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'The Last Goodbye'
A farewell to Highbury Stadium, London N5
by Pete Mountford
Dear fellow Steve Gleiber Arsenal Forumites (plus anyone else that has wandered onto this page)
As you know it was suggested on the forum a few months back, that i might do some farewell to Highbury art work and i said that i would have a go. I had intended to do a series of black and white drawings, and then due to time pressures that became the idea of a series of digital images based around Highbury Icons, and in the end i only had time to do one work, so I came up with 'The Last Goodbye'. I wanted to show some melancholy and reflection in the title and that led me to the images.
When thinking about what images to use out of the many I could of chosen ( i edited out of the equation, the glass dugouts, the old half time scoreboards, the North bank roof/motif, Chapman's bust and several others), but there simply wasn't space. Whereas icons like Chapman's bust - as special as they are- belong to the club rather then us fans. Most of what I have ended up with needs no introduction Gooners, but i'll mention some of them anyway with some explanation as to why i chose them.
The tube station: because it is Highbury's unique selling point, and I guess Herbert Chapman's most prominent legacy to the culture of the club other then Arsenal Stadium itself.
The Match programme: I (and a lot of us it seems) were introduced to the club around the time of the first double, and the cover features 'that great night' the year before, when the Fairs cup win marked the end of what the old guys of my father's generation called 'the big sleep' of 17 years without a trophy.
The Clock: obvious associations, but that's what we are hurtling towards now a final countdown, and we have a traditional 3PM kick off to finish with on Sunday 7 May
and other stuff that i think you know.
Always in my head is that phrase that Simon Inglis once said, something about "Highbury being the most orderly ground in the country without a line out of place", and so i've gone for the concept of design in harmony, or should that be 'Victory in Harmony'. If you haven't seen it there's another great recent piece from Brian Glanville about THOF.
Anyway here is the best I can do at the moment, feedback is welcome
Pete Mountford
5 May 2006
The company I researched are think Ink based in Ipswich and do mail order. They do A3 (420x297mm) Giclee prints at pretty decent prices £13.00 each, £10.00 for 10 prints, £9.00 for 25 prints and £6.00 for 50 prints. Probably, no one person will want more then one (although your welcome to obviously) but what i would do if you inform me of your intentions on this (i:e not a cheque just turning up unannounced) is wait until i have enough orders in from 10/25 of you and then order at the cheaper rate, which will of course be reflected in the final price
Price
The work took me about 2-3 hours to complete so i'm going to only take a fee of £30 for the work, design and concepts. On top of that is the printing costs (see above), administration (e:g phone calls to printers, packaging etc) and postal, so the estimated cost is £50 per print which is pretty damn fine for an art work. It is digitally signed but I will also hand sign each one with title too. the costs could vary slightly from this dependant on possible cheaper printing rates and postal variables
Anyway place your orders here cheques made payable to 'Pete Mounford'
Address
18 Victoria rd
Kingston - Upon - thames
KT1 3DW
tel: 07813 288791
The Last Goodbye is partly influenced by a previous work of mine (above).
Titled 'N5', it is part of an editioned handmade book titled 'Beating the Asphalt Path' that i produced for a project in 1994, whilst living in New Jersey, NJ, USA.
I chose to do a series of 5 beat poems based around roads that were important to me. these were produced - appropriately- in one night in a 'budweisser frenzy'. To accompany the poems were 5 artworks (they are NOT illustrations) that convey my take and work as one with the text. N5 is in fact the only one of the five that features an area (a collection of streets) rather then a single road. for the record: the other four in the series are 'New Jersey Turnpike' 'Westway', 'The Bowery' and 'Route 66'.
