Across The Tracks and Through The Looking Glass

Here’s a graffiti piece I did in 2003 when there used to be a half-decent skate park at Bishops Stortford. It made for a refreshing contrast to the clone-town it was rapidly becoming, full to bursting with coffee bars and mobile phone chains, just like everywhere else. Folk of all ages including the elderly and families who found themselves walking through the parks pleasant grounds would sit and enjoy the free spectacle of people painting graffiti and skating on fine days. All graffiti art at the park was respected and any good pieces stayed clean and untagged for years.

There used to be a mini ‘hall-of-fame’ down there with good graffiti art on as many as seven walls by both local and London artists including myself Ashe and Evade but the council ripped down all the 8 foot high, art covered skate-ramps and installed ridiculous 3 foot high concrete ‘skate-bumps’ with no vertical surfaces, thus making the park unsuitable for graffiti art and of limited interest to most older skaters.

They also replaced the adjacent basketball wall illustrated below with a tubular metal frame with a hoop, effectively ‘cleansing’ all graffiti art from the skate park, hence the town in one quick and convenient operation.

The stoners, jugglers and dreadlocked mellow types who used to harmlessly congregate there to skate the ramps, enjoy the vibe and play their guitars in the sun instantly moved on never to return, as the town council no doubt hoped they would. However all is far from rosy for these well meaning do-gooders.

Upon cleansing the place of the younger generations culture its’ atmosphere changed immediately, the new council-friendly ‘skate-bumps’ were covered in abusive and obscene graffiti overnight, something which was never a problem before.

Now I hear the place is controlled by gangs of aggressive ‘townies’ who filled the vacuum and find the new low ‘skate-humps’ perfect as benches where they can get drunk, light fires, smash bottles and start fights, things which also were never a problem before.

The elderly and families who used to sit down to watch the fun on fine days do so at their peril now!

Is there a lesson here somewhere?

Finished outline on tracing paper

Read more…

Stumblin’ Earthman was in Brick Lane Gallery while the show was on and came up with this video.

He never was much good on his feet bless him, his hand’s not the steadiest and his camera’s prehistoric, but it’s the best we’ve got so it’ll have to do.

 

I want to clear a few things up from the start….

 

• This blog is about art and inspiration and in no way encourages or condones any illegal activity.
• Any reference to illegal activity on my part is purely for entertainment purposes and does not constitute any admission of guilt of any crime.
• The content in the ‘About’ hyperlinks are intended to provide a background on what made my output evolve.
• Many of the links relate to what I was into at the time and don’t necessarily concur with my current outlook or opinion.
• Just because I may write or link to pages that describe positive effects in hallucinogens it doesn’t mean that it’s always good, it’s not, and when it’s bad it’s awful and can ruin those with previously unknown underlying issues.
• Train yards, tracksides and the like are extremely dangerous places and people who have worked there for years still sometimes get killed.Train yards in the 1980s were a very different place to today’s razor wire, cctv, infra-red, pressure pads, motion sensors etc.
• Painting seditious slogans may now fall under the strange new ‘anti terror’ laws.
•  I can not be held responsible for the accuracy or changing content of any off-site links.
• Posts open for comments will have off topic comments deleted.
• The content herein is the opinion of myself or my guest contributors and is not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, website or movement.
• I am not responsible, nor will be held liable, for anything anyone says on my blog in the blog comments, nor the laws which they may break in your country or theirs through their comments’ content, implication, and intent.
• This blog’s content is available for reading, via feed or otherwise, when it comes directly from me. Anyone who republishes my blog content beyond fair usage is violating my copyright. Anyone who republishes my blog content beyond fair usage on any website featuring ads, called “commercial use”, may also be violating my  copyrights.
• If anyone wants to say hi email me. Do not post off topic in comments it will be deleted!

Thanks to everyone who came to ‘A Moment of Watching Something’, my debut show which ran from 28th November until 8th December 2008.

Special thanks to all who came  out of the woodwork and enjoyed themselves at the Private View on the 27th. In response to requests I will post a playlist featuring some of the tunes we were playing as soon as I get the chance. Private view shots are coming soon also….

You can see an exhibition slideshow here

Unfortunately the owner of the Brick Lane Gallery let us down in a big way despite paying a small fortune to rent the space and hanging a groundbreaking show.

After problems with the house lighting, much of which failed due to old bulbs, we had no internet connection for much of the time we were in the building, while we waited three whole working days (!!!) for the owner to get a new password from his ISP. I apologise to all who were affected by these problems, especially the bloggers and news media who were expecting shots of the show in time to enable their readers to get to us while the event was still on.

Keep an eye on this blog for further news.

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