Having been a homeless person myself once I know how difficult it can be to try to satisfy your creative needs when you are busy all day trying to fulfil the most basic human requirements of shelter, food, personal hygiene and warmth.
Such vital needs for expression don’t however just go away.
In the face of your predicament; the absence of basic essentials of survival often accompanied by family and relationship breakdown, loss of work, self esteem and sometimes even addiction issues, self expression becomes more vital than ever.
The solace and the comfort gleaned from some small expression of ones soul, however small, may be the fuel that keeps the inner fire of selfhood burning.
Even a token flourish of pencil or paint, or arrangement of words into prose, is enough to scream ‘I am somebody’ if only to yourself, and that can sometimes mean the difference between two very different paths.
So when Damion Mulrain from the homeless charity Centrepoint from London’s Soho contacted me to ask if I could give a little of my time to pop into their Summer University graffiti project to chat about formulation of ideas, can control and give a few pointers on graffiti, I was delighted to oblige.
Damion has a strong background in graphics and the arts, and is passionate about his work with Centrepoint, so he was able to run and organise the course very effectively himself with the help of his colleague Louisa, my role was merely to enhance his skills with a touch of oldskool authenticity and be there to guide the young people and answer questions when they came up. I also lent the project my collection of graffiti books a few days beforehand and Damion got them all practising on paper long before the cans came out…..
We needed to start simply of course….
…and after watching my demonstration of basic techniques extremely intently….
…everyone seemed to approve …
…so we all decided it was high time to get cracking with some free expression…..
…all of their own….
…and really started to pull some fine ideas out of the bag…
…with the idea of learning some basic can-control skills.
…which they followed up on day two with some more substantial concepts of their own.
Everyone was given the full range of equipment to do all kinds of graffiti, including scalpels and cardboard to make stencils, and despite being warned how much more difficult it was to get a pleasing effect, everyone chose to work freehand.
Damion and Louisa from Centrepoint….
…along with other staff members who dropped in…
…seemed to be having just as much fun…..
as the residents themselves!
Not bad for beginners, huh?
Drip control strategy in full operation…
The rabbit character between the letters ‘SB’ begins to take form….
Despite how it may look this really is HYDE’s first ever piece, outline and work totally his own, just a few pointers from me….
The others too, seemed to take to the task very well indeed, and were rightly pleased with their results.
Lots of fun was had by all. Thanks so much to Damion and Louise for inviting me take part and thanks to all the young people from the project for for allowing me to help them with their expression and to witness them pinning down their visions and ideas so beautifully. Good luck to all for the future!
They are working their way around from Sclater Street to Bacon Street buffing everything. Anyone painting on the remaining space is told to stop immediately and move on or be arrested.
I will be posting a memorial superpost featuring the best and the worst moments of this fantastic free space in the coming days.
It will be sorely missed by all and no doubt replaced with a mess of tags and throw-ups.
I’ve been posting a lot of graffiti based stuff lately, but I never forget my love for good old oil on canvas, so here’s a little something I knocked up way back in the late 90’s called ‘Living Under The Lines’.
I realise it’s already on my main site but thought it deserved a post on the blog as the definitions of what categorisation it may fall into seem have been redefined
I suppose now they call it Lowbrow/ Pop Surrealism. I like to think of it maybe as Urban Visionary but hell what’s in a name, label, tag, school or ism?
It is what it is.
To me at the time it was just a feeling I wanted to get onto canvas. I think I hit the mark.
Many thanks to Hip Hop and Graffiti documenter and archiver Skire for allowing me to use shots from his amazing archive.
It’s thanks to people like him we can look back on a golden era.
This shot features vintage London handstyles including an old Elate tag at the legendary and much missed Groove Records in Greek Street, Soho, the Mecca for Hip Hop’s early days, and pretty much the main dispenser of all the Hip Hop Electro imports from the US in the mid eighties, and where I spent most of my money back then, starting in around 86.
The Groove Electro charts were our ever changing bible, and mainstay of the Mike Allen show on Capital Radio, the pioneering spirit behind UK Hip Hop.
This place was pretty well hit in those mad old days, as anyone who knows London’s graffiti history will see from the tags…
It’s nice to see my handstyle in its’ transformative phases, (starting with a small e and ending with a capital E at this point!) It’s on the top of the door frame below Rogue and above Noize for those having trouble….
Also I can make out Drax WD, Jinx WD, Rogue, Crime, Up2, Dare2, Noize 207, Fuel, Daube, Cane 1, State of Art and Rome ACR amongst others I’m not 100% on. The piece was by the legendary Fade 2
