Resist linguistic fascism!

BBC News - Northern and Midlands trainee teachers 'told to change their accents' http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-43667635

Hat-trick of Manc posters!

One poster good, three posters better, to paraphrase George Orwell. Paul and Jackie Lomas came to my stall at Altrincham Market over the weekend and bought three of my posters - the Mancunian Way, Stretford and Altrincham. Look pretty good, I think, as a nice little triptych. Next weekend it's Urmston and the Northern Quarter, and I'm back at Altrincham the following Sunday. Happy Easter (if such a thing is possible in this foul weather). Cheers - Eric www.statementartworks.com

Stretford, Altrincham and the Mancunian Way...a hat-trick of cheeky posters!

Get your skates on...down to Altrincham market!

Ayup, Easter greetings from Statement Artworks. We're at Altrincham market today (Friday), Saturday and Sunday, and at Knutsford on Sunday, and while it may be brass monkeys, you'll get a warm welcome from me and my wife Jane. As usual I'll have all the local stuff (Altrincham, Urmston, Timperley etc) for sale, as well as newbies Wythenshawe and the Manchester Manifesto. Oh, and I've got a new range of birthday cards featuring my Mancunian Way poster! Hopefully see you there - Eric

www.statementartworks.com

Skating, in late March...quite possibly!

Making Manchester even more magnificent

Here is my Manchester Manifesto, contained in my latest poster (see below). Forget the left, the right or the centre, if we followed this path, everything in the world (well, south of Preston and north of Macclesfield) would be just dandy. So stick that in your London-centric pipes, Corbyn and May, and smoke it. The Manchester Manifesto is on sale, along with my newly-adapted Mancunian Way birthday card (also below), at Altrincham Market on Friday, Saturday and Sunday over Easter, and at Knutsford Market on Sunday. See you there.

EDUCATION, EDUCATION, EDUCATION
Birmingham, England’s second city? You’ve got to be joking.

SCRAP HS2!
Half an hour off the train journey  to London – who cares?

ZERO TOLERANCE!
Of lazy London-centric media folk who use ‘grim’ or ‘oop’ whenever they refer to the north.

LET US EAT CAKE!
Eccles or Chorley ones, please.

CROWN A MANC MONARCH!
It’s either King Colin of Bell or King Eric of Cantona.

ALL STAND FOR THE MANC ANTHEM!
Station Approach by Elbow, an ode to Piccadilly, the gateway to the best city in the world.

BUILD A WALL!
Those Yorkshire folk have got to be stopped migrating over the Pennines to civilisation somehow.

BETTER DEAD THAN RED!
No child shall be encouraged to support Liverpool. Ever! Same goes for Leeds United and Chelsea.

A NEW BANK HOLIDAY!
In honour of Tony Wilson, our late spiritual leader.

SELF-RULE FOR CHORLTON
Recognise the right of the trendy enclave to operate entirely according to its own liberal, yoghurt-knitting, vegan agenda. Build its new parliament as an extension to the Unicorn co-operative vegan superstore.

STRONG AND STABLE
Old Toms all round, on prescription! The beer, one of Greater Manchester’s strongest and produced by Robinsons Brewery, is laughing juice and after two you’re barely stable. So lovely though.

RISE UP, MANCUNIANS AND PARTY!
Nothing new there, but let’s not do any more of that 24-hour stuff.

GIVE PEACE A CHANCE!
Let’s call a truce with our nice Scouse neighbours over in Liverpool. Don’t like that idea? Well just calm down, calm down.

There's the left, the right or the centre. Then there's bang on!

Happy birthday, Mancunian Way style

Mancunian Way birthday card

Coming soon - the Mancunian Way birthday card!

Mancunian Way birthday card

Manchester manifesto, by Eric Jackson, Statement Artworks

I got really angry with a feature in the Daily Mail recently about the Labour Party and the North. It used a picture of mills and chimneys belching smoke, probably taken 70 years ago. Anyway, that, and other similar southern-centric rubbish that depicts northerners as backwards cloggies living in squalor has inspired me to do my latest poster, the Manchester manifesto.

Manchester manifesto

Markets this weekend. Yes, really!

Statement Artworks markets

I'm now officially bonkers. This Saturday I'm at Urmston market and on Sunday it's Knutsford. Hopefully the mercury will rise just a tad to stop my fingers and toes dropping off. I'll have all my usual stuff for sale, plus the newbies shown here. See you at the weekend (huskies optional).

