The Dave Pearson Trust

A bit of a longish day today, and am only just back home at 22:30 after various errands, visits and meetings over in the so-called Pennine Lancashire (effectively the east bit of Lancashire bordering West Yorkshire). This newish name and re-brand is one of the last offerings in blue sky thinking made by the late-great Anthony H Wilson (he of Factory Records and Fac 51 Haçienda fame) just before he died.

The highlight of today was undoubtedly a very brief visit to the Dave Pearson Trust in Haslingden to meet Julian and Jackie, the Directors of the local See Gallery and who represent this Trust linked to a late local artists' estate. I only discovered the artist and the work of the Trust a couple of weeks back, and was then very kindly invited to come and see the work for myself.

When he died in 2008, Dave Pearson left behind 15,000 pieces of unsold artwork all stored in his semi-derelict terrace house studio. Following his death, a group of his family, close friends and colleagues set up the Trust in his memory and began to slowly catalogue all his art, and restore the crumbling studio to provide a permanent home as legacy for the life works.

Now that is what you call good friends.

If interested, a London exhibition of his work called To Byzantium and Beyond has only just closed last week at the Bermondsey Project Space in London. In addition to this, the film To Byzantium is also about Dave Pearson and was a Finalist at the 2012 New York Film and Television Festival.