I have been working as a artist now in this area for twenty-five years or so, and believed that I knew the general shape of the artistic scene. That turns out not to be true. At the meeting of the Unit 9 group the other night one of my colleagues invited us all to the opening of an exhibition of print-making in Farsley (Leeds) in which her work is represented. I had never heard of the gallery. So, this afternoon I put on my pith helmet and took up my mosquito net and elephant gun and headed for Leeds.
The exhibition is mounted by the Yorkshire Print Group, and although I am no expert in print-making it struck me as an interestingly diverse representation of print-making techniques. The big surprise was the gallery itself. It is located in a former textile-manufacturing complex in the west-Leeds suburb of Farsley. It reminded me very much of the rather more widely-known enterprise, the Dean Clough Gallery, in Halifax, where a large group of former industrial buildings has been re-purposed to include all kinds of industrial and commercial outfits, but includes also a large arts centre. The Sunny Bank Mill in Farsley appears to contain a similarly diverse set of activities, and the arts centre consists of a group of studios as well as a very spacious display area. I was surprised and impressed and persuaded that it ought to find a permanent place in my field of artistic attention. If ever you are in the Leeds area it is certainly worth checking it out.
There is an amusing side to this story, in that my lack of awareness of the p[lace is sadly typical of the relationship between Leeds and Bradford. We like to pretend that the other city doesn’t exist …. or at least, if we do acknowledge the fact that it is there we create the impression that it is so far away that it might as well be at the other end of the country. On the basis of this afternoon’s experience, however, I will be heading to Farsley again at some point.