Cheers - Eric

Mancunian Way, Statement Artworks

Oldham and Saddleworth poster, Eric Jackson

Black Chew Head. When I heard that such a place existed on the moors high above Oldham, I had to use it in the poster. But not only does it sound odd, it also happens to be the highest place in Greater Manchester, hence the high society caption in the poster. The area around Oldham and Saddleworth is dotted with spectacular views and walks, and on a nice day it can rival anywhere in the country. And as for the town's swanky new cinema tagged on to the old town hall, well that's something special indeed. www.statementartworks.com

Oldham and Saddleworth poster by Eric Jackson, www.statementartworks.com

Two new post-Christmas posters - Wythenshawe and Bowdon

Wythenshawe and Bowdon, two South Manchester places that are quite close geographically but miles apart demographically, which is why doing this northern poster malarkey is so much fun! And it shows I've not just been sitting on my arse doing nothing since Christmas.

Wythenshaw poster - by Statement Artworks

Wythenshawe

It was a wonderful dream on a post-war town planner's drawing board. Houses fit for heroes on a large, modern estate, or 'garden city', with none of that old mish-mash of narrow streets and diverse design. No, this was going to be uniform, clean and functional. And my parents bought into that dream, so that was the first Jackson family home, in Baguley, a district of Wythenshawe, the new town on the edge of Manchester which became the largest estate in Europe. Most of my aunts and uncles and cousins lived there too. But the dream turned sour, and Wythenshawe became a byword for problem families, crime and town planning gone mad. What's this, though? Wythenshawe, by degrees, is turning itself around, thanks in no small part to the tram line and the train line, both going to the nearby airport and the city centre. Young singles and families are discovering that the housing stock is affordable and not too bad either. Posh apartment blocks are springing up, and the once-dire Civic Centre is looking lively again. Just a pity the old theatre is no longer functioning. Now that would have been the icing on the cake for the new Wythenshawe. This poster in available at statementartworks.com in any size you like!

Bowdon poster - by Statement Artworks

Bowdon

Whereas its nearby neighbour Hale loves to flaunt its chi-chi trendiness, affluence and desirability, Bowdon presents itself as understated, restrained and 'old money'. Hence there's not a lot going on really - a few posh gastro pubs, a posh hotel, a posh looking green with a few posh shops, posh sports clubs,  and a posh Indian restaurant. Oh yes, it's posh, especially when you look beyond the high hedges and gates and wonder at some of the finest houses - indeed mansions - in the whole of Cheshire. Wow, are they grand, which is why they say you're going 'up the hill' when you go from Altrincham or Hale, and that is meant in so many ways. Footballers, TV stars and the generally well-wadded live there, in a very understated way, of course. This poster is available through statementartworks.com at any size you like.

From Whalley Range to London via Stockport!

That's four boardrooms I'm in now! Last week I took six framed posters to JL Advisory LLP, an accountancy firm in central Stockport. This picture shows the three landscape shaped posters, while the portrait shaped ones are out of shot. The partners picked the images according to where they all live, hence the Heatons, Whalley Range, Stockport and Poynton. They added the Manchester Powerhouse and London posters just because they liked them, I presume.

I actually customised all the posters to include the company name, which is shown on the Stockport poster below.

Thanks ladies, great doing business with you.

If you would like me to do the same for your company, please contact me on statementartworks@gmail.com

Cheers - Eric

Bespoke Manchester Alphabet from Statement Artworks

Put your loved one's name in

the Manchester hall of fame!

The original Manchester Alphabet

And the bespoke version...

I started doing them as presents for friends, but now they are taking off with the public - my bespoke Manchester Alphabet posters. So in this example, I've changed the original P is for....to P is for Phil Jones, who is my mate over the road. I've added some other details and used his name in the headline too. All I charge for the work is an extra tenner on top of the framed and poster prices. Just contact me on statementartworks@gmail.com if you fancy having one done for you, a friend or relative. And if you live in Sale, check out my Sale poster on www.statementartworks.com - the strap line at the bottom could easily carry your name or street or both!

MANCUNIAN WAY, by Eric Jackson, Statement artworks

The Mancunian way is not to be confused with the Mancunian Way. The former - the mindset and spirit of the city's people - is very special indeed. However, the road of that name, with a capital W, is about as horrible as it gets. Has anyone ever travelled on it and not be gripped by terror at where to come off and what lane to use, or indeed where the bloody hell they are? My Gran used to have a flat right next to it in All Saints, and she'd say, " Eric, i love it here, because the lights at night are fabulous, what with all the different colours and the speed. Champion." She said champion - a sadly dying northernism - quite a lot, but on the subject of the Mancunian Way I had to disagree with her. Not champion, Gran! So you're not likely to see a smiling couple on a Vespa any time soon on the Mancunian Way, buy hey, I love Vespas, and I quite like couples who smile while motorbiking (see the film Priceless), and I love Manchester, in spite of the Mancunian Way! Great Ancoats Street - now there's a road - and being transformed into something amazing. Go to the Port Street Beer House, and then go for a wander. My Gran and I did that years ago when it was the heart of the textile industry, and it still sends a tingle down my spine.

