Street Art – Page 4 – Where is Phil now?

Sleet is not snow, just wet and cold.

Monday 14 January 2013 – Bethnall Green and Shoreditch.

[edit] hmmm, I have just reviewed the entry after posting and it seems I screwed up the image sizing, not going to go back and redo it sorry ![/edit]

The weather forecast for the past couple of days has brought a promise of plummeting temperatures and snow on the ground in London. Sadly, all that has happened so far has been the plummet in temperature. A week or so ago we were averaging ten or so degrees during the day and now we are down to one to two. Wisely I had been making the most of the new year sales and had bought a few winter items, else I would be trapped indoors, and with the cold forecasted to last for a month – it would have been a real drag.

I decided to head back east and walk more of Regents Canal, take some photos of the canal boats and try to find some of the street art I did not photograph due to low light when I was last there. I tubed it to Bethnall Green station and found the canal easily enough.

Naturally soon after arrived it started to gently snow, not enough to create any sort of base, but just enough to make me cold and wet – I was not prepared for it and only had a woollen jacket on. I did not linger on the tow path in the end.

I really like the “reflecting” sign on the building, very clever !

This nearly deserted Samuel House apartment block has images of its residents on boarded up windows. It is an interesting story, and well worth a visit if you are walking Regents Canal. http://www.iamhere.org.uk

As the light snow started to change into a more steady stream of sleety rain I turned onto Kingsland Rd and headed back down towards Shoreditch and Liverpool St station, quite by chance I found Rivington St which had the two Banksy pieces I saw the other night. They are both in the garden of Cargo Bar and are covered up with screens. Sadly there was still reflection from the bar lights but here they are anyway.

This was a great and very detailed piece.

And this Banksy “copy” that I photographed nine days ago, next to its original, has gone already !

The shifting face of street art!

I stopped for a coffee and a bit of shelter before wandering a little further up Rivington St to see this cool shop front by Cranio.

And I really like this face by an artist I do not yet know….

As I was getting damper from the drizzling sleet I started to get a bit cool so headed back to the warmth of the flat – and another couple of episodes of Game of Thrones, my new favourite TV series – into season two, awesome.

It was good to get out, even if the sleet was wet and cold.

Please wait here until you are useful. Thank you.

Saturday 05 January 2013 – Hackney, Shoreditch, Spitalfields, Brick Lane – London

London’s run of not too awful weather continued for a few more days so Saturday afternoon I met a friend up in Hackney to go hunt for some of the great street art that has been made in the area.

My friend knows the area quite well so it was more like a guided walk for me and it was a lot of fun – though I will never find some of the places we visited again, I should have paid more attention 🙂

We started in Hackney Central and walked down through London Fields to Broadway Market. The market is open on a Saturday and mainly sells food and drink, I had a nice risotto for lunch followed by a really nice proper Vietnamese coffee – complete with condensed milk, yum. The market and surrounding area is hipster central. Loads of skinny jeans, short beards and checked shirts, single speed bikes all over the place. Book shops and second hand shops lined the street around the market. I loved it here, in fact I was pretty much in love with all the places we passed, I could easily live here!

Now I have described it as hipster central, my photos show other wise, always happens.

There was a Stik next to the Vietnamese coffee stall.

The next stop was Regents Canal, there is a lot art and plain old graf along the tow path, it was a nice walk down to Victoria Park, the area has a kind of post-commercial bleakness to it, maybe bleakness is a bit strong, but it is a bit run down in parts, just my sort of thing. There were an awful lot of house barges as well, which will be a whole photo essay by itself one day.

I really like these small pieces by Bortusk Leer, there are loads of them all around here.

There was also an old Eric Monopoly as well.

After stopping for more coffee at another very hipster cafe we strolled down and around Bethnal Green, Spitalfields, Brick Lane and Shoreditch – I will confess to having no idea where one bit started and another stopped as I was too busy chatting and looking around at the sights – and spotting things to photograph.

I had one of lifes weird little experiences as we walked. A couple of years ago Sam, a friend of my daughter from Bristol came and stayed at my place in NZ while he was on his travels. He has been living in London for a while now and we have talked about catching up one day. I ran into him on the street. Very nice to see him and totally weird !!

