Peterborough Market’s been moved before and it’s currently in the middle of another upheaval. It was always a haven for me when I was drawing and I loved lots of the stalls over the years which, at times, kept me in flowers, provided those pieces of haberdashery I couldn’t find elsewhere or the baking tin I needed, at times when I worked nearer it provided my daily lunch from the foodstalls which sprung up during a previous reconfiguration.
Markets change as life and needs change. Some of the stalls moved then survived or not and others are in the process of restarting. Change can often be difficult and we still don’t know how this one is going to pan out. I’ve always loved markets and hope Peterborough manage to keep that market feeling somehow, somewhere.
This illustration was drawn from one of the two yellow benches which used to be there and I can recall meeting a photographer the first time I sat and drew from here. He was trying to get me in one of his iconic images as I was tring to draw the market. In the end I drew him photographing me drawing him into my sketch. I’ll have to go find that one again now. As photographs trigger memories all of my drawings do the same, the memory of the place, when I was drawing it and any previous drawings from that same bench. This Market is now a changing space and we will all have our own views and different memories of it.
My theme for A to Z Blogging Challenge is my Bench Views Revisited illustrations done from benches in and around Peterborough UK which I started in September 2019. I drew No. 88 in February 2020 then lockdown hit. I restarted the series in August 2020 which meant almost half the series were drawn pre-covid lockdown and the rest of the 190 illustrations were done post COVID-19 lockdown.
lynnelives 