There are times when you think you know it all, or perhaps I shouldn’t judge…I’ll start again. There are times when I think I know it all (just ask my children), and I thought I pretty much knew where to find all the best places for graffiti and street art are. Writing this blog has shown me how utterly wrong I am. There I’ve said it.
Two dear friends of mine walked home with me a few weeks back, and were terribly polite by showing interest in my rather overbearing desire to tell them all about every piece of art we walked past. Who painted it, when they did it, what was there before, where you might find more of their work, who they collaborate with…and so on…oh my goodness they must have been very bored. They didn’t show it though, they are friends after all.
During our conversation, they asked whether I knew about the Alex Lucas bats piece by Montpelier Park. No I hadn’t. So they took me there straight away, and what a gift.
This beautiful work by Lucas adorns a small council tool shed on the edge of the park. The bats are so typical of her superb illustrations and so full of character. To top it off she has added a quotation by Gilbert White one of the early and pioneering English naturalists in the eighteenth century and author of Natural History and Antiques of Selborne, a book given to me by my late step father when I was a boy.
I like everything about this Lucas work. Where it is, the colours, the illustrations, the quotation, the fun of bats ‘playing’, the obvious love for nature, everything.
So I concede I really don’t know where all the street art in Bristol is, and I will be forever grateful to Jon and Jane for pointing this jewel out to me.