There is some really good street art here, the area around Brick Lane is especially vibrant, I liked that some of the new boutiques have not cleaned up their walls.

Unfortunately we ran out of daylight so I didn’t get to photograph a ton of good stuff, but it does mean I get to go back sooner rather than later. It was a good afternoon !

After a quite delicious Vietnamese meal we went to look at a couple of Banksy’s and saw a guy painting on a wall outside a shop. We stopped to watch and say hello and it was Paul Don Smith, I said I had seen some of his work in Portobello Rd and we chatted for a while. He had recently been doing graffiti on a movie set for a coming Brad Pitt zombie movie – World War Z and was doing a small stencil for it. It was interesting to watch him at work.

I will be back for sure. A few of my favourite pieces.

This is my favourite ! Jana and JS

Ben Eine – according to a graffiti tour guide we overheard as he was leading a tour in Brick Lane he is the only British artist to ever have work hung in the White House…

Jimmy C, there was one amazing Jimmy C that was too dark to photograph – I just need to be able to find it again. His pictures are very detailed.

More street art. [edit] Hmmm, seems WordPress has changed and I cannot do a slide show any more. I don’t like the “gallery” mode, oh well. m[end edit]

A new year street art hunt

Tuesday 01 January 2013, London

Posting will be really sporadic for a while, I will only post when I have taken some photos or done anything that is even remotely interesting.

I guess the rolling over of another year, especially the successful rolling over of another year when the world was supposed to end, is worth recording.

New years eve was not exactly riveting, not that the last few have been either! I had been pondering walking down to one of the bridges over the Thames to watch the fireworks, but lost interest as it got closer to midnight and the thought of a forty five minute walk there and back in the cold just was not tempting enough. So I spent the night in as usual, though I did make it to midnight and watched the spectacular ten minute fireworks display on TV.

So, it is another new year, what does it hold for me ? at this stage who knows !

The first day of 2013 was by English winter standards, lovely, clear skies and not too cold – to start with anyway. I decided I had to go out and do something so caught the tube up to central London to watch the London New Year parade. I managed to get an OK spot, though the guy next to me kept up a non-stop inane monologue to his family that finally drove me to leave – and I had headphones on, he was loud too ! As it turned out virtually all my photos were crap, I was shooting at far too low a speed to get anything good and I deleted most of them as soon as I got home. A beginners mistake and I should have known better.

I loved this wee steam truck.

On my way out of the parades route and away from the supposed 500,000 people who came to see it, I came across this marching band getting ready to merge in, they played a more funky style of music to the traditional English style and were quite good.

I had decided to walk home via Portobello Rd.

I had visited there on a rainy Boxing Day to try and find the Rough Trade record store that is a feature in a book I bought myself with some money from my mum (thanks mum 🙂 ), however it had moved. So I did the smart thing and looked up the address this time and found it easily. Unfortunately it was closed !

The second reason I visited the area was to try and find some street art, as the west of London is slowly being gentrified the street art is slowly disappearing and is quite rare. I knew there were a couple of pieces around so was keen to find them, and I found more than I expected, including this lovely wall at Notting Hill, I do not know who the artist is but I loved it.

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Up Portobello Rd I found

A Banksy, yay 🙂

A CODE FC

An Alec Monopoly

A couple of Paul Don Smiths

This one commemorating the slaying of two police women last year.

And some others.

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I enjoyed the hunt, and seeing some of these pieces as I am sure they will not be there for long !

Shine on me

Day 212, Friday 03 August 2012 – Granada

It was another slow start to the day, I didn’t have a huge amount planned anyway, a wander around the Albaicin was pretty much it, plus a big breakfast 🙂

I was out the door for 8:45 and was surprised to find the streets of Granada quite deserted.

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I was equally surprised to find most of the cafes and restaurants closed as well so finding a place even for a basic breakfast took a few minutes – I had to flag having a big one ! I have noticed that a lot of the shops and food places around the streets near my hotel – in the middle of the tourist zone, are closed. This is not a good sign for the economy of Granada, or Andalucia either.

