Selfridges - Bright Old Things, Day Three

Overheard today outside my Oxford St window:

"That's the coolest window ..."

"A record player ? I don't think you'd ever use it ."

"Oh dear ..."


"Can we have a picture with you, we really like your work."

Finished the day in the rather wonderful Selfridges food hall 

Selfridges - Bright Old Things, Day Two

Found myself photographing a person photographing me - turns out he's a Northern Irish freelance photographer on a weekend break with his wife and his camera in London. He's sending me his photos - watch this space.

Selfridges - Bright Old Things - Retreading History

From Bright Old Things newspaper - available free in store

http://www.selfridges.com/content/article/bright-old-things-roger-miles?cm_sp=botlanding-_-profile-_-rogermiles

Photos by Todd Selby

Selfridges - Bright Old Things - Launch Day

For official launch info see:

http://www.selfridges.com/content/article/bright-old-things-roger-miles?cm_sp=botlanding-_-profile-_-rogermiles 

Will be there on Oxford St until end of February 2015.

7 am image - only final tweaking to go

Big press photo shoot completed - final window at 10am.

Selfridges, Bright Old Things - The Independent

Bright Old Things: the old-timers who have found a late burst of creativity

Who says ageing means slowing down? As an exhibition celebrating their work opens at Selfridges, Genevieve Roberts meets the artists enjoying second or third careers.

Genevieve Roberts

Monday, 5 January 2015

"I'm thrilled to be ancient. I could only wish that everyone has as wonderful an old age as me," says Molly Parkin, 82, fashion editor turned writer and painter, who is one of 14 leading designers and artists exhibiting her work in the windows of Selfridges from Thursday.

For once, this isn't a celebration of the potential of youth, as with the previous three years of Selfridges' new talent project. Instead, these creators, many whom are approaching, or are beyond, traditional retirement age, are enjoying second or third careers. And these Bright Old Things – who include the retailer turned designer Nick Wooster, the punk musician Bruno Wizard, former accountant turned artist Roger Miles and policewoman turned artist Sand Laurenson – are part of an increasing brigade of Britons who see career fulfilment soar with maturity.
Parkin believes that living through the Blitz taught her to "learn to treasure life and make something of it", and has no intention of retiring. "Painting is my life. I wake up and start painting," she says. The Goldsmiths graduate, now sober for 27 years after many years of alcohol dependency, has always admired older people. "My oldest lover was 81, when I was 22," she remembers. "I gave my virginity to a man 30 years older than me. I had wonderful grandparents, and my grandfathers were the most important element in my life. The most difficult part of life is the middling years, when you're leaving a particular radiance of youth behind."

(Cyanotype prints by Roger Miles - for sale in store.)                            

Roger Miles, 57, is also enjoying a retirement renaissance.
The former chartered accountant, who worked for Deloitte for 32 years, recently graduated from Chelsea College of Arts with a degree in fine art. "With the age of political leaders and CEOs decreasing, youth seems more fashionable than experience. Most of us felt that we'd done as much as we could by our early 50s at Deloitte, where 53 or 54 is the average retirement age," he says. "I didn't want to go to the golf course every day. I wanted to make things – it's wonderful to see something come out of a plain piece of paper and my inspiration comes from dipping into my personal history." 

As for the term Bright Old Things,Roger Miles is flattered. "I'm just happy to be called bright," he says.


He is joined by Michael Lisle-Taylor, 45, who was in the Navy for 12 years before becoming a sculptor. He believes younger people's attitudes towards work have a positive influence on all generations. "When people had a career for life, there was not a lot of advice, we just went into something our parents had followed, or we had seen locally," he says. "I think we're inspired by young people's attitudes – their bravery – while realising the value of our skills. There's a fearlessness that people can lose because of previous mistakes, and increasing responsibility with age makes people cautious. But experience gives older generations more self-confidence."

A spokesperson for Selfridges, which is giving each Bright Old Thing a high-street window, with events, performances and products sold in store, says: "We've noticed, over the past three to five years, the profile of our suppliers starting to change, with an increasing number of emerging brands created by an older generation of entrepreneurs. Most have had previous careers and decided one day to negotiate a sea change in their life and start something afresh. This prompted us to look into how we could celebrate what we see as a trend. It's about shifting the focus from our youth-obsessed culture onto the tremendous appeal and huge creativity to be found within older generations."

It is a trend seen across all areas of employment. A Scottish Widows survey found that eight per cent of people choose a career change upon "retiring", while one in 20 start their own business. The actor Daniel Day-Lewis, 57, is part-way through a five-year stonemasonry apprenticeship, while the former Blur drummer Dave Rowntree, 50, now works as a solicitor for the City law firm Kingsley Napley.

Economics plays its part in people's choice to continue work. Sand Laurenson, 54, who worked for the London Metropolitan Police while bringing up two children before becoming the Royal Academy's oldest postgraduate student in 2002, says: "Many socio-economic influences are at play. The days of retiring from one job aged 62, with an adequate pension and gold pocket watch, are simply not attainable for most of us. Some may see their options diminished by this, I see (had to see) it opening my options."
Bruno Wizard, 64, who performs in punk band The Homosexuals, was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease six months ago. He says, "I've never regarded myself as old – I won't feel old when I'm 90 – no way! I get energy from ideas, and satisfaction from bringing them into a shared world. The establishment knows it can't sustain the baby boom generation with the NHS, and one angle is to make older people aware of being useful economic units."

