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Bee in the City was a city-wide art trail that took over the streets and shopping centres of Manchester. The project brought together 120 artists and challenged them to create their own interpretation of the famous Manchester worker bee, a symbol of Manchester’s resilience and independent spirit.
Each artist was given a large bee sculpture to decorate with a design of their choosing. For me, I decided to do what I do best and created a Manchester doodle bee, but the challenge was harder than expected. Firstly, I’m used to drawing on walls and paper, not five-foot tall plastic sculptures, and doodling a map of Manchester on gigantic wings is a surprisingly difficult task.
After two days of work with my trusty black Posca Pens the work was complete and off it went to be varnished and put in place. The next time I saw it was upon its unveiling outside Manchester Piccadilly Train Station, an ideal location that I frankly lucked out on how many people pass through on a daily basis.
Easily the most rewarding part of this project was in how much money this project raised for local charities. In total, £1.1 million was raised for the We Love MCR Charity, with my piece alone selling at auction for £16,000.
