Creatives

Yoko Ono is a trailblazer of conceptual and participatory art, film and performance. Developing her practice in the United States, Japan and the UK, ideas are central to her art, often expressed in poetic, humorous, profound and radical ways. The photo was taken in March 2024 at an exhibition of her work at Tate Modern in London. In ‘Add Colour (Refugee Boat)’, Yoko Ono’s instruction for this initially all-white installation invited visitors to contribute their hopes and beliefs in blue and white.

J P Donleavy (1926-2017) was an American-Irish novelist, short story writer and playwright. His best-known work, The Ginger Man, was initially banned for obscenity. It was first published in 1955 in Paris and later in the UK in unexpurgated form, which added to its attraction back in the day.
The photo was taken on the occasion he gave a reading of his novel, The Destinies of Darcy Dancer, Gentleman, at Oriel Gallery in Cardiff in 1979.

In September 2024, at Tate Modern in London to take in the exhibition of Zanele Muholi's wonderful and extraordinary photographs, I met a young man in colourful headwear and a coat resplendent with white buttons. He introduced himself as Souleo from New York. He was at the exhibition with Beau McCall, aka The Button Man, a New York-based artist and fashion designer. Both have their own websites.

Claudio Cecconi aka Seth Morley is a freelance director/filmmaker, editor and cinematographer with more than 15 years of experience in film making. Based between Milan and London, he work as a freelance director, editor and cinematographer on a variety of formats including; short films, documentaries, music videos, corporate films, advertising, TV productions, and videographer for events. The photo was taken in July 2022 at the Secret Art Gallery when it was located in Cheshire Street, off Brick Lane in London.

David Hurn is a self-taught photographer who began his career in 1955 as an assistant at the Reflex Agency. While a freelance photographer, he gained his reputation with his reportage of the 1956 Hungarian revolution. He became a full member of Magnum Photos in 1967. In 1973 he set up the famous School of Documentary Photography in Newport. In 1997, he collaborated on a successful textbook with Professor Bill Jay, On Being a Photographer. The photo was taken at an exhibition of his photos at Ffoto Newport in May 2022.

Loty Looney is a street artist and digital creator from Brazil.
I bought the work partly in view on the ground in the bottom left .
The photo was taken in Brick Lane, London, in May 2024

John Gorman and Roger McGough were (with Mike McGear) Scaffold, a comedy, poetry and music trio from Liverpool. They are perhaps most notable for their singles ‘Thank U Very Much’ and a UK Number 1 ‘Lily the Pink’.
The photo was taken in April 2010 when Gorman and McGough performed at the Wenlock Poetery Festival.

Calum Colvin is a Scottish artist whose work combines photography, painting, and installation, and often deals with issues of Scottish identity and culture and with the history of art. The photo was taken in August 2024 and is of a work-in-progress, This Living Hand, at Summerhill in Edinburgh.

Originally from Yorkshire, Jane moved to Shropshire in 2002. and fell in love with painting in 2020. She is particularly interested in exploring abstracted, and semi-abstracted landscapes, and developing atmosphere and texture through multiple layers and mark making. The photo, taken in February 2023, shows Jane by some of her paintings on show at Mrs Jones Gallery in Shrewsbury.

Ken Milner is a multi-discipline artist who lives in Much Wenlock in Shropshire. Ken is a poet and storyteller, paints, makes sculptures, and is justly proud of his living creation – his garden. The photo, taken in May 2021, shows Ken in his garden next to one of his sculptures.

Ron McCormick is a photographer who was a moving force at the School of Documentary Photography in Newport, particularly the annual Newport Surveys that were produced in the 1980s and showcased the work of the School’s students. The photo was taken in July 2022 in the Red Lion pub on Stow Hill, Newport, which had an exhibition of photos taken by Ron to commemorate the local Lockdown experience.

Hilary Mantell (1952-2022) was a Booker Prize-winning author of historical fiction. Probably best-known for her trilogy - Wolf Hall, Bring up the Bodies and The Mirror and the Light - which chronicled the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell and which provided an antidote to A Man for All Seasons. The photo shows her signing a copy of Bring up the Bodies at the Hay Festival in June 2012.

J.A.R Hill Serpentine Works is a family run gift shop specialising in Serpentine and Cornish giftware situated on the Lizard Peninsula. The serpentine rock is quarried locally and turned in an onsite workshop by two generations of the Hill Family. They sell an extensive range of minerals, marble, jewellery, pottery and Cornish crafts and gifts. The photo was taken in September 2020.

Henning Mankell (1948-2015) was a Swedish crime writer, children's author, and dramatist, best known for a series of mystery novels starring his most noted creation, Inspector Kurt Wallander. He also wrote a number of plays and screenplays for television. He was a left-wing social critic and activist. The photo was taken in May 2011 after an event in Woodstock Church before he headed to Hay for the Book Festival.

Charissa Saverio, better known as DJ Rap, is a British drum and bass, house and progressive electronic music producer and DJ. While the majority of her work is in the jungle style, her more successful work is in traditional electronic music. The photo was taken when she performed a set at the Dub Pistols Boat Party #2 aboard the Dutch Master on the River Thames in October 2024.

