The theme this year for the Nelson Arts Festival is Vintage Tattoo. Our graphics tutor, Klaasz, organised an installation of several large illustrated boards to decorate Founders park as part of the festival. Wanting to support the project and be involved I decided to submit a design on behalf  our writing class. We decided to use an anchor as a basis for the design, the anchor is a classic tattoo symbol, and with Nelson being a port, it seemed appropriate.

In one of our writing classes, inspired by this article about the tattoo’s of a 2,500 year old Siberian Princess, we wrote a series of poems on the theme of tattoos. After some editing and decision making we came up with the following collaborative poem which we painted on the anchor:

A message in blue venom

Spells warning in a foreign port

She wears the signature of her soul

Printed on her skin

A mark hand crafted

Telling a tale from a forgotten past

How it felt – the pain that becomes

that age old scar

She lives now

As they did then

Words by: Bobby Besley, Paula Cunliffe, Katherine Dowie, Nat Haslam, Matt Mason, Ann Nighy and Leigh Smart                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             This is how our anchor looked when installed in the park, we were very pleased with the result. The design seemed even more significant when I discovered that Founders Park has an Anchor Inn!