First and foremost..

Hello and a very warm welcome to you  : )

Please make yourself feel at home.

If there was a way to offer you an online drink or  "brew" as we say up here then the kettle would already be on and a seat waiting for you.

As you will already be very well aware of, my name is Mike.

I am a Humble Creative thinker, friendly, fair and considerate with both a peaceful soul and a peaceful outlook to life.

Just to give you a quick broad picture of my background and who I am.

My early years.

I was born and raised in the shadow of the beautiful South Pennine hills in the "industrial revolution" mill town of Oldham, England.

Very luckily I grew up in a happy and loving household with my parents, younger Sister and Brother.

Brought up in the 70's and 80's my childhood leisure time from a young age had a fun and healthy traditional mix of drawing, creating, riding BMX bikes and messing around in the fields and trees near home. Whether that be climbing trees or building makeshift dens.

I loved being outside in all weathers. Very often coming home covered in mud, scratches or with a tear or two in my clothes.

Any T.V. we watched at that time was what I call "old skool cool classics"-

Scooby do, Wacky Races, Tom and Jerry, Road Runner, Dukes of Hazzard, The A-Team... you get the era and the idea.

If I was really lucky I got to stay up late to watch the really cool, Starsky and Hutch!

I also had and still do have to this day a strong interest in Cars (especially motorsport or motorsport derived cars) along with how things worked which would influence my choice of direction as I grew older.

Attending an ordinary primary and then secondary comprehensive school with a standard state education, my parents very fortunately encouraged all three of us to follow something we loved to do first and foremost before chasing the money.

My parents believed that as a job or career takes up so much of your waking life then it's best to be doing something that you love and makes you happy. I really can't argue with that!

Being a very shy youngster and not being a particularly academic type, I scraped by in my school exams, coming out with some mediocre grades in most subjects except art.
Art and the creative process was definitely where I knew my natural happy place was and still is to this day.

As a result of this 'happy place', overall my creative career encompasses 30 plus years of hobby, private, commercial and Industrial art experience.

My creative journey from school to present day.

After following my passion for Art through school and then studing Graphic design at Oldham college. I furthered my education at Blackpool college, combining my love of art, cars and my interest in mechanical engineering to study Technical illustration for a further three years.

Above: 'Ghosted view' Gearbox Technical illustration. Copyright- Mike Crispin.

The Lotus and Caterham obsession..

Around this time I had already been an active member of the Lotus Seven Club for Great Britain for quite a few years. Contributing regularly with illustrations and cartoons to Low Flying, the national monthly Lotus Seven Club magazine.

Above: A Hand painted and Airbrushed Caterham Seven private commission  illustration. Copyright- Mike Crispin

Throughout this illustration course I had been working a fulltime job during my summer holidays  to satify my 'obsession' to save for my very own Caterham Seven restoration project. Traveling home from Blackpool every weekend. Very often working 18 hour days well into the early hours of the morning with one of my best buddies helping out. I loved every minute of the hands on rebuild. The creative process & creative hands on problem solving with any project and any material is the cherry on top of the cake for myself. I love this element of life : ) , Whether that is mechanics, electrical, bodywork or other. Another one of my 'HAPPY PLACES'.

Leaving Blackpool and the "temporary permanent" job!

After successfully completing the Technical Illustration course I went on to get myself what was supposed to be local temporary employment until I could get a fulltime "proper" Illustration job.

This "temporary job of over 20 years" was as an a Artist within a small local company creating unusual, fun and sometimes wacky amusement machines for some of the largest and most successful leisure companies and amusement parks World wide.

PIC HERE

These leisure companies included the likes of Warner Brothers, Sega, Cabela's, Alton Towers and Blackpool Pleasure Beach to name just a few.

As a Commercial full time artist I had the very lucky job role of designing and then producing both two and three dimensional art based products using almost all the tools and materials available to Artists, Prop, Scenery and Set makers.

My job instructions from the management team in this lucky job role would quite often go something along the lines of;

"Mike. We need something to look like this and do that around the pnuematics and mechanicals of this new machine we are developing. Can you see what you can come up with?"

The MAJOR life interrupters'!

Transplantation, Leukaemia and the hand that didn't work.

During this time I experienced several unexpected life threatening serious illnesses. Resulting in immediate and intense medical treatments and a few long periods of time in hospital for each event.

Due to some of the aggressive yet critical treatments, I suffered the loss of use to my drawing hand and was too weak to even walk a few steps.

Although staying alive and getting fit was ultimately the most important priority, I was gutted! Fortunately I was hopeful for what was to come and in my mind I created a compelling future, basically telling myself "As soon as I'm out of here I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that". This created a sense of excitement and got me through some of the tough days.

I firmly believe that my hopeful and positive outlook at this time has kept me from being "taken" too early.

Once out of immediate threat of serious illness with Leukaemia, two separate episodes of kidney failure, resulting dialysis and two separate kidney transplants in tow. I was able to return to work fultime doing the job I loved.

'Normal' life resuming, I had the long journey of relearning how to walk, hold a pencil, pen and paint brush again.

Fortunately and very luckily having the full support from family, a great bunch of friends and professional medical help I am still here to tell the tale and back creating for which I am so so grateful.  : )

Come to think of it, thankfully the Universe has been on my side in several difficult medical situations.

The full time artist and the sideline job.

In 2008 I decided to set up Crispin Art Design as a sideline income stream to my main artist employment. Crispin Art Design was solely run to do commissioned private and commercial murals.
Working in the evenings and some weekends I completed quite a number of murals for very happy customers in various spaces, from childrens play centres and nurseries to private homes.

Unfortunately my business timing was not great. The financial crash of 2008 meant work dried up, let's just say...Pretty quickly!

The end for now...

Fortunately my full time job at this time was not immediately under threat and I continued within this role of 20 plus years until 2016 where we all as an amusement machine manufacturing team were told with immediate effect that we were all being made redundant.

A few of my fellow colleagues of many years were sadly left high and dry that day.
With no foreseeable income, not even the previous weeks wage.

A new chapter.

I had a choice to go and use my (back up plan) HGV license that fortunately I had gone and got sometime before, or try to find a job immediately that used my rare specialised skills. *I originally obtained my HGV licence out of my interest in cars, mechanical engineering and the love of driving.

Fast forward to today...

Although I've always loved being in and amongst nature from being a very young child. I have developed much more awareness for the amazing natural world, especially with the now well known and documented destructive effects we are having on this wonderful planet.

If you are reading this and thinking, hold on?!
Mike drives trucks for a living & loves cars!?

Yes this part of my life does create friction with my own values and beliefs around nature. I feel like I'm living a contradictive and hypocritical life. Working to cover my financial responsibilities yet constantly wanting and trying to find better, more environmental ways to approach how I live and go about my daily life.

One of the many ways I'm addressing this is by challenging myself to use unwanted or thrown out materials to create my artwork.

My influences and creative processes. 

Utilizing the above values, mental health and environmental concerns, I then combine these with my love for many different materials, media and art techniques.

As a result my Art will very often be made up of a variety of physical and subject elements to portray an idea, convey a message or an image.

Thank you for taking the time to read the above. It would be great to hear from you even if just to say hello : )