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Take the Plunge

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Take the Plunge‘ was painted in the soaring heat of early September. The site for this work is a closed-down toilet block on the promenade, situated where the once glorious Super Swimming Stadium used to be. An art deco gem – the pool opened in 1936 and at 137 meters long was the largest outdoor pool in Europe. This beautiful, but ill-fated structure was eventually closed in 1975 to be replaced some years later by the ‘Bubbles’ swimming complex. (A full history of the area where our painting sits can be found on The Visitor website.)

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Take the Plunge’ is an evocative statement, specifically referencing the heritage of the site where the painting is located. The phrase refers to an act of either admirable courage or reckless stupidity, but can also be read as a confident message of self-determination. Along the bottom of the painting, it reads: ‘Swim Unaided and Self – Propelled from Deep to Shallow‘ – beautiful, brave words that were written on the original Blue Seagull swimming certificate issued to those who swam one length of the icey cold (salt) waters of the Super Swimming Stadium.

It took us a good couple of weeks to get this painting made – partly to do with the rough breeze block surface that our paint was soaking into – but mostly because of the huge numbers of people who stopped to talk to us while we were working! It was really interesting to hear people’s thoughts about the painting (all overwhelmingly positive!) and the location. The painting began to provoke much debate about the current state of this part of the promenade, and the empty area where the swimming pools used to be. A lot of people wanted to know when they would indeed be able to take the plunge again!

In an article written in August 2001, it was reported that, after demolition – ‘the area will be landscaped for use as an events arena until some other use is found‘. Thirteen years later, the people of Morecambe are still waiting…

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This painting was made in September 2014, by myself and Shane Johnstone, with the help of Sue Johnstone and John Kingston. It was commissioned and produced by Elena Gifford & Lauren Zawadski from Decopublique as a legacy artwork from the Vintage by the Sea festival.


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