The Creative Ties Which Bind

This photograph shows two Inverclyde painters, James Watt (right) and Absent Voices' own Rod Miller.
The two men are separated by a generation. Rod celebrates his 'hauf a hunner' birthday today, having been born in 1964, the year in which James (more commonly known as Jimmy), painted this 10 feet high mural in Port Glasgow Town Hall foyer.
Jimmy, who grew up in Port Glasgow, has recorded the comings and goings of the Clyde over six decades in his paintings and drawings. He is well known as one of Scotland's foremost maritime artists.
His mural depicts the town's shipbuilding and industrial past, based on the River Clyde.
Rod met up with Jimmy to talk about his memories of the great war artist, Stanley Spencer, who worked in Port Glasgow during the second world war. One of the strands in Absent Voices is Walking in the Footsteps of Spencer and Eardley and Jimmy met Spencer as a boy in Port Glasgow.
You can see the influence of Spencer clearly in Jimmy's Port Glasgow mural.

A fantastic education initiative last year introduced school pupils in Inverclyde to Jimmy's work. They Blipped there progress here at James Watt Artist.

Rod Miller is also on Blipfoto as Peintre.
(Lovely birthday snap of him with his girls today!)