Doors 334 – Doors and the gardens of Anima, Marrakesh, Morocco, January 2025 (Part XIV)
On our way home from the High Atlas mountains, we called in at the Anima gardens, an extraordinary place where a stunning collection of plants meets the creative artistic imagination of multi-media artist André Heller. This garden was one of the great highlights of our trip to Marrakesh. An oasis (almost literally) of cool shade in the middle of the parched arid landscape which was full of surprises around every corner.
The imaginative sculptures in the garden seemed to be perfectly at home despite their bright colours and quirkiness. The place was a feast for the eyes and a haven for birds and insects too. This was genuinely one of the best gardens I have visited in the world, and utterly unexpected. A must if visiting Marrakesh.
It is another week in which doors play second-fiddle to their surroundings, but I hope you enjoy the ensemble:
Entrance door to Anima, Marrakesh, Morocco, January 2025Colourful service doors, Anima, Marrakesh, Morocco, January 2025Eyes over a gateway, Anima, Marrakesh, Morocco, January 2025Desert plants, Anima, Marrakesh, Morocco, January 2025Desert plants, Anima, Marrakesh, Morocco, January 2025Garden staff door, Anima, Marrakesh, Morocco, January 2025Face mask in the bushes, Anima, Marrakesh, Morocco, January 2025Large sculpture spraying a fine mist, Anima, Marrakesh, Morocco, January 2025Wooden sculpture, Anima, Marrakesh, Morocco, January 2025Colourful cone sculpture, Anima, Marrakesh, Morocco, January 2025Palm trees in the garden, Anima, Marrakesh, Morocco, January 2025Another cone sculpture, Anima, Marrakesh, Morocco, January 2025Open lawn in the garden at Anima, Marrakesh, Morocco, January 2025View of the High Atlas from the garden at Anima, Marrakesh, Morocco, January 2025Classy cafe at Anima, Marrakesh, Morocco, January 2025Fancy iron door, Anima, Marrakesh, Morocco, January 2025Large iron sculpture of a ‘Yaz’, a Berber symbol which appears on the Berber flag, Anima, Marrakesh, Morocco, January 2025
It has been fun digging out these pictures of the Anima garden, and I have shared far more than I intended for the purposes of Thursday Doors (a bit of a show-and-tell I’m afraid). Back to the city next time. Have a great weekend.
If you have made it this far, you probably like doors, and you really ought to take a look at the No Facilities blog by Dan Anton who has taken over the hosting of Thursday Doors from Norm 2.0 blog. Links to more doorscursions can be found in the comments section of Dan Anton’s weekly Thursday Doors post.
Doors 109 – yet more graffiti/street art doors (bear with me…)
Is it really the fourth of June already? Is it really 2020? What happened to the last five decades? Time seems to be accelerating with every moment that passes at a time in my life when I would rather like it to slow down, perhaps even go in reverse.
Very busy at work at the moment so this is what you are getting – doors from 2016/17:
Copyright and Paul Monsters, North Street, Bristol, April 2017
Coloquix, Moon Street, Bristol, August 2016
Decay and John D’oh, North Street, Bristol, July 2016
Fiver, St Andrews Road, Bristol, December 2016
Whysayit, Upper York Street, Bristol, January 2016
Copyright and Gemma Compton, North Street, Bristol, July 2016
Alex Lucas, Picton Street, Bristol, March 2016
I realise that three of these are shutters, but shutters are kind of doors too aren’t they? The last picture is the shop and home belonging to the Artist Alex Lucas, which she decorated herself. Over the last week or two she has been making good use of the current lock down restrictions and re-painted the whole thing. One for my street art posts fairly soon I think.
May I wish you all a very happy week.
If you have made it this far, you probably like doors and you really ought to take a look at the Norm 2.0 blog – the originator of Thursday Doors where there are links to yet more doors in the comments section at the end.
Doors 108 – a continuation of graffiti/street art doors
Let me open a small window into the world of Scooj during lock down. I am a civil servant and have been working full time throughout the coronavirus outbreak, indeed work has been somewhat busier than normal because of the virus and the communications work I do.