But, as Wizard says, this is only one factor. Wendy Loretto, Professor of organisational behaviour at the University of Edinburgh, believes that "it is too simple to suggest that this growing phenomenon is simply financial – many people are motivated to do something different, to give back, to pursue hobbies as careers. We are midway through research for the Extending Working Lives Project, which suggests that there is a lot more entrepreneurial activity among older people. We're catching up with countries such as Finland, where 'active ageing' is seen as a life stage, rather than a decline."
Jonathan Collie founded Trading Times last year to connect employers with over-50s. More than 300 small and medium-size businesses have signed up, and last month, Barclays became the first corporate member. He says that the primary reasons why his candidates work is to give them a sense of purpose, and seek fulfilment. They want to give back to society. Financial motivation comes as the fifth reason, and is important as people value older people's skills.

Collie believes that the change in attitude is overdue. "Stereotypical language surrounding over-50s includes crumbling health and redundant skills, rather than talk of trading on experiences," he says. "People have 20 extra years of healthy life expectancy – they don't want to spend them sitting in front of the television."

Perhaps, as Laurenson suggests, it's the difference between society seeing people as old, or mature. "I veer between feeling ancient and juvenile on a daily basis," she says. "When I make work, I feel ageless. My aim is to burn bright and die old. Age is not something to be respected per se: some older people, creative or not, have lived long and learned nothing from their experiences. Maturity is different, it has to be earned."

Selfridges - Bright Old Things - Press Biography

ROGER MILES

Previous Career: Chartered Accountant 

Current Career: Artist and Consultant

Roger Miles  worked for 32  years as a chartered accountant for Deloitte, and was a senior partner for 20 years. In 2009, he hung up his abacus and went to Chelsea College of Arts, being awarded a BA in Fine Art with 1st class honours.

Roger’s final  College show in 2014  was an immersive experience that focused  on the interaction between visitor  and  artist. The installation recreated  a ‘70s  record  store in a mobile  library, with most of the contents coming from  his previous art residency at a recycling centre. He is interested in collections and in memorialising objects and their  histories. Bright Old Things marks Roger’s second stint  at Selfridges, of  which he says: “During Christmas in 1975, I worked for  four  weeks in the bedspread department. I  had just started  my   accounting  degree,  Bohemian Rhapsody was  at number one and punk music was just  around the corner. I  was working hard to convince customers to convert from  bedspreads to the new-fangled duvet from  Scandinavia. Almost 40 years later, I have returned as an artist – just don’t ask me about tog values…”

Framed  cyanotype prints (£275) in  six styles  will be sold in-store and  online, as  well  as  a  one-of-a-kind mixed media  canvas (£2,750). The  canvas  artwork will be showcased across framed and unframed prints, a notebook and tote bag (£40, £10, £12.50 and £15)

Selfridges - Bright Old Things 2015, Artist's Statement

Selfridges - Bright Old Things - Roger M Miles – Artist’s statement

My Art Practice

Collecting, memorialising, petrifying, cannibalising and recording – my practice attempts to combine these processes with found objects and their histories, through the creative processes of sculpture, installations and printmaking.

The resulting work activates discarded items, disrupts imagined histories and celebrates both the materiality and the past of the altered objects.

The work is not about nostalgia but more about looking at what lessons we can learn today from the events of the past. The work is didactic by nature, and I enjoy sharing my experiences and the stories of the objects with the viewer.

Past art projects

For two months, in the summer of 2013, I was artist-in-residence at my local recycling and re-use centre, with full access to all items headed for landfill. The project was wide ranging and included researching the journey of a discarded object, observing society’s need to both dispose of and collect consumer goods, discussing the history of objects with their owners and responding to the melancholia attached to the objects.

My final degree show installation, Resonate/Generate, was my imagining of the arrival, at the recycling and re-use site, of a discarded mobile library, with my dream contents from the 70s. I was 13 years old at the start of this formative decade and, by the end, I had completed my first degree and started work as a trainee chartered accountant. The installation is a memorial to my experience and the poignant effect of this time. As well as triggering memories, the work also raises questions about how much progress we have made as a society in the past 50 years, as well as being an immersive and entertaining experience.

Bright Old Things

I worked in Selfridges’ bedspread department for 4 weeks during the Christmas of 1975. I was 18, had just started my accountancy studies degree at Exeter University and everything was exciting and an opportunity.

However, the UK was almost bankrupt, inflation had risen to 24%, Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen was no.1, bomb alerts and bomb scares were the norm, people were even changing from bedspreads to Scandinavian duvets – you felt that something had to give…

But it was not all doom and gloom. The Sex Pistols had just given their first public performance, punk music was just around the corner, Fawlty Towers aired for the first time, Margaret Thatcher had become the first female leader of the Tory party and the Sex Discrimination and Equal Pay Acts were brought in.

So what was I doing, whilst all around me things were changing? 

Well, I was lost in music, cars, girls and, to some extent, accountancy studies.

This led to a successful thirty year career with Deloitte and a great family life. Then, 5 years ago I thought, in the words of Neil Young, I won’t retire but I might retread. So I went to art school.

Now, almost 40 years after my bedspread experience, I have returned as an artist to Selfridges, more experienced but not necessarily any the wiser. My window is a memorial to a 70s record store selling my perfect selection of vinyl records of the 70s – a safe haven from the turmoil outside - everyone with heads full of music.

Roger M Miles – October 2014