Skating at Christmas

A Christmas project bringing seasonal, uplifting art to the windows of local shops and businesses in Lancaster city centre. December 2021.

About this project - A Christmas project bringing seasonal, uplifting art to the windows of local shops and businesses in Lancaster city centre. December 2021.

Artists were invited to create artwork around the themes explored in ‘A Christmas Carol’ - the novella by Charles Dickens. In the novella, Dickens explores the life of Scrooge, a lonely miser, and the importance of human connection, being together and joy. Skating was a popular activity in the Victorian period and a chance for people to come together in their leisure time. With that in mind, I wanted to highlight human connection, relationships and leisure. The window I drew on was opposite a Victorian garden made into a skating rink, so I chose imagery of skating and was inspired by illustrations from the Victorian period.

I composed a design to work across an entire window, made ‘to scale’ paper templates in my studio, and rehearsed drawing and paintbrush marks on my windows at home. This preparation meant I could be confident of my approach once I was on site and balancing on a stepladder in the freezing cold! I was really pleased with how this project turned out. I loved the process - from design through to making a public artwork in our city centre. I’d love to do more of this kind of work.