The Big Issue

In February 2015, Rebecca Pringle and I met up at the Big Issue in Edinburgh. I’d been helping out with the Souper Saturday postcard art sale and offered a portrait as a raffle prize. Becca, Outreach Sales Worker at the Big Issue at the time, had the winning ticket and asked if I would like to do something for their Queensferry Street office. I jumped at it.

There was a big open space above the stair facing the front desk, so we measured up for a large grid of portraits of all the vendors working at that time. For simplicity and with due respect to people's peace, I worked from everyone’s official photograph, taken on their first day at work. I managed to get all the images painted by the end of July and the final grid was framed and up on the wall ready for the unveiling in early October 13th, 2015. The staff organised a lovely ceremony, with Edinburgh Rugby’s Michael Allen doing the honours.

The portraits hang at Queensferry Street as a lasting tribute to vendors and staff.

Here’s an extract from what I said on the day: 

“The piece aims to show everyone’s potential – an equality of worth – and how much chance plays in people’s fortune or misfortune; a kind of ‘Play Your Cards Right’...

... I wanted to inject an unbeatable optimism into the paintings and pass on the message that we are Everyman. The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members. If we lose empathy we have nothing.”

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