.uk) and generally seeking and engaging with thoroughly worthwhile things to do, with nothing but connections, enthusiasm and energy.

After being saturated in the arts for seven years in Edinburgh, and finding an odd sort of frustration in such immense depoliticised privilege, art was generally out.

Then, whilst helping to design a course called “CRASH – a post-capitalist A-Z” in 2009, I began to blend it back in again, seeing what art offers in the triangle of art, activism and permaculture which isn’t too bad a design for a tripod of my life.

See the older flickr and https://www.flickr.com/photos/wheatworm/sets/

Now that I’m paying rent again, after a few failed experiments in other sorts of earning, art is back in the position of paying the bills (supplemented by various teaching, care and facilitation work), which I can accept most cheerfully when my customers go away most satisfied. As well as this internet shop and organised craft fairs, I am also to be found in a gallery context…

Finally, you can find me on Etsy — https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/WheatstoneWirework