Mrs Scooj also works in the civil service, so we have both been working from home, pretty much flat-out for the last ten weeks or so. My wife drew the long straw and works in the study with our main desktop and I am working in the dining room.
Our teenage children are both at home and keeping them motivated is a real struggle and heaps a whole ton of additional pressure on all of us. Although we have has a few flare ups (inevitable in these circumstances) we have had some really good quality moments together as a family which I am sure we will all treasure. However, spare time just seems to evaporate.
All this is a bit of a long-winded way of saying that once again you are going to have to put up with archive images of doors, because although I do have some new door photographs, I can’t get anywhere near the desktop PC to prepare them for Thursday doors. So old graffiti/street art doors it is going to have to be. I hope you enjoy:
Laic217, Wilder Street, Bristol, January 2017
Andy Council, North Street, Bristol, January 2017
Face the Strange, Upfest, Bristol, July2016
3Dom, John Street, Bristol, May 2016
Sweet Toof, St Andrews Road, Bristol, January 2017
Angerami, Upfest, Bristol, July 2016
Laic217, King Square Avenue, Bristol, February 2017
Jonesy, Leonard Lane, Bristol, August 2015
That’s all folks for another week. I hope you aren’t getting too tired of these urban graffiti doors. I hope I get a bit of time to share some more regular doors next week.
Take care, wherever you are.
If you have made it this far, you probably like doors and you really ought to take a look at the Norm 2.0 blog – the originator of Thursday Doors where there are links to yet more doors in the comments section at the end.
After a reasonably quiet winter, Sirens is out and about again which is good to see. I managed to catch up with him just as he was finishing off this piece and he seems to be enjoying himself having been through a fairly dynamic period recently.
Sirens, St Werburghs, Bristol, March 2020
I asked why he had chosen this spot for his SIRENS writing, because it had been the site of an interesting Tom Miller piece that had not been there long, and he said it was because it had been covered with a throw up (a rough and ready quick piece of writing) and so he painted over that. It’s a jungle out there. I have noticed that Sirens’ work often looks rather different from most pieces you see and this is down to the absence of hard outlines and his work is closer to fine art than street art. Looking forward to seeing more over the coming months.
So it has been a while, and since there isn’t an Upfest festival this year, I am going to have to post another series of pictures from Upfest 2018 (there are still so many more waiting) starting with this utterly awesome piece by Insane51.
Insane51, Upfest, Bristol, July 2018
This extraordinary artist from Greece specialises in 3D street art and has created dozens of huge pieces which look fuzzy because they are double images, but when viewed through the red and blue specs stand out from the wall in good old-fashioned 3D.
Insane51, Upfest, Bristol, July 2018
This particular piece went up over about three or four days and was impressive enough in its halfway stage when the female portrait was complete. Insane51 then added the blue skeleton layer to the piece. The magic really happens when you view the whole thing through 3D specs one eye at a time. Rather helpfully, Insane51 did the job for us on his Instagram feed.
Insane51, Upfest, Bristol, July 2018
Definitely one of the finest walls at last year’s festival and a real crowd-pleaser. I got rather lucky and managed to grab a few words with him and during the course of our conversation he gave me a little goody bag of some stickers and the essential cardboard specs. It would be great to see him return again and wow us with his extraordinary talents.
This is an unlikely piece of door art next door to what I guess is my local pub, The Prince of Wales, which incidentally was painted by one of my favourite Bristol artists Andrew Burns Colwill…but that is another story.
Door, Bamba Bazaar, Gloucester Road, Bristol
I wasn’t looking for this door, which I think has been there for some time, but kind of noticed it while I was waiting at the pedestrian lights to cross the road earlier this summer. Actually it is more of a gate than a door, but it is utterly magnificent.
Door, Bamba Bazaar, Gloucester Road, Bristol
The gate actually guards the entrance to two further doors (so you get three for the price of one). I would think it was commissioned by Bamba Bazaar, a shop that specialises in beads (I bought some beads there once) and was constructed by Scroller Metal Work.
It would be nice if more businesses put in the effort to commission something beautiful and practical like this, but it is really rather un-British. I would expect to see something like this in Barcelona or Paris and perhaps take it for granted, but here in Bristol it is a hidden gem. It pays to look around.
Natural adventures 