.
So dry for so long
watering plants in April
at last the rain comes
.
by Scooj
3636. Moon Street (88)
Here he is again, the beating heart, the drum-beat of Bristol graffiti art reassuring us that all’s well. Face 1st has painted this doorway in Moon Street many times in the past, but his visits to this holy place for graffiti, along with visits of other artists, have declined in frequency since the area started undergoing some major gentrification. Soon Moon Street and the nearby hotspots for street art and graffiti will be mere memories, embedded in photographic archives and digital spaces. The Bristol scene will continue to thrive though, I am sure, just in different places.
This piece is similar to one that Face 1st painter on the M32 roundabout a couple of weeks back, with a lot of pink bubblegum kind of stuff going on with the character’s hair. I think that Face 1st must have had a job lot of pink and needed to use it up. Always good and always present. Fun from this PWA perennial.
3635. Brunel Way (97)
And they just keep coming. Rosalita (Raw) has been smashing it all over Bristol during the last six months and if I am honest, I couldn’t be happier about it. There is something about her work that feels very honest, at times brutal but so very full of soul. The subjects and the rich colours she uses are quite unusual in the street art world and her work stands out because of it.
This piece, at the end of the Brunel Way concrete support depicts a lady carrying a heavy load, in fact a caravan, on her back, looking like a Sherpa Porter. Entitled “if this is my home, where do I go?” This is a powerful piece on the subject of right to roam. So good.
A short letter on the matter of lies
.
Dear Boris Johnson
you have spun a web of lies
in which you are trapped
.
I was taught not to tell lies
Yours etcetera, Stephen
.
by Scooj
3634. Cumberland Basin
It would appear that this wall, after a considerable period of neglect is becoming a little popular. A week or two back there was a nice new collaboration from Mudra and Nugmoose. This has now been replaced with this more than half-decent piece from Pl8o.
I am very pleased to see that Pl8o seems to be active again after quite a long absence – he is another artist who has gone to ground for much of the lock down period. This is a delightful deep-shadowed piece of graffiti writing spelling out the artist’s moniker yellow to orange to black fades. His letters lend themselves very nicely to writing and there is something very easy on the eye about them. Great to see Pl8o back hitting walls again.
3633. North Street Standard
I genuinely miss my occasional conversations with Andrew Burns Colwill. I haven’t seen the artist for well over a year now, possibly two, and that is far too long. During that time I haven’t seen too much of his street work either, so it was with great joy that I found this recent piece by him on the wall of the North Street Standard.
One of the things that chimes for me with all of ABC’s work is the environmental theme at its heart, and this piece is more overt than some of his work, with a direct call to action emblazoned on the left hand side.
The Earth sitting at the top end of an hourglass is a fabulous visual metaphor for the urgency of the predicament we find ourselves in. As the Earth drips down into the lower half of the hour glass, a face is seen in the centre, as if the soul of the planet was being drained out.
This is a fabulous piece of fine art from one of my favourite people in Bristol.
We all must do what we can, and we can do what we must.
Three words
.
Do you remember?
Conversation opener
to warm our cold hearts
.
by Scooj
3632. M32 roundabout J3 (310)
Claro_que_sssnoh (grief… his name is difficult to type) and his Spanish fellows have been busy of late, actually it seems that most artists have, and my archive for March and April are swelling with unpublished pieces that will probably keep me busy well into retirement.
This is a lovely colourful HONS by this busy member of the HMR crew. His pieces are usually quite busy, with a lot going on in the letter and colour transitions, and his style is fairly distinctive, combining lots of curves with angular and regular straight lines. Always fun to see.
3631. St George skate park (13)
Sled One is a great champion for the ASK crew, and will often paint these animated letters in his inimitable style that creates so much movement and character. This is one of two such recent pieces.
The skate park at St George doesn’t have the best graffiti walls, most of the site is rolling mounds and shallow bowls, but this ramp and one at the other end offer graffiti artists some decent opportunities. This vibrant ASK would most likely have been freestyled and I imagine fairly quickly, such is the skill and talent of Sled One. More like this coming soon.
Clay
.
Claggy when too wet
sets to concrete in the dry
blooming Bristol clay.
.
by Scooj
Digging my allotment is a trial. The soil is clay based and no matter how much organic matter I chuck in, the clay seems to rise to the surface. When it is wet it is impossible to dig, everything sticks to everything. When it is dry, it becomes so hard that pushing a spade into it causes a jarring sensation and breaking the lumps is serious hard labour. Perhaps I should move.
Natural adventures 