I spent most of 1977 as an “apprentice image maker”, conceiving and producing figurative sculptures for the company Welfare State. It was led by John Fox, his wife, Sue Gill, and Boris and Maggy Howarth. Bob Frith guided the apprentices, and the Mexican printmaker José Posada was a huge influence.
As stage hands we dressed as iconic figures. During shows I brought in large sculptures in drag as a Cosmic Midwife, and a fellow apprentice removed them as a Cosmic Undertaker. Everything was done on a viscerally impressionistic, generous and dramatic scale. We also learned to play instruments, carry massive sculptures in processions and work with fire.
We lived in caravans on a former rubbish tip in Burnley. Foxy had a wild vision of celebratory communitas fuelled by the sort of fine anger from which love can be born. He was filled with anarchic glee and a “yes” mentality – nothing was impossible.
