Lawrence Roper live instal
LOG ROPER. 48SHEET BILLBOARD INSTALLATION. FAZELEY STREET, BIRMINGHAM. 2nd APRIL 2012 by Gary Wood.
Log’s thoughts on his amazing billboard:
My submission was to be a hand drawn and hand made billboard inspired by Digbeth, the area I work in at the Custard Factory. Once the industrial heart of the city, now creative quarter and long established home of Birmingham’s Irish community. My board is basically a portrait of a local hero, Lord Rowton, a Victorian philanthropist responsible for the Rowton Houses, decent affordable accommodation for poor workers (in Digbeths case often Irish migrant workers) and down and outs. I constructed the piece on old ply hand drawn signs, inspired by the old industrial buildings, factories and workshops of the area, some still with old hand painted logos and adverts. Each “sign” is made up from snippets of quotes, dates and plans of the original Rowton House, now the Paragon Hotel’.
The Quotes are from George Orwell who wrote extensively on the hard times of the poor and destitute and mentions a Rowton house in London in his book down and out in Paris and London.
“Serenity is impossible to a poor man in a cold country”
“How sweet the air does smell — even the air of a back-street in the suburbs — after the shut-in, subfaecal stench of the spike!”
‘ If you have no money, men won’t care for you, women won’t love you; won’t, that is, care for you or love you the last little bit that matters.”
Finally the large hand drawn portrait of the man himself, added over the top of the signs, a few Posca pens, a blister, paint and one achy arm and he’s finished!
I was so pleased to see an up to date remembrance to Lord Rowton,commemorating his fine achievements,I hope to be able to stay in the Paragon Hotel in the not to distant future which will hopefully remind me of the beautiful buildings he built in London to give shelter to the homeless and less fortunate which alas have mostly been demolished.I plan to visit his grave in Kensall Green Cemetery when I have a chance to pay my respects