Lesley Cartwright - Love Tokens and Bad Pennies

Lesley Cartwright

Does love endure forever? Does a bad penny always turn up? During this Valentine month the artists and writers from CollectConnect explore this flip-sided theme with an exhibition of 32 miniature sculptures. These objects are placed in public places (#unsettledgallery), helping us to remember those who we hold dear - or cast off those who we would rather forget. Every day throughout February we will be featuring one of these tokens/pennies on this website. A writer will also use the art as inspiration to create something new and fresh.

Artist - Lesley Cartwright  / Words - Ginny Reddick

Pass On
Old heart, pass on,
Grandfather, Father,
Son,
broken,
pass on
unbroken, pass on
divided and melted, pass on, pass on
sickened, pass on
lessened, pass on
mended and filled and pass on, pass it on. You can borrow its beat Until it's time to pass on. If we're lucky, Grandfather, Father, Son.

Lesley Cartwright's Love Token on a communication box in Walthamstow

Lesley's Love Token lays on this battered box in a quiet residential road in Walthamstow. Waltham Forest is currently the London Borough of Culture and many parts of the Borough are undergoing extensive change with rapid housing development and large scale gentrification. 

Lesley Cartwright was born in Liverpool but later moved to Essex to run a Hostel for homeless teenagers. She made her name in the commercial graphic field and music photography until she developed MS and now paints portraits from her Billericay studio. Cartwright is a multitalented artist who is not bound by genre nor convention. Cartwright has been exhibiting with CollectConnect since the Cardboard City exhibition in 2013.ttps://twitter.com/ley9

Ginny Reddick is a writer and educator. She was one of the artists who exhibited at the first ever CollectConnect exhibition, Open Fridge, in March 2010. Although there has been a 9 year hiatus between that exhibition and this one she has curated numerous CC projects including the Walthamstow street art favourite HideBird.