Exactly twenty-two years ago I was feeling a bit lost in life and looking for answers. In desperation I started clutching at, um, gloves.
On Tuesday July 26th, 2002, I decided to plot the location of all the discarded gloves I saw as I drove my van around Huddersfield. Maybe they would literally point the way for me? Perhaps if I plotted their locations on a map they would spell out a helpful message? Over a period of about six weeks until Friday September 2nd I documented 58 gloves. The information I collected was minimal, just a location and the style of each glove; I was usually driving on busy roads to a tight schedule so time was limited.
It was another five years before I had the time and resources to collate the results, first in the self-published book, Back 2 Front (expertly designed by Music) and then onto the recently launched Google Maps site. Sadly, no enlightening message was revealed; I live in real-life Huddersfield not the fictionalised New York of a Paul Auster book. Having said that, I definitely got enough out of the process to understand the potential of randomised exploration which has underpinned my work ever since.
Easily the most commonly discarded/lost glove was a brown rubberised type with an unbleached knitted cotton cuff. It struck me that I’ve not seen one for a while so I had a look online, they weren’t easy to find but they are still available and their low price point (under £1 a pair exc VAT) probably explains why people treat them so carelessly. I think I’ll order some and display them in a glass cabinet
Huddersfield Glove Watch on Google Maps: https://tinyurl.com/yr6mfsyw
