I ain’t ‘fraid of no... S
ome of you may remember back in October 2012, Barton’s unveiled their ‘Ghost Bus’. One of ten coaches that they had purchased in 1956, and were mainly used on European holidays at the time. But for the last twenty years, this has stood rotting away in a field in deepest East Anglia, before being dragged out of a hedge backwards and returned to their garage in Chilwell, covered in lichen, moss and other stuff that you only find in the country. Simon Barton took the wise decision of not restoring it. Instead, he decided to keep it in its unique dilapidated state. Fast forward two years, and a chance encounter between an Italian author and visual artist; famous in his native country for writing a biography of the current Pope, and the founder of Beeston’s very own arts & culture group ACT. Roberto Alborghetti was invited to Beeston by Marysia Zipser and during the visit; Marysia took Roberto to Barton’s for a look round, where he was stunned to see the Ghost Bus in all its aged decay. He was inspired by the rust and peeled paint, and started taking close up photographs of the damage, the different colours and the textures, and in around two hours had amassed some 500 photographs, which he had taken on a small Nikon camera and using only natural light, which streamed through the garage roof. Roberto often takes his
inspiration from cracks, textures and colours, while other artists use nature for the basis of their work. Since then, Roberto has been constructing a short film that used 130 of these photographs that takes you on a visual journey for thirteen minutes through four sections; Maps, Sky, Lands and Horizon, as with a little imagination these photos can resemble such things. It received
its world premiere at Barton’s on March 27, together with a shorter six-minute film called “Seaside Town”, with a soundtrack composed by Simon Barton and his children. One thing that people often wonder is whether the photos are actually paintings, as they look so unreal. Although many of them do look like they could be works of Jackson Pollock, they are 100% undoctored photographs. The audience thoroughly enjoyed the film, and there were audible gasps when the actual Ghost Bus was finally revealed, as it had been rigged up with lights and a smoke machine to give it a real supernatural presence. At the end of the evening Roberto gave Maryisa and Jeanie Barton a scarf each that he had designed in response to the 9/11 disaster of 2001. There are plans for the film and perhaps the bus itself to go on tour, so that more people can experience this remarkable endeavor. If you weren’t able to make the premiere, then an extract of the Ghost Bus film is available on YouTube https://youtu.be/1YWqP38vHQo and if you want to see more of Roberto’s work, then pop over to his website https://robertoalborghetti.wordpress.com for information, links and photos. CDF