Describing oneself is a difficult task fraught with illusion. Each person carries a singular image of themselves and of those around them. If life is kind, that image may encourage others close, if life is cruel, dislocation often follows.

One thing I have come to realise is that the self is a constantly changing entity despite ones best efforts to pretend otherwise. As you journey through the pages of this site and others I have produced you'll travel to many states of mind and ways of being. Change is at once our closest ally and yet remains our greatest fear.

 

 

Life Into Art

 

A wine glass is an object we often find when we: celebrate; commiserate; relax, enjoy; are alone; are with others. My life On Earth touches on my life so far. Numbered from left to right, each glass contains earth from a place which has shaped me.

 

 

• The first wine glass contains earth from the site of The Shrubbery, the old maternity hospital, now demolished, in Cliddesden Road, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England. This site was the place of my birth

 

• The second glass contains earth from Mansfield Road, my first home

 

• The third glass contains earth from outside the Hammer and Tongs, my father's favourite drinking hole

 

• The fourth glass contains earth from the grounds of Saint Annes Infant School, my first school

 

• The fifth glass contains earth from the grounds of Parklands, the renamed place where I often visited my mother as a child

 

• The sixth glass contains earth from Worting Road Cemetery, the place where my mother, my father, my grandmother, my grandfather, and my aunt lay buried

 

• The seventh glass contains earth from outside the old Registry Office, the place where I married

 

• The eighth glass contains earth from outside the Maternity Wing of North Hampshire Hospital, the place where our son was born.

 

Narrative

I was born on 29 September 1961, Saint Michael's Feast Day, in the Shrubbery Maternity Hospital, Basingstoke. My early life was complicated by the separation of my parents at a very young age. I and my two sisters spent time with various foster parents within Hampshire. My memories are few and fragmented from that period. Although there was never any question that my mother and father loved the three of us, both found life very difficult for different reasons, and neither were able to take care of us.

 

When I was three and a half, my father's twin sisters decided we three should be brought up together.

 

 

 

My sisters and I each dealt with the insecurity of our early years in different ways. My energies were spent pursuing music and other creative activities, and the unconventional background of living with two aunts who had arrived from India a decade earlier as young teachers, and who experienced prejudice, taught me a great deal about tolerance and the wider world. My circumstance gave me a thirst to learn about the differences between us, and the things that bind us together.

 

My aunt Merlin who was the linchpin of our new family unit, a strong, warm and beautiful woman, died when I was fourteen. My mother died when I was nineteen, and my father, who had tremendous potential that was never realized, when I was twenty three. My aunt Connie later flowered after her sister's passing, and continued to encourage me unconditionally in all my creative pursuits.

 

I married Janice, a feisty and spirited woman in 1993, and our son Gabriel, born in 1998, continues to be the light of our lives today.

 

Acheivements

EyeInvent and Basingstoke Photos
Photographs, Artworks and Images (2008-present).

Founder and Director of AbleStable
AbleStable hosts a directory of creatives and over 500 free resources that stimulate and encourage creativity (2002-present).

Founder and Director of Our Town
A multi-disciplined, innovative community arts project which ran throughout the year 2000, with five hundred contributors and ten thousand visitors (1997-2000).

Business Ventures

Co-Founder and Creative Director of 2BrightSparks Pte Ltd.
2BrightSparks is a company that develops and sells high quality utility software (2004-present). Two well known Windows freeware programs: SyncBack and InfoHesiveEP are featured on this site.

Work in Education and the Community

Freelance Photographer, Teacher, and Musician
Self employed (1982-2004).

 

Founder and Director of 'Musicality'
A successful music workshop service provider for schools, colleges and universities (1995-2002).

 

Teacher and Music Workshop Leader
Teacher of music (music composition, piano, guitar, percussion, and music technology - UK) (1981-2002).

Composer, Teacher and Musician for Modern Dance
London Contemporary Dance Theatre (1985-1991).

Dance Accompanist: Piano and Percussion
Michelle Benash, New York Ballet; Professor Marisa O'Neil, Webster University, St Louis (USA); Daniella Lorentze, Ballet Rambert and Paris Ballet; Extemporary Dance; Mantis Dance Company; Sadlers Wells; Festival Ballet House; Pineapple Studios; The Actors Centre; The Place Theatre; London Contemporary Dance Theatre: Company Residency Member; Essex Theatre Umbrella; South Yorkshire Arts (UK); (1983-1989).

Composer and Performances

Instrumental Works
Over seventy works ranging from piano solo through to orchestral (1977-present).

Songs
Over forty songs: words and music (1979-present).

Audiotexs
Mike is the originator of 'audiotexs': an audio recording of music, speech, and ambient sounds forming an integrated whole and where all elements are treated musically.

Music Commissions

Our Town
A four movements, seventy minute digital "Audiotext" with over a hundred contributers; Basingstoke & Deane Borough Council, The Willis Museum (1997-2000). Full project details and credits can be found on the Our Town web page.

 

Listen to Audio Excerpts from the music compositon Our Town.

A Silent Movie
A forty five minute audio work for voice and instruments; independent (1986-1988).

Exhibition Piece
London Contemporary Dance Theatre (1987).

Works for Six Dancers
South Yorkshire Dance; performed at the National Dance Umbrella Festival, London (1985)

Darkness and Light
Queen Mary's College; piano and flute; three movements; forty minutes, first performance Central Studio Arts Centre, Basingstoke (1981).

Author

Children's Fiction
The Royal Spanner (1995).
The Bugle and the Barge (1995).
The Nervous Knight (1995).
The Magical Stream (1991).
The Apple Orchard (1992).

Adult Fiction
An Object of Desire; novel (1994-1996).
The Burial of Georgio Sánchez; novel (1991-1993).
A Woman's Scent; poetry and prose (1990).