Sharon Griffin is a figurative artist based in Shropshire who specialises in ceramic sculpture directly inspired by the woodland where she often explores places in which to ‘breathe’.... The textures, the smells, the secret spaces all provide a kind of ‘awakening’... Sharon uses the human figure to help communicate a sense of deeper meaning within humankind and of her own experience of being a woman. The sculptures represent a state of being; internal struggles of love, loss, displacement, vulnerability and strength. The photo was taken in August 2021 at an exhibition at Pitchford Hall in Shropshire.

Paul Evans is a nature writer, radio broadcaster, senior lecturer in the Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University and wanderer of woods; he lives in Shropshire. Paul is a one of the Guardian newspaper’s country diarists. The photo, taken in April 2012, shows Paul reading from A E Housman’s A Shropshire Lad at a Wenlock Poetry Festival event.

Agenda Brown is a photographer and, as the creative protagonist of Visual Marvelry and generator of visual stories, possesses a rare ability to capture his subjects in a discerning manner, whilst evoking empathy for his subjects, and is a natural observer of commonality and differences in all of us. The photo was taken in March 2024 at the Royal Photographic Society’s International Photography Exhibition 165 Open House in Bristol, where Agenda was one of the award winners.

Ffion Denman is a young Welsh photographer based in Cardiff. She explores post-industrial Welsh towns and their working-class histories, representing communities that are hidden, fading or on the margins of society.
The photo was taken in August 2022 at Ffoto Newport where Ffion had a joint exhibition with Matthew Harry (on the right). Also in the photo is gallery director Ieuan Berry.

I came across Alex in Paris in June 2024 where he was selling his paintings and postcards on a street (dans une rue!). However, his work has received international recognition as can be seen in the link to Saatchi Art in the box below. He operates under the title Optimistik’art.

Eric Sykes (1923-2012) was an English radio, stage, television and film writer, comedian, actor and director whose performing career spanned more than 50 years. He frequently wrote for and performed with many other leading comedy performers and writers of the period, including Tony Hancock, Spike Milligan and Tommy Cooper. The photo was taken in June 2006 at the Hay Festival.

Loula Yorke is an Oram Award-winning composer, improviser and live performer working primarily with a modular synthesiser. The photo was taken in November 2024 at the Edge Arts Centre in Much Wenlock in the first of a series of events under the banner Make Much Wenlock Weird.

Winston Graham (1908-2003) was an English novelist best known for the Poldark series of novels set in Cornwall, although he also wrote numerous other works, including contemporary thrillers, period novels, short stories, non-fiction and plays. The photo was taken in March 2015 at the Courtney Library in Truro and shows some of his correspondence and workbooks that are on deposit at the Library.

Jasper Fforde is a British novelist and the author of the Thursday Next series. Before his writing career, London-born Fforde worked as a focus puller in the film industry. His first novel The Eyre Affair was published in 2001, starring the literary detective Thursday Next. The photo was taken in November 2021 at the Thru the Lens gallery in Hay on Wye and shows the author holding a copy of David Hurn’s Living in Wales photo book, in which he features.

Adam aka Lack of Afro is a musician, multi-instrumentalist, producer, DJ and composer. His music has won worldwide critical acclaim. It has been featured on films, TV shows and adverts including HBO, ABC, Sony Pictures, BBC, ITV, Sky TV, Fox Pictures & Warner Brothers Television, and used in ad campaigns by Google, Spotify, Miller Lite and Adidas. The photo was taken in September 2024 at a pre-tour Lack of Afro gig at Albert’s Shed in Shrewsbury.

Michel de Montaigne was one of the most significant philosophers of the Renassiance. He invented the essay as a literary genre. His work is noted for its merging of anecdotes and autobiography with intellectual insight. Montaigne had a direct influence on numerous Western writers; his massive volume Essais contains some of the most influential essays ever written. The photo was taken in May 2015 in his room in the tower at his chateau in the Dordogne, where he wrote the essays.

John Byrne (1940-2023) was a Scottish playwright, screenwriter, artist, printmaker and designer. He wrote The Slab Boys Trilogy, plays that explored working-class life in Scotland, and the BBC TV dramas Tutti Frutti and Your Cheating Heart. The photo shows part of the cover of the programme of Byrne’s Writer’s Cramp, a play that was a big hit of the Edinburgh Festival in August 1977. It was performed at the Calton Studios, directed by Robin Lefevre, with three brilliant actors: Alec Norton, Bill Paterson, and John Bett.

Susie Jones is an award-winning writer-director whose work includes several short films. Susie's latest short is the BFI-backed film The Rising of the Sap with BAFTA and BIFA winning actress Joanna Scanlan, Darci Shaw, Brian McCardie and Nicola Harrison. The world Premiere was at the Seattle International Festival in May 2024. The photo shows some of the crew filming of The Rising of the Sap in Much Wenlock in Shropshire in July 2021.

Katy Rink is the founder, editor and publisher of the popular My Shrewsbury magazine, which aims for high quality editorial and photography, to promote participation in community life and boost well-being, keeping people in touch with where they live. The photo was taken in Swan Hill Studios in Shrewsbury.

Jools Holland is a pianist. bandleader, singer, composer and television presenter. From 1982 until 1987, Holland co-presented The Tube on Channel. Since 1992, he has hosted Later … with Jools Holland on BBC2, on which his annual show Hootenanny is based. The photo was taken in November 2024 when his touring show stopped off at Birmingham’s Symphony Hall.