The final poster of the set is on the streets as the bar opens. THE REFUGE, COME AS YOU ARE, orange and blue, edition 004.
The sequence is complete in public now: a revolt announced, a palace explained, an invitation extended. Third block, fourth edition, and the first one to actually name the place.
Passing one on a hoarding full of gig posters, it holds its own. Hand-cut letters age well next to vinyl.
Part of The Palace Is a Refuge.
The stretched canvases are up in the long room at the Refuge. Big orange diamond fields high on the grey plaster, a line of small squares running beneath them, chandeliers overhead and the first diners underneath.
The last seams went through the 1953 Singer two nights ago, an electric machine I picked up for £20 in a charity shop in Halifax, and it goes through everything. Today the work is hanging in a listed dining room. Fabric moves fast when it has a deadline.
Doors open today. Everything printed, sewn, pasted and hung made it in time, more or less gracefully.
Part of The Palace Is a Refuge.
Same day the horse arrived in reception, the mirror panels found their second life. The hexagons that clad the box are going up in the dining rooms of the Refuge: honeycomb fields and geometric lattice against grey plaster and dark wood, behind the crittall screens.
Nothing wasted. Work made for one spot in this building migrating to another feels right for a place with this many layers.
The bar opens on Wednesday. Everything is suddenly very close.
Part of The Palace Hotel Commission.
The hoarding came away today and there it was. A horse. A huge black horse, mid-stride, standing exactly where the painted box and then the mirrored box have stood since May.
Reception looks completely different around it. Everything we made for that spot turns out to have been cover for this, two acts of the same piece.
I photographed it from across the floor and left it alone. Some things do not need a caption.
Part of The Palace Hotel Commission.
Ninth and final install, purple and red triangles on a black brick wall in the shadow of a church tower in the city centre. Nine sites in nine days, every one printed by hand and pasted by hand.
Jody Hartley turned up, stood in front of it and gave it the flat-cap thumbs up, which counts as a formal review in this city.
The street half of the project is done. Five days to opening.
Part of The Palace Is a Refuge.
A tower of stretcher bars at one69A, then two days of stretching the sewn fabric over them. The finished pieces are long wedges, the pattern folding over the edges so they read as objects rather than pictures.
The studio is standing room only: canvases on the sofa, on the fridge, against every wall, the disco ball watching over all of it.
Tomorrow the last street install. Then everything moves to the Palace.
Part of The Palace Is a Refuge.
Eighth install, the long fence line by Victoria Station, orange pattern against a pink dawn over the city. The best sky of the campaign by a distance.
A white dog inspected the work. A man in an orange hi-vis nodded. Manchester at 7am is generous like that.
Martha again, boot open, panels sliding out one by one along the whole run of fence. She has earned a service.
Part of The Palace Is a Refuge.
Seventh install at first light on Oxford Road, blue and red pattern on pale stone, cranes and glass towers waking up behind it.
This one sits on the route between the station and the Palace, which is not an accident. Anyone walking to the opening next week will pass it without knowing it is a breadcrumb.
The early start meant printing to an audience of one street sweeper. He approved.
Part of The Palace Is a Refuge.
Home sewing shift. Printed fabric panels joined into canvas-sized pieces, laid out across the whole floor of the living room, over the bed, everywhere.
Alan the dog settled himself in the middle of the pink and yellow diamonds and would not be reasoned with. Quality control, apparently.
Small rooms, big fabric. You sew what you can reach and rotate the room.
Part of The Palace Is a Refuge.
Sixth install, and the site chose the composition. A black shopfront in the Northern Quarter with an ornate carved frame built into it, so the purple pattern went inside the frame like a painting being hung.
The easiest install of the nine and the most finished-looking. Sometimes the city hands you a ready-made and the only job is not to ruin it.
Part of The Palace Is a Refuge.