Le Albaicin sits on the opposite side of the valley over the Darro river from La Alhambra and was where the bulk of the population lived, it is full of old Moorish buildings and steep narrow streets.

I am using a (not Lonely Planet either) guide book and disappointingly the directions to things to visit use street names that are not on the included map – this is simple guys, I mean come on !!! So, I was not where I expected to be almost as soon as I left the main drag, not that the area is that huge, so I just headed up hill until I made it to St Nicholas, built in 1525 it is one of the many many churches in the area. A lot of the churches were founded on the site of mosques, with materials from the mosque used in the construction. The view from the top of the bell tower over the city, LaAlhambra and the Dorra valley was fabbo.

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I stopped for a coffee at a cafe behind the church, the coffee was great, but again the service was craptastic. They really do treat tourists with some disdain here which is deeply frustrating given the state of the Spanish economy, especially here in the south. I wanted to buy something to eat as well but if they don’t want my money then I won’t part with it – or maybe it is just me ?

I spent the rest of the morning wandering around the streets, occasionally working out where I was and occasionally running into things I wanted to see. Surprisingly (or not) virtually everything was closed, bizarre – there were tons of tourists around but we couldn’t get into anything, oh well – wandering is what I like anyway. I did love the decorated houses.

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The old part of the city was once surrounded by a high wall with gated entry points, a number still remain, randomly appearing in the streets.

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The old wall here is supposed to open to the public at some stage, but obviously not yet as it is walled off and virtually unviewable, which was a shame. There are a lot of high walls here, so naturally everything is graffitied, sadly not a lot of street art, just spray bombing. I did find this one stencil, which I also saw in Barcelona which was kinda cool.

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San Cristobel

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The is a huge difference between renovated and un-renovated here. The old quarter is slowly being taken over by professionals and the old houses, some in terrible state of repair are being done up.

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I wanted to get up to the hills above the quarter and try to get to the old stone wall, it took a while of randomly walking around the some steep, but always zig sagging streets until I found a narrow path that led up the hill, there was a great view over the wall to Alhambra.

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This section of the hill overlooks the Sacromonte, where most of the houses were caves in the hillside. This area was heavily populated by gypsies, many of which have moved on as parts of the Sacromonte have become gentrified, however in the hillside there are still a number of cave dwellings. (Apologies, the sun was so bright and glary, photography was quite tough !)

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did you see the doll ? weird…

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Further down the hill where there are streets and services the caves have been turned into small homes. A bit like Hobbitton 🙂

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I wandered back down the side of the Rio Darro and stopped for a Spanish omelette and beer for lunch at one of the open cafes, not bad and it was great to be able sit down in the shade for a bit. The sun is quite hot, but with low humidity I am not actually bothered by it too much – thanks goodness.

The walk down the Darro Valley is nice, there a lot of old churches – all closed,

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But the 11th century Muslim bathhouse Banos Arabes was open for viewing.

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I finally reached Plaza Nueva and the church of Santa Ana y San Gil (closed of course) and the end of my planned day.

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It was close to 3:00 so timed perfectly for an afternoon nap. Not that I had one, but I did watch Johnny Mnemonic, the old Keanu Reaves movie on my laptop which was almost as good as being as being asleep.

After the movie I went off in search of something to eat for dinner, ended up with the usual and unimaginative pizza , I wanted paella but the place I chose only did it for two people. Sometimes solo is just a pain in the butt ! The pizza was good, but I did not linger.

Gallery – Street art in Barcelona

There is a huge amount of graffiti in Barcelona, most of it is just scribbled tagging, though I am sure there is some pithy political statements in among the scrawl, sadly it is all Spanish to me, so you my eager audience, do not get to see it either ! Anyway, statements are not always art and art is what I am in to, whether you agree with my tastes or not.Most doorways have something sprayed, brushed, inked or stuck on them so there was a variety of things to look at.

Here are some of the ones that caught my eye – BTW, I am a huge sucker for anarchy symbols. Less so for real anarchy!

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Gallery – Paris – random graf, sticker and stencil art.

I accumulated a bit of random street art, graffiti and stickers from my strolls around the streets of the old city in Paris.

I am not a huge fan of pointless graffiti, but love little works of “art” , political messages, stickers and stencils.