The MANCUNIAN WAY, by Eric Jackson, www.statementartworks.com

My posters in Niche Consulting boardroom

Most of my posters and associated products are usually bought by individiuals, but occasionally i get orders from firms in the region.

Recently it was my pleasure to supply a number of framed posters to Niche Consulting in Eccles, a company that specialises in health and social care work.

I dealt with one of the partners, Kate Jury, who had previously bought some smaller works off me at the Treacle Market in Macclesfield.

When I called at the offices, I found Kate and the rest of the firm really welcoming and enthusiastic about my posters.

Says Kate: "We were in the process of trying to give our office a new 'identity' and found Eric's artwork by chance. We knew instantly that his work would be perfect for us and we love the way that he pokes (always kind) fun at suburban characteristics in and around Manchester and the North.

"The really difficult thing was trying to choose which pictures to buy as we could have bought the entire back catalogue! In the end it came down to a vote and purchased 8 large ones and 3 small ones - we are delighted with how they look.

"Eric also provides superb customer service and, if you get chance to have a cuppa with him, he is a fantastically interesting fellow with some great insights and stories".

The feeling was entirely mutual. Such a fabulous bunch of people!

Just three of the posters in the Niche Consulting boardroom

Whalley Range poster by Eric Jackson, Statement Artworks

Whalley Range. Just the name sounds Wild West. Well, it was wild once, in the sense that drugs and prostitution were its main industries. But now the 'prozzies' have been replaced, slowly, by professionals, and it's becoming so gentrified that the term 'ChoBo' has been coined, by estate agents, to indicate it's the 'Chorlton borders.' Sick, obviously, but let's not forget the fact that Whalley Range possesses some of the finest buildings and streets in the whole of Manchester. It's real, old Manchester. Gritty and gorgeous in equal amounts, rich and poor, trendy and trackies cheek by jowl. And to cap it all there's the Carlton Club, as old school as you can get, but more wonderful and special than any arsey posers' club in the city centre. You'd have to be a real wally not to love Whalley Range. Love goes out to Laurence Hopkins, a mate and one-time resident of the Range, who helped me with the research. www.statementartworks.com

Framed A2 Sale poster by Statement Artworks

It's a strong and stable composition...or is it a composition of chaos? Hey, who cares about cheap slogans, it's just a picture painted by me about Sale in Greater Manchester, or is that Cheshire, or should we just say Trafford? Goddamit, why can't things be clear-cut in life? One thing I do know, though, is that this is my first framed A2 print of my new Sale picture (it's signed accordingly), and it's going on sale (more confusion) this Saturday and Sunday at Altrincham market, for £50, or you can reserve it, by emailing on statementartworks@gmail.com. First come first serve, first past the post, that sort of thing, just to labour the political metaphor. Anybody would think some kind of strange, weird election had taken place! Of course I'll have lots of smaller framed and mounted versions, too. We are also at the Northern Quarter market on Sunday.

And just one last thing. Went to London on Monday and Tuesday, and my London poster (also attached) never seemed more appropriate. Had a great time in Twickenham (very nice) with our lovely mates, and then it went downhill in the city itself. Southwark, home of Tate Modern, used to be our favourite bit, but now it looks like an even worse Dubai - crap apartment blocks creating wind tunnels, noice, congestion and a dystopian cityscape straight out of Orwell. Vile, and then we paid over £10 for two pints in a bog-standard pub. How do people cope with that? Ah, that train to Piccadilly...

Anyway, hope to bump into you in wonderful Altrincham and theNorthern Quarter over the weekend.

Worsley, deliciously rich Tomato Soupville!

No, it's not polluted - it's the iron oxide, or something like that, that seeps into the water, which gives the Bridgewater Canal in Worsley its distinctive orange colour, an almost identical hue to that of tomato soup, in fact (many thanks to my old mate Simon Donohue for coming up with that comparison). And that, along with the classy Arts and Crafts homes and buildings, makes Worsley one of the most sought-after districts north of the Irwell. The jewel in Salford's crown. Deliciously rich! So cool is it, in fact, that it was recently featured in the The Great British Interior Design Challenge. Now that's trendy. This poster, by Eric Jackson, is available from A4 size all the way up to A1, through statementartworks.com and at the usual markets and selected shops/galleries.

Worsley, good enough to drink!

Man City Pep Guardiola poster by Eric Jackson, Statement Artworks

You don't have to be a rabid Blue to see that Pep Guardiola is just the tonic the Premiership needed, offering a brand of football that is off the scale wonderful. Of course this poster may come back to bite me on the bum if it all goes disastrously wrong this year, but if City do fail it won't be through a lack of adventure, style or class. And sorry to all my United mates (to whom I am a curious aberration), but it's only a gentle joke at your expense, and you might just have the last laugh.

The poster is available to buy at www.statementartworks.com