Subway Art

My favourite "gallery" in the 80s was the foot subway under Clifton Bridge. I cycled to work the long way round every day & smiled at the pieces, stopped & read the statements. Went back later & photographed the new ones.
One evening I encountered one of the writers. He was a bit shifty & started to walk off. I didn't want to stop him working, so I went home & came back later to photograph. This is the first post of several as I try to enhance the old photos & separate pieces from the groups. Some were taken early morning others late evening so the light affects them.
The first 2 are general group pictures on opposite sides of the bridge.

Hard to get a good angle on this one because of the narrowness of the subway.
This was one of my all time favourites. I envied the writer his skills. I would love to be able to do "public" greetings of this nature!

A Touch of Computer Madness always appealed to me too!







More to follow ...

aRT OR vANDALISM -pArt 3

Last few bits from 2003




I was given a book round about 1985 - Subway Art by Martha Cooper & Henry Chalfont, when Stan saw my photo collection of pieces from that time & got me to take him to see some of the originals. Thanks Stan, still enjoying it.

aRT OR vANDALISM - Part 2

More from the Clifton Bridge "Gallery" 2003.

My favourite from this set carries a message!

This also tends to be lost to the tiny minds. Of course most are anti-establishment messages & so might make a few people uncomfortable.
I agree with this one though, "War is the death ... of human reason." Perhaps that should be on the side of a lorry!

Even the embelished tags can be attractive.

aRT or vANDALISM?

As we drifted down the river tonight I was reminded of my interest in "folk art." By a piece on a wall overlooking the embankment. It was actually a very poorly executed version of




and this is a poor rendition of what the statement should look like! Think New York Wildstyle!
It did however take me back to 1980 when my interest in such works of art was first sparked by some delightful pieces in the foot subway near Clifton. I need to search through the shoe boxes to find my photos of the originals which I will post as soon as I find them. However stepping back a mere 3 years, here is the first post in my series on my favourite local art galleries.
This set is for Sarah!


No entrance fee, all the galleries are open to the public 24/7.

Sadly you have to get there before the "buffers" from the local council arrive to eradicate this free exhibition.

The question is not "Art or Vandalism?" but "Who are the vandals?" Not even the men in trucks with anti-graffiti paint, but the small minded policy makers who think art costs millions, is owned by someone & hangs in galleries. If they had been around a few thousand years ago, the heritage left to us by early cave painters would have been scrubbed off the day after it was daubed!

The really funny thing is that when it is commercial, painted on the side of a lorry & paraded round the streets as advertising, it hardly gets a second look.

If it is sprayed on a blank featureless piece of concrete there is a sudden uproar amongst the tiny minds.



Meanwhile enjoy a couple from 2003







More to follow ...

Valleys & Rocks

The sets I did on valleys & rocks were composites again, using sketches from Ireland, Wales & the The Lakes. I did a whole series of skylines & then added features later. I've got dozens of skylines still waiting for details. I tried to make the skylines & the lines of the hillsides accurate, while rocks, gates & paths were added from other sources & because of the way the wax flows (or doesn't) some just happened. Since having a decent scanner, I messed around with the images, mainly altering colours.
I've shown them with the original first & then the altered image after it.
The first one was actually a real failure that I just liked. Using a full sized iron meant that I sometimes had difficulty when I tried to get perspective & scale to look right. The icicles were meant to be small & hanging from a branch. I just altered the whole thing when that went wrong!

The next two were a skyline from a place that I think is called Windy Gap in Co. Kerry. Mind you, the detail is from elsewhere because there is really a road running through the valley. It's one of those places that you arrive at unexpectedly because it doesn't look as though it's there until you get "round a corner." We went with Stan & Jackie, got out & walked & then when we tried to find it again a few years later, couldn't locate. I started to think it was a figment of imagination, but Mortimer seemed to think that it existed when we described it.

The next 2 were based on 3 sketches from near Cwm Idwal

This "happy accident" is where I got a patch of rocks completely in the wrong perspective, but liked the gorge it made.

Encaustic paintings

Today, Rosie posted a couple of my old encaustic paintings on her blog. They came as a happy surprise, like meeting old friends in the street unexpectedly.

The first one one was part of a set I did & still have several partly finished ones in a box. They were really a composite taken from sketches made in both Ireland & Derbyshire. I almost feel like restarting them. I'll wait until later in the summer & will need to clear the backroom a little, because I need empty workspace.

The second one stunned me. I remember the set where I experimented with landscapes using unusual colours & had totally forgotten about. Again I have some unfinished ones. I had forgotten how much I liked the results that gave "other worldly" or fantasy type landscapes. Why did I ever stop? I have hundreds of pounds worth of equipment & materials waiting for me to start up again!!