Glen The Maker

31/12/2025

End of Year Review - Was a good one 👌

A year of making things happen. Here are some highlights from projects, exhibitions, and all the other fun arty bits.

2: WYLFWT 2.0 on shoot day - marking the end of my residency at Leeds Arts University and the completion of my first kinetic sculpture.

3: Running workshop sessions in Bradford throughout the year, translating lived experiences of work and life into some genuinely brilliant sculptures.

4: Fire Exit (2025) - a response to starting my role at Assembly House last year. Putting up endless fire-exit signage around the studio eventually led to this work.

5: A selection of artist shots by James that didn’t quite squeeze in elsewhere. Every great photo this year has come from this legend.

6: Sand Timer Conveyor (2025) standing tall on its new plinth. An absolute puzzle to get here, but well worth it.

7: Seeing great art with even better people - mostly their work, shown in some brilliant exhibitions.

8: Knights of the Round Table (2025) finally finished after being in progress for over two years.

9: Two amazing weeks installing the Nisbet Road Tailor Shop exhibition with Archie Brooks - met great people and properly grafted for the first time this year.

10: Ian modelling the drone beautifully at Kirkstall Art Trail. Possibly the wettest day imaginable for an outdoor performance with the Pointless Labour Company.

11: York St John’s year-long residency kicked off in October. Excited to dive into the facilities and make two new kinetic sculptures this year - let’s gooo!

12: The AA2A York St John’s cohort, ready for a year of making!!

13: Deep in the workshop working on WYLFWT? 2.0 - pre-weld all clamped and ready to go. Missing that fixture table… just want it back 😭

Big plans for 2026.

Very exciting times at GlenTheMaker HQ — see you soon, and love to all ❤️

📸 Images 1,5,6,8 -

19/12/2025

Sand Timer Conveyor (2025)

The conveyor is back in action at Sand Shifters HQ - seven sand timers tipping, resetting, repeating in a constant loop. Fragile rhythms play against cold steel, echoing the balance between working to live and resting only to work again.

Each timer pauses briefly at the top before falling forward - a tiny moment of recharge before the cycle begins again. The piece draws from my years in a 24/7 McDonald’s, where staffing felt like a constant “changing of the guards” and the machine never truly stopped.

Recharge, refuel, deplete, repeat - time moves on, even when the cycle looks the same. And still, every grain falls differently.

Filmed by:

12/12/2025

Sand Shifters (2020)

Finally got round to editing all the footage from Sand Shifters at the BBA Artist Prize 2023 - only took me 2+ years! Five years on, this piece is still shaping everything I make.

Sand Shifters looks at humans as tools and the cycles of work - four performers repeating endurance-based tasks until their movements feel mechanical. A reminder of the routines we fall into, and the value we place on our time.

10/12/2025

Knights of the Round Table (Oil on canvas, 180 x 180 cm)

Twelve modern-day knights, suited up and armed with card readers. A dinner table becomes a clock face, receipts piling at its centre. Knight of the Round Table reframes chivalry for the age of credit and time.

Photography by

Twelve suited men - finance bros, city workers, modern-day knights - gather round a dinner table, locked in the final act of settling the bill. Each grips a card reader with a golden credit card slotted inside, their receipt rolls spilling out and tangling together in a pile at the centre. Seen from above, the scene resembles old poker table paintings and the symmetry of a clock face - twelve figures frozen in ritual, where time and money coil into one.

Painted in bold, cartoon-like colour blocks, the scene shifts from a darkened outer ring to a spotlighted centre, heightening its theatricality.

Tradition and modernity clash here: old codes of nobility reimagined as credit, receipts, and endless transactions. Nobility not by bloodline, but by time, value, and the endless cycle of paying the bill. A satirical yet reverent take on the 21st-century knight - suited, card reader in hand - where receipts replace swords and value is measured in transactions.

27/11/2025

26/09/2025

Would You Like Fries With That? 2.0 (2025)

WYLFWT? 2.0 stands as a monument to my ten years working at McDonald’s, transforming fryer baskets into a machine that mirrors the relentless “one-in, one-out” rhythm of service.

The piece builds on my earlier work WYLFWT, which arranged 14 fry boxes into a circular form. This time, the cycle becomes mechanical: 16 fryer baskets are fixed to a central sprocket, turning at a steady pace like a Ferris wheel. At the base, the baskets plunge into a trough of vegetable oil, coated by the same viscosity and resistance that marked my years behind the fryer. Over time, the oil clings to the sculpture, embedding the residue of labor into the work itself.

The piece was made during a residency at Leeds Arts University, just as I left McDonald’s to pursue art full time - a farewell to a decade of uniforms, shifts, and routines.

Beyond its mechanics, the work looks at how jobs shape identity. Ten years of repeated motion leaves a mark not only on the body but on the self. Here, fryer baskets become monuments: tools of service reimagined as symbols of endurance, persistence, and the way systems of labor can come to define who we are.

Photography by

17/09/2025

Sand Timer Conveyor (2025)
 
Sand Timer Conveyor (2025) takes a decommissioned onion conveyor and reimagines it to carry seven custom-built sand timers in an endless loop - time passing, renewing, never stopping.

Delicate glass meets cold steel: fragile rhythms against mechanical grind. It’s a farming of time, mirroring work-life itself - the uneasy balance of working to live and resting only to work again.

The conveyor, comically short and waist-high, moves at a steady, relentless pace. Seven timers cling to its surface, following the set path. At the top, each one pauses, rocks into place, then topples forward - a brief recharge before the cycle begins again.

The piece reflects my years at a 24/7 McDonald’s, a workplace that never slept. I used to think of it as a “changing of the guards” - one worker rests, another takes over, and the machine keeps running. The audience becomes the customer, witnessing only the seamless front, never the hidden strain that keeps it alive.

Recharge. Refuel. Deplete. Repeat.

Time keeps moving, measured and predictable - yet every grain of sand falls differently, reminding us of the small unpredictabilities inside routine.

Photography by

05/09/2025

05/09/2025

We had another wonderful Mindful Art session yesterday and were once again joined by Glen The Maker to work on our labour themed sculptures! They're really coming along nicely!

05/07/2025

Well well well…

My residency at has come to an end — what a fabulous 6 months making my new sculpture ‘Would you like fries with that? 2.0’, aka Auto Chip Fryer Prototype.

Here are some awesome shots by James Clifford from the last few days — check out his work and hit him up if you need some artist shots!

Met some great people and learnt so many skills — it’s really ignited my passion for welding. Biggest thanks goes to James Briggs for being my metal sensei. Thanks, dude!

Just putting the final polish on before the work is released — coming soon!

04/02/2025

Well well well…

It may be a year late but the Sandshifters received a branding make-over by the fabulous 😎 We were out in our fresh new uniforms for the .shuffle Exhibition at the To***co Warehouse in Liverpool. Amazing Artists, Curators and Organisers!! Thank you .mallender - Better late than never!

Who would like to get their hands on a hat then? 😉

Big love to the boys for repping the new uniform and shifting some Sand ⏳

wh newhouse

With behind the camera once again 📸

06/01/2025

New Year, New Studio Shot…

A long time, no post! It’s been a huge year for making new work. Turns out, I’m great at starting projects… and absolutely terrible at finishing them. I’ll be sharing some bits I’ve been tinkering with very soon!

Right now, I’m on a residency at Leeds Arts University, smashing out some new ideas and seeing where they go. Some big changes last year — I’ve finally left the golden arches after a solid decade of service. Stepping away to focus fully on the Art Attack Life!

Big love to everyone who’s checked in, supported, or just been along for the ride ❤️