Back in December, the University of Wolverhampton and Spaceplay announced a competition to win one of Spaceplay’s sold-out micro-sculptures of the School of Art. Entrants were invited to share their memories and stories of the school. This was pretty much my daily destination between September 1990 and July 1993 while I was a student there and the location of many fond memories. Below is my winning entry! And below that, an unboxing of the prize…

SpacePlay’s rendering of ‘The Milk Crate’

What's your strongest memory of the School of Art?

I studied Fine Art (sculpture) there between 1990 and 1993. I loved the course and would often go in to my studio space over the weekend to work, though most students did not take this option. One wintery evening in 1992, I was working alone in the sculpture pit on floor 6, sewing together scraps of roofing lead with wire to create strange, organic 3-D forms (I still have this rather ugly sculpture). The work was slow and precise and it was easy to zone out while working. I lost track of time, estimating it to be late afternoon but knew that the security officer would appear at 5pm to announce when the building was closing. By the time it grew dark enough for me to put the lights on in the studio, I realised it must have surely gone 5pm. I took the lift down to the ground floor and sure enough the building was empty and I was locked in. My immediate response was to go back to work on my lead sculptures, glad to have some extra time. By nightfall proper, the heating had turned off and it was getting cold. I was also getting hungry. I found some tinned goods on the Illustration floor, beautifully rebranded with a student’s handmade label designs. Survival instinct engaged, I hacked these open with a screwdriver and heated up some curried beans (with raisins) on a portable hotplate that I had in my studio. I went back to work but by late evening, I was freezing and went to look for more food. A second sweep of the floors turned up only cinnamon Tic Tacs and a carton of Ribena. I felt the urgent need to leave and resolved to escape. On the side of the School of facing the Molineux Stadium, scaffolding had been erected for the full height of the building. I knew my window would slide open as the screw keeping it shut was missing (opening the windows since some tie after 1971 was strictly forbidden). Dare I risk climbing down the scaffold? Yes—the call of a hot food and a soft, warm bed was too great. I stepped out onto the ledge, closed the window behind me and began my descent down the scaffold lattice. I seem to remember there were wooden platforms and ladders connecting the levels, but that these had been chained closed to stop people using them to get in. By focusing on each successive hand- and foot-hold, I could avoid thinking about the sheer drop or being seen. My memory of the descent is of how cold it was rather than how scary. I landed safely and minutes later was walking home, past The Feathers where I had enjoyed many after-hours lock-ins, relishing the rare feeling of freedom and gratitude to be on solid ground. I vowed never to tell anyone for thirty years. If you studied Illustration at Wolverhampton in the early 90s and came in one Monday to find your illustration project ruined, well we need to talk…

The boxed concrete sculpture made by SpacePlay is a beautiful object and I’m thrilled to own it. As much time and thought has gone into the packaging as making the sculpture. It is housed in an almost Mecca-like mysterious black cube with no external clues to the contents or who made it. A small card shows a detail of the building, including the octagonal windows like the one I escaped from (these are less clear on the small scale of the sculpture itself, so it is nice to have this extra detail in another medium. The block itself is protected by several layers of grey foam. A T Shirt and tote bag accompanied the box when it arrived last week.

I dug out some photos of the Art School and my sculptures from this time at the request of the U of W and share some here. The red rubber objects are dog toys twisted into nine different shapes. My friend Phil Beech owned the original—or maybe his dog ‘Orph’ owned it— and while playing with it, I realised it naturally would hold its shape in a variety of forms. I set about trying to find them all by outsourcing the work to likely ‘noodlers’. Eight came back over a few days and then a ninth (shown in the 1 o’clock position) was discovered by Kath Gardner some weeks later—a eureka moment for those ‘in the loop’. Print tutor Pete Olly remarked that it was the most complete sculpture he had seen.

The last photo is of fellow student Kulbir Sohal, pictured outside the art block in Winter 1991/2. The cosmic jacket she is wearing was actually mine! What can I say, it was the 90s…

Spaceplay for the Win