The Writing's On the Wall

Stephen Raw’s latest creation towers high above Old Trafford. Sheila Simpson meets the artist behind the script in the crypt.

Last month, my involvement as a peace activist and a casual conversation about the role of the artist in the political arena led me to the discovery of the tower of St John’s Church, Ayres Road and its eye-catching image, then to an encounter with Stephen Raw, its creator.

Enthused by this urban beacon, I very much wanted to meet the artist and explore further the Peace Tower project, a process that had been inspired and initiated by Stephen and his old friend the Rev. John Hughes.

There was something snug about this distinctive red brick city church, sitting amongst the terraced shops and houses. I was introduced to Stephen Raw as he emerged from the crypt that he has been using as his studio.

Stephen discovered his gift at an early age, drawing constantly. He was awarded 10 out of 10 for his art work from an early age.

“I did lots of art and enjoyed it,” he says. “I won prizes. I remember one teacher’s sit-up-and-beg type, bright blue Austin car; drawing it. I drew my own fonts at an early age. I remember vividly learning copperplate writing and the teacher Mr Abbott saying that the most important part of the word is the first letter, it has a hierarchy. I knew it.”

The beauty of lettering has stayed with him. “It was the variety in drawing that grabbed me. There are so many ways to draw an ‘A’”

Perhaps Stephen looks at letters and words in a way that is different to the rest of us. “I spell things wrong. I’m looking at the shape of letters and I misspell, so I will write ‘secet’ instead of ‘secret’.”

Stephen’s fascination with lettering has taken him as far afield as the Western Isles of Scotland and Papua New Guinea, where he encountered a very different artistic tradition.

“I’d been a lecturer on a fairly narrow design course, essentially for print, typography and lettering, when the Papua New Guinea opportunity arose. It had been a long ambition to work in a third world country, so the experience fulfilled two aims. I met guys there who cut lettering that I’d drawn up, they did fantastic wood sculptures from their strict, massive heritage. And they couldn’t even read, it was pure form!

When we have been reading all our lives, it becomes difficult to recall the strangeness of the shapes of letters, those first marks we made as children before we could even read and write. It is this pure shape that fascinates Stephen.

“When you see language made visible,” he explains, “like a piece of lettering, you don’t actually have to read a word of it – it could be hieroglyphics.

Even something quite scratchy and scribbly, you would know there has been a certain effort put into it.”

Although it may be the form of letters that most interests Stephen Raw, his most visible work in Old Trafford has meaning that is impossible to escape. The Peace Tower signals us. Surprised, we gaze up at it, halted by the shape of the letters, inspired to think about art, about the making of it. And maybe also about the making of peace. Peace on our streets, in the world, in our own hearts.

The idea for the artwork grew from a quotation by Rev Donald Soper: “Peace is the fruit of justice and can grow on no other tree.” It is an unavoidably political message. Or is it?

“I don’t have much of that debate, about art and politics, other than that party politics are transient and I am interested in something that has a longer life.” Despite that, Stephen is involved in a piece of work at the moment that focuses on the figures 4 and 5, going to make up ‘45’, the number of minutes that we were told it would take for Saddam Hussein to launch weapons of mass destruction. “It was that mendacious language that led to the dodgy dossier that led to the Iraq war. That is, in 45 minutes he could release the wickedness.”

Is it part of the job of the artist to be subversive?

“I can’t pretend that I am subversive in all that I do - only if I am curious about it.”

Emerging from the crypt I felt like a privileged traveller, one who had been on a long journey and had suddenly begun to recognise again the unfamiliar.

”Artwork as an image, that’s all I ask.” Stephen had said, laughing wistfully; the eternal prayer of the artist. The words stayed with me. A simple plea, but how rarely do any of us, in this frenetic, speed ridden age, respond?


	Story	Shelia Simpson
	Photos	Rachel Adams

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