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Gallery – Paris street art – part one

My first day of strolling some of the streets of Paris’s left bank. There was not a huge amount of street art, though there were some stencils and stickers I liked, hope to see more as I work my way round the streets and alleys.

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Bristol – one cool city

Day 159/160/161, Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday 11/12/13 June 2012, Bristol

I spent three full days staying with Mel in Bristol, Mel worked on the Tuesday and left for a festival late afternoon on Wednesday, but we had a day and a half together which was great. The weather was average for most of my time there, a touch of sun on Wednesday morning mean we got out to have a big breakie in a cafe in the sun, but most of the time it was cloudy and drizzly.

Everyone in Mels flat works so it was another big lie in for me as Mel is not exactly known for early starts. Mel’s Spanish flat mate Jess made us a great Spanish omelette for breakfast, and then Mel and I went walkies. I wanted to get a couple of clothing items and a hydration pack in case I decided to get in a longish run while Mal and Tom are out on the trail.

I must say, even though the weather was less than average – it was raining, that Bristol is still a nice city, even in the more run down sections like St Pauls where Mel lives. There is a good mix of new and old buildings and really old buildings, parts of the cathedral have been there since the 1100s ! But what I really liked about Bristol was the street art, the council have allowed artists to paint a number of walls and some of the work is massive and a lot of it is beautiful – I took loads of pictures over a couple of days. There is also some quite good graffiti and slogans as well, especially around the Stokes Croft area where the riots were last year – outside Mels old flat, in the BBC footage of the riots you can see Mel and her friends sitting on the roof of their house. I have posted seperately about the stree art, but here ar my two favourites. This one is massive, two-three stories high !

Mel showed me all around the main parts of Bristol including the markets at St Nicholas’s I was tempted to buy a hoodie there, expensive and quite cool, but want something basic while I am in Cornwall anyway. There was an awesome record shop in the market – all it sold was punk and metal! And the coming gigs, awesome – and I am not going to be there for any of them. Next time I come to Bristol I will tie it in with a good show.

We visited St Mary RedCliffe church, a sign inside the door said daily services had been held here for over 800 years. (I so LOVE this old stuff)

An effigy of Sir Robert Berkely from the early 1200’s.

For lunch on Monday we went to the Hatchet Inn, open since 1606 – wowsers. I had half a pint of Doom Bar ale – not bad…

Bristol Alms houses, founded in 1483.

We wandered back to Mels and then took a marathon walk up to the Sportsman Bar so I could watch England play France in the football, we got there just after kick off so there was no seating free. At half time we decided to go another of Mels old flats that was quite close by and watch the second half there with some of friends. We grabbed four assorted polish beers – the cheapest in Bristol and watched footie, ate curry and talked crap for a few hours. I met a load more of Mels friends, most of the DJ’s in the Jungle Syndicate – they are all into dance music here and Bristol has a big scene. It was a good night, a nice bunch of people, Mel has always made really good friends and they welcomed me into the group which was most cool.

Mel worked Tuesday so I got up late and just went on more walkabouts in Bristol, I took a lot more street art photos and walked up to the museum for lunch. I got a bit lost a couple of times and then remembered Google maps on my phone !!

I had a walk around Bristol Cathedral, this chapel was built in 1220!

The grave of Abbot William Hunt from 1441.

Richard was making one his famous curries for dinner, so there was a very full flat at dinner time, another fun time with Mel and her friends. The large shared dinner seems to be the in thing here, which is great for an active social life, but I would not cope with all those late nights!

Wednesday Mel and Richard were off to work at a festival a few hours away so were leaving town mid afternoon. I was staying one more night which was cool. Mel and I were up and out the door for 9.00 and went for a walk in some glorious – though sporadic sun shine, we stopped up the Gloucester Rd for an expensive big breakie in the sun then shopped a bit before heading back to hers she could pack.

It was sad to see Mel and Richard leave, but I am so pleased to have been able to see her a few days and have some fun. Once they had gone I walked up to the Clifton Suspension Bridge about an hours walk away. The bridge is over the River Avon and was most impressive !

