Fireworks
I have worked with fireworks, fire sculptures and pyrotechnics since 1983. The work includes sketches for displays and fire sculptures and photographs of fireworks and displays.
Fireworks projects have been many and varied including traditional displays, bespoke shows and street parades and performances.Fire sculptures range from effigies of Guy Fawkes, Ravanna, dinosaurs, bats and other creatures to a recreation of Pudding Lane where the Great Fire of London is assumed to have started. Performances have involved creating costumes and hand made firework effects, both carried and attached to helmets and other accessories.
Commissions range from Leicester City Council and other local authorities, Leicester Cathedral, Sikh gurdwaras and Hindu temples, race tracks and youth and community organisations.
Beginnings: Woodgate Adventure Playground: 1983
St Andrews
In 1983, I was working at St. Andrews Play Association which collaborated with Woodgate Adventure Playground to create a Bonfire Night event. Woodgate is blessed with a large site unlike St. Andrews.
Great Fire
Staff and children from both organisations worked to build a collection of medieval houses depicting London in the time of the Great Fire. Several large effigies were also built and paraded through the streets of the Woodgate area. The buildings were then set on fire and the effigies consigned to the flames. A staff member at Woodgate supplied a fireworks display.
Firework display
This first venture into creating fire sculptures and combining them with firework effects began a line of work that created two local firework display companies and a string of commissions for displays and sculptures for events in Leicester and far beyond.
