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Rapid Hardware
Liverpool, UK - elaine - Friday, April 22nd, 2005 : goo
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Liverpool 1982. I've been here a year so there is no excuse, really. Except that I still don't know how I am ever going to be an artist. I make it into college every day eventually and stare at my space
"I'm goin down Rapid Ardware"
and I troll down into town.
Liverpool is a town with a gob on it. The college is the same. We can all talk all the time, we do all talk all the time, residents, incomers, its a city of politicised gobshites. We talk, we go to meetings, we go on marches. If you are not in a union you have to march at the back with the anarchists. This is how you discover you are an anarchist if you are one. If I could have time travelled and had access to who I am now I could have made going to Rapid Hardware my work. As it was, I just went down there and stared at the screws and stuff in an existential funk.
Liverpool was broken. I found this bit of lino near these broken windows.
Where this was was the main place in town where you got buses and the building was fenced off. The centre of town had some big heavy duty buildings - a victorian art gallery, a train station with a fancy hotel the Adelphi, where you could even go in if you were quite scruffy like us and still get served tea and cakes. Towards the docks the council and the proper business buildings and then after that the docks all really going to hell, because all that stuff, well it's like the mining industry. Not that surprising Liverpool was full of sound and fury, really. I remember the day I arrived. The riots had officially stopped, but police still carried trunchions in their hands, and riots did actually still go on, they had just stopped reporting it, was all. You could rent a room for £7 or a flat for £17 in Liverpool 8 where I was, which now sounds like I am some valuable antique and it was WW1 or something, but it was just really cheap because they were dark days.
I have sneaked back and had a look. Next door to nne of the art school buildings on Hope St there used to be some grafitti over a fire place that said "Whatever you do, don't go into the basement". The menace is long gone and it's all gentrified now. The moving finger writes and moves on.
This article has been viewed 10782 times in the last 3 years
Jamie: 24th Apr 2005 - 00:55 GMT
another highly captivating whilst refreshingly unique piece. there has been some writing of the highest calibre appearing upon these pages of late. It's a trend i hope will continue.
george: 8th May 2005 - 17:08 GMT
have you still got the lino i have developed a nasty hole in my shoe.cheers
elaine: 9th May 2005 - 19:57 GMT
hee hee yes, i have had it 20 years, so. but it is a particular kind of old fashioned weirdy lino, made of printed on pressed board rather than moderny lino, so not so good for the shoe mending
Peter: 9th Jun 2005 - 18:47 GMT
somehow, i missed this the first time around. ive jsut read it. nice!
elaine: 9th Jun 2005 - 19:06 GMT
ta, mate. it kind of goes with eye of the storm. i wanted to make some kind of art about rapid hardware because if i was who i am now i would have called going to rapid hardware my work, and taken pictures of the screws and stuff and documented my visits. i was quite bold, in a way, back then, but i did not have enough self awareness to realise the existential funk was my work, in quite a serious way. recently i have met up with a friend from those days and i was telling him about this, and he said very emphatically that going to rapid hardware was my work, so i made this posting in honour of that missed inhibited opportunity, in homage to the notion that it might be enough to stare at screws
martin : 7th Feb 2006 - 10:28 GMT
you must stop smelling the glue it not that good for you. Your comments made me feel quite sad...for you.
Liverpool is is jusy like any other city. You need to get out more !
Dave Nes: 7th Nov 2006 - 15:15 GMT
Reading this as prompted me to think your not a full shilling, a bit suicidal I can imagine. If your still alive start taking the medicine and try and have a positive outlook in life as its clear you are a very lonely person and without doubt a pretender if you think you are any type of artist. On top of all this your most probably not a bad person just a sad one
Johny DIY: 18th Nov 2006 - 21:01 GMT
I logged onto Google looking for Rapid Hardware, in search of a radiator, haaving read some of the above comments in particular the "artist" I cant help feeling looking for a bit of warmth are the least of some peoples problems, maybe she could send some lino and we could have a littl fire instead
PABLOMERSEY: 27th Dec 2006 - 15:48 GMT
Well Elaine you sound like you don't like our city ?
If that is the case get out of it and give someone a chance from Liverpool. Im fed up with whinging people like you who call our city, taking places from people who are from Liverpool and surrounding areas, have the qualifications and don't get a place because they have to keep place for the likes of you !
Go back to which ever town you crawled from, Maggot !
Catherine Penfold-Waxman: 19th Feb 2007 - 15:01 GMT
Just found this thread. Those last few comments are not only mean-spirited but way off the mark.
In the very first line Elaine establishes it's Liverpool of 1982, during a much rougher time. She's studying art, which means she's studying everything -- herself, her flat, marchers, buildings, lino and the screws at the local hardware store. It may seem introverted, but she is talking about a very thoughtful time, and I expect, a very formative part of her life.
Elaine is not dissing Liverpool. She is sharing her existential experience.
Chris: 22nd Mar 2007 - 15:10 GMT
Just read the piece its pritty poor, i guess its supposed to be creative writing but its jumbled hard to read and pointless whats rapid got to do with living in a cheap flat amoungst rioting scousers? lol i worked in rapid for 3 years and there were plenty of wierdos coming in like you but mostly they eventually bourght something!
Lesley: 4th Sep 2007 - 10:25 GMT
I loved the article, it really conjurs up lots of images, I was born and bred in Liverpool, our house had the same sort of lino, but it was yellow and black. My Sister still lives in Liverpool and Rapid Hardware is her Temple, she has to have her "fix" at least once a week, as for the comments of Pablomersey, where does his anger come from? Chris, you need to work on your spelling mate!
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