Earlier in the week, the plan was that I would go and sketch during Adam Ant's York gig- and possibly get a more detailed drawing of him backstage. Sadly, on Thursday night, I got a message from Vicky, the editor of 'One and Other,' to say that Adam Ant had declined being sketched- even a very quick doodle.
In order to compensate for the lost Adam Ant 'sting,' I was assigned to go a sketch the Mayor of York during interview.
Friday afternoon, I met writer Ben Osborne from 'One and Other,' in front of the mayor's smart Georgion home, 'Mansion House.' Ben and I waited outside the tradesman's entrance, down the side of the mansion, nervously expecting a snooty butler. Instead we were greeted warmly by the mayor himself, who led us up in the lift, to his 'granny flat.'
It felt a little like going to visit your grandad. The mayor chatted amiably about sports he likes, how he's not really into all that art, that gallery stuff.
After a generous amount of time alloted for interview plus sketching, we were given a tour of his extensive house. The moment that will stay with me forever, is when we were shown down the grand staircase, lined with portraits of mayors from hundreds of years past, I reached the bottom step, and tripped on half a jug of orange juice, which had been left there by a servant or steward in absent mindedness. I cringed and apologised in embarrasment, but The Mayor dismissed it with a wave of a hand, and said he'd send someone round to deal with it.
Once we left the sturdy, elegant house, steeped in history, and left the friendly down to earth host, we were back into the street, with throngs of schoolkids from Middlesborough, and day trippers from Toledo and Texas, ambling the gamut of tourist-traps.
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