Fine Art

BT street cupboards in Kettering made into works of art

Ashton

April 11, 2024 3 Mins Read

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BT street cupboards in Kettering made into works of art

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Mark James with short hair and beard leaning on a black and red painted cabinet — Mark James, of 909 Art in Kettering, has painted a scene of a shoemaker on one of the green cabinets [909 Art]

BT Openreach street cupboards are being turned into works of art to celebrate a town’s history.

Professional artists are painting scenes on to the green metal cabinets to create a heritage trail in Kettering, Northamptonshire.

The pictures so far include a shoemaker, a pleasure park and a garden.

One of the artists said: “It’s been great fun injecting a bit of colour on the streets of Kettering.”

The project has been funded by Kettering Town Council and run jointly with Kettering Civic Society (KCS).

The society said permission had been sought before the artists started using the non-descript metal cases as canvasses.

Metal box painted with female figures and flowers — Sally Leach has created a garden scene near a retirement home [Carroll Weston/BBC]

Sally Leach has created “Cafe Corner” outside a retirement home in Oaktree Court, which reflected the residents’ wishes for a garden design.

She said: “We were discussing different ways in which we could improve the local area, and one of the things that came up was the BT boxes.

“We’d seen in other areas people doing projects where they’d put artwork on them, and we thought it would be great to get some of those going through Kettering.”

Cabinet painted with a bandstand, a pink tree and seated figures — Daisy Farrar-Hayton has celebrated Rockingham Pleasure Park with her metal box masterpiece [Carroll Weston/BBC]

Daisy Farrar-Hayton’s “Pleasure Park” mural on Macefield Road celebrates Rockingham Pleasure Park, while Mark James’s “Shoemaker” on Wood Street honours the town’s shoemaking history.

Ms Farrar-Hayton said: “It’s been great fun injecting a bit of colour on the streets of Kettering. I hope mine and the other fantastic artists’ work will make people smile.”

Mr James said he had harked back to his younger days.

“My first job was in Tebbutt and Hall in Raunds in a shoemaking factory, and the shoemaking business has always been a constant around this area in my life.”

Red and blue painted cabinet with figure of a man wearing a blue shirt sitting in front of a last with a shoe — Mark James has depicted a shoemaker concentrating as he works on a shoe [Carroll Weston/BBC]

Now the first three cabinets have been completed, the plan is to carry on brightening up the town by painting more of them.

Monica Ozdemir, the secretary of KCS, said: “We appreciate the talented artists who have created their interpretation of a specific memory particular to that part of the town and hope to support more creative street art to flourish across Kettering.”