The history of this story began when my friend and fellow artist Des Butler, who has co-designed and built this new website with myself, gave me the number 515 as the name for a new art group we started together in the year 2000 in Preston, Lancashire together with the artists Robb Stacey and Justine Flynn. In 2001 we received £5,000 from the National Lottery, ‘Awards for All’ programme for the 515 project.
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515 was a great success and led to the involvement and collaboration of over 200 artists and the opening of ‘Oyston’ art studios for 12 residential artists on the 3rd floor of an old industrial mill. Also a number of major art exhibitions :~ ‘Apparition’. ‘Lost in Space’. Miller Arcade I. Miller Arcade II. Burtons I. Burtons II. ‘The Writing on the Wall’. All of these exhibitions were free to the general public {10,000 visitors +}. We also created the first 515 website {www.515.org.uk} which was designed by myself and built by Andy O’Donnell.
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Further developments was the opening of our own contemporary art gallery in Oyston Mill on the 1st floor called ‘Room 107’ {Julie Massam. Steve Wakefield. Justine Flynn. Mike Hesketh. Mark Parkinson} where over 20 exhibitions and art installations took place over a number of years and all free to the general public.
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In 2006 we also created a new contemporary art group called ‘NOMADS’ {Alexander James O’Hara. Julie Massam. Barry Norton. Jack the ‘Beard’}. We succeeded again in obtaining another £5,000 National Lottery funding for this project in 2007.
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Throughout this time and the many creative projects I was involved in I was also continuing to develop my own art with respect to the number 515 and its clear and evident link to ideas relating to intelligent design, sacred geometry and teleology. Ihave now been working on this for over 20 years and I know there is still so much for me to develop and learn and as I do so, I promise I will share this freely with all people.
