BPS Springs to feature in artist David Chatton Barker’s ‘Springs’ project

BPS Springs

Whitworth artist David Chatton Barker has completed a project called ‘Springs’, centred around one of Rochdale’s oldest spring makers, BPS Springs.

‘Springs’ is part of a heritage based project in the Industrial Folklore series, exploring the hidden industries in Lancashire.

David, who uses springs in his art and music, became involved in the project after he stumbled upon his local spring makers, who recommended he visit BPS before they close the doors for good.

BPS Springs Ltd. have been making every type of spring (torsion, compression, coiled, extension, flat) for cars, beds, boats, pegs, pens, lamps, trampolines, staplers, computer keys and more for the past 38 years.

Named after - and run by - three friends, Bud, Pete and Sam, BPS will close for business, fittingly, at the end of spring 2017.

The artist was struck by the everyday significance of the place and between the voice of the spring and the voice of the people who make them. After speaking with the spring makers and discovering their imminent retirement, it seemed fitting to David, under the pseudonym Fred Helliwell, to create oral and photographic documentation as a lasting commemoration to the hidden hands that have been at the helm of Rochdale’s industry since the decline of textile production.

David said: “I instantly felt welcome. They were really nice and gave me a tour of the factory. I thought it would be nice to commemorate and recount their life’s work; one of them had been making springs since he was 14-years-old. It’s a sort of retirement present for them.”

David began experimenting with springs, partially influenced by Hugh Davies, who performed music created with springs.

He explained: “Springs can be amplified like a guitar string. Using a contact microphone and stretching them between two pins, you can pluck or hit them for different tones. One of the spring makers said he had no idea you could do that and he’d never heard ‘a spring sing’ before.”

‘Springs’ consists of a 10-inch vinyl record commemorating the veiled labour and voice of the spring.

The first side reveals the workshop of BPS Springs, capturing the atmosphere of a day in the life of the spring workshop featuring the men and the machines that have inhabited the space for 38 years.

The second side is a soundscape of tones played on a hand-built sculpture clock (symbolising the clock of labour). It consists of over 90 collected helical springs, handmade at the B.P.S workshop and mounted in a circular arrangement atop a piece of wood, amplified and either plucked or oscillated with a motor. Played in clockwise rotation in an improvised soundscape, the steel vibrations often produce incidental aton¬al harmonies that resonate and shimmer.

This will be accompanied by a hand-stitched booklet containing 30 black and white photographs of the workshop, including notes and drawings by David.

Part documentary and part sound meditation, ‘Springs’ acknowledges the hidden labour of BPS Springs and explores the vast tonal range of the common metal spring, elevating the significance of an everyday object used so much, yet often taken for granted.

David hopes to exhibit the project in the future.

He is also taking part in creating a sculpture for Petrus Community this summer, in which he plans to incorporate some of the springs.

He added: “It’s a really exciting project to be working on for charity.”

Springs will be released in limited quantities on 1 June.