This old uni building was for sale, I was quite tempted : ) If only, it is next to the bridge and would have a monster view over Bristol city.

I was very fortunate to get invited to one of Mel’s friends place for dinner with some other people, which was incredibly nice of them and again I had a good time, and couple of drinks : ) a couple of her friends worked in Chamonix in the French alps, (where in my fantasy world I will get a job doing something completely unrelated to computers.) they have given some contacts there, and one of their friends has said I can possibly stay at their place as well and I have his number – how cool is that !!! very cool I think.

My baby girl and I

Gallery – Bristol street art

The street art in Bristol is just awesome, I have spent a good few hours walking around town looking around. I could easily do hours more.

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Melaka

Day 43, Wednesday 08 Feb, Melaka (Malacca)

I woke with a mild hangover, but surprised myself by sleeping very soundly – it was a great couch. Had a good cooked breakfast as it is part of Trefor’s serviced apartment deal, an awesome skin pealing shower and then hit the road before the day got too warm. I took the tube to the south bound long distance bus terminal about 20k south of central KL. I arrived in the bus terminal just before the 10:30 bus to Melaka so perfect timing, and for a change the advertised two hour journey only took one forty five. The long distance terminal in Melaka is about fifteen minutes from town by local bus, which also conveniently was leaving in five minutes. The day is going so well !

We soon arrived in Melaka’s old town and I was instantly in love with the place. When I booked my morning flight to the Philippines I forgot I had to get from Melaka to Singapore, massive Doh ! So I had to reduce my two days in Melaka down to one, I so regret that now. Unlike me, I had booked my accommodation ahead and have a massive room in the Oriental Residence Riverside Guesthouse, and it is a charming place with very welcoming, helpful and friendly owners. Once I had settled in my room they spent a few minutes with me and the map explaining how to get to all the various sites, great service.

After a coffee and a quick bit of sink clothes washing I set out to explore Melaka. With a couple of sweaty days and carrying the backpack everything I have, including the fresh washing seems to be greasy and sticky and sweaty and my day bag smells, it is just not nice! I have booked the nights in a guesthouse in Puerto Princesa, my first stop in the Phillies, and when I get there I am going to have a major cleaning session. The sandals are still good though !

Since its founding in the 1300’s by a Sumutran prince, Melaka (or Malacca)has been kicked around by most of the usual suspects, Chinese in the 1400’s, the Portugese in 1511, the Dutch in 1641 and finally the good old English in 1795. As you can imagine the town has some interesting architecture and the old town is now a protected place and is very attractive. I think the next thing they need to do is pedestrianise a couple of key streets, or maybe ban parking as it does ruin the view ! The old town is on the Melaka river, just inland from the straits of Melaka.

I wandered around the town for three hours in the very hot sun, including a visit to the local mall to buy myself a belt, my pants keep falling down, I think it is me that has shrunk not my pants that have expanded !

I took a number of photos as you would expect.

Over the past couple of weeks have really taken an interest in snapping photos of old bicycles so got a few examples today – I will do a bicycle photo special one day when I have time. But here is a genuine Chopper, oh man I have not seen one of these for years. I coveted one when I was young.

I also visited a “war is a crime” exhibition at the muslim museum and there was a presentation out the front. The exhibition seemed to be largely anti-American more than anything else, definitely lacked perspective. However in the presentation, which was in Malay I did here Bosnia and Rwanda mentioned, so maybe it wasn’t just yank bashing.

The bulk of the properties backing onto one side of the river have murals painted on river side walls, some quite amazing.

My hostel is the one with the pink flowers up the wall.

And I loved this shrine stuck to a corrugated iron wall (of course!)

By 4.30 I was starving so popped into the local laksa house for a great home recipe laksa and the coldest beer I have had in months, lovely stuff. After a wee lie down I wandered out again and up Melaka Hill, must be at least 20 metres high! To look at the ruins of St Pauls church and wait for a largely uneventful sunset.

Back to the hostel for a beer and a blog.

The Melaka river from the back of the hostel.

Reading back on this post, I have been a bit unfair on Melaka, it deserves way more attention than this , it really is a nice little town, stunning buildings and a nice feel – so sorry Melaka ! I am tired.