Although we were both born in Leeds in West Yorkshire in 1948... we didn't actually meet until 1981... - at The King's Head, in Islington, North London...

m z :
I moved to London by way of Brighton and Midhurst... ending up in Walthamstow in 1969 (in the shadows of William Morris and Ian Dury)...
So, although we met in 1981... (mainly through Elderly Brothers and Balham Alligators gigs)... we didn't actually start 'working together' until around 1989...

h s :
By that time I'd made quite a few exhibitions in London, at Situation and later PMJ Self’s, and had shown work in Zagreb, as well as an exhibition of drawings at Thomas Gibson...

m z :
...and I'd sold pieces at the Contemporary Art Society show in Covent Garden and at the Royal Academy Summer Show...

hs :
The early 'collaborations' between us were essentially just playful and diversionary, and I don’t think either of us took them too seriously... But as the years rolled by and we both developed our own ways and places of working, I think we both began to see the possibilities that the old playful ‘working together’ might bring to both our lives... - if we could work out, how it might work out...

mz :
I moved to Scotland in 1985, but we kept in touch occasionally, mainly with our own variations around the On Kawara’s postcard theme... but with a bit more information and stuff about the weather...(!)

hs :
I’d begun to find myself slightly disillusioned with ‘the art world’ and it’s workings. The finances at Situation Gallery were a mess, and then later on, Robert Self (then of the PMJ Self Gallery), finally proceeded to - no pun intended - self-destruct in rather spectacular fashion...

mz :
The move to Scotland was fantastically beneficial from a spiritual point of view, creating a viable and sustainable community in a relatively isolated part of the Westen Isles... but financially, and to some extent intellectually, it was less that satisfactory...

hs :
...and when I began to float the idea of leaving London, around 2001... to set up a working and living space in West Yorkshire...

mz :
...not getting involved in that, in some way... and finally - maybe - making something of ideas that had been kicking around for years, seemed too big an opportunity to just let slide by...

h s :
During the late 80’s and 1990’s we’d been in contact enough to still have a fairly good idea of what was going on in each other’s head...

mz :
...and we didn’t need to know everything. The ‘collaborations’ had always been much more about us having ‘separate ideas that somehow resonated’... even though our visual approach to ‘ideas’ is so different...

hs :
This meant that we could both carry on working in our own very different ways... and then get together to sift through various pieces... to see how different works might form a kind of 'partnership'...

mz :
A bit like a film maker might work with a musician... two different voices and heads, but combined to make an effective and individual idea (film)...

hs :
In any exhibition, the works would be hung together... but they also have their own individual existences, and could be shown or hung...

mz :
...or sold..!

hs :
...yes, or sold, as individual works...

mz :
In the end it was about working as individuals... but not alone...