Page 122 - Decadence

he has done commissions that have cost around £6500 (inc helmet) most of his paint jobs are in the £4- 500 region, which for a unique work of art is very reasonable. When I ask him about the technique , he says it is process orientated art, 90% of the work is masking, he has even developed a scribing table for preparing the masks, but it is still the free hand airbrushing that gives the job the great nish. There are a row of helmets waiting for the nal nishing and as many in various stages of completion, so does he still get time for the art that originally lead him into custom helmets?
Piers shows us a Fender Guitar that he did as part of a signed memorabilia project he did in HonkgKong, it is covered in a montage of Pink Floyd album covers, the work and the detail are mind blowing, he tell me this piece took 111 hours of work, but getting the four signatures from Pink Floyd on the back took 4 years. It is probably the last piece ever signed by all four. He also created a commemorative piece for the anniversary of the moon landings, he worked around the clock to nish the 800mm diameter piece in time for an exhibition. It is covered in murals of all the astronauts and he remembers spending 4 days airbrushing luna dirt – which is “quite therapeutic” apparently.
So Piers is an artist rst, before he is a custom helmet creator and he de nitely has an artists edge, he has a solar farm in his garden, which apart from powering the business sheds, gives a decent income, but more importantly balances his life in terms of putting something back into the planet. But before you think, here we go another hippy artist, Piers has a real petrol addiction, not only his motorcycles, but he has been a 15 year collector of WWII Piston aircraft engine – yes he’s a bit of a geek, but in a very good way. He takes us out to another shed and shows us some of the collection, which to the lay man might have looked like very large scale scrap, but it was actually a stripped down MK9 Spit re engine and it is destined for a car – we’ve seen the plans and images and we can’t wait to show you, but that is literally another story.
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