Delightful street art by Max Jaz Art in Holloway Road

Next time you are shopping in Holloway, look out for a series of hand-painted artworks between Boots and Lidl.

I think I first spotted them in mid-2024, yet whenever I point them out to Holloway locals, whether friends, other shoppers or people at the bus stop, it is rare that they have ever noticed them before.

I love the double trompe-l'oeil of the corner window with a view beyond. A lot of time and effort has gone into this. They are little works of art containing, I think, hidden messages or stories. 

I wonder if the figure with a light in their hand is supposed to be anyone in particular:

Bizarrely, the chevron tape seems to enhance this artwork. Max Jaz is clearly a cat lover as a feline friend is shown on almost every panel. 

The panel closest to Lidl shows two people sitting at a table. It's the only piece that is signed, on the blue jumper, on the trainers and as a squared-up underneath:

If you look closely, you can see it's romantic – there are flowers on the table and fireworks in the sky. The blond moustachioed male on the left is secreting a ring underneath the table, probably about to propose marriage to the redhead in yellow. One of these people is surely the artist.

I can't quite deduce the name on her necklace though – something like Smartina – my photo here is a bit blurred – whoops! I think we can deduce that the couple shown embracing in the first pair of pics (with a cat at their feet and an angel playing a guitar above their heads) are the same two people. 

The style is ver much like murals I have seen. Which makes me wonder, at what size does a painting on a wall become a mural? Or does a mural have to tell a story or multiple stories? 

Any further info about the artist and the stories behind these works is most welcome. 

This Wall Has Artistic Importance – Waithman Street, EC4

If you venture up the stairs at the side of 100 New Bridge Street, EC4 (heading for Carter Lane) turn immdiately right at the top into Waithman Street. Here you will find a wall featuring approx 12 panels (could be more than that, I forgot to count them). 

I took these pics back in August 2021 and completely forgot to do anything with them until now, purely because someone told me that this area is due for regeneration. Indeed, these panels might have been removed by now. I will go and check again soon, but for now here are some of the pics I took three years ago showing some of the pleasing repeat patterns that can be created by a limited range of shapes. 

Along the wall there are occasional small plaques that tell us...

Nice eh? It's the sort of thing I would have been mesmerised and inspired by as a child when one of my favourite hobbies was designing repeat patterns on graph paper. Here are a couple of my efforts from age 8/9.

Actually, having dug out that scrapbook, I now see that I have created more bubble pics than any other type. Hmmm... I'll have a think about how include those as part of a future post. 

You need hands

Inspired by the pointing hands in a recent post, I have collected some more hands that please me. 

You might recognise some of them.

The centre pic was taken at the lights festival that usually happens around Canary Wharf in January. I use it for my Facebook avatar sometimes.

Squawk!

I am tidying up my photos. It's a long slog.
I just found this one from when I was wandering through the Chalk Farm area last month doing a recce for one of my guided walks.
Tropical eh?

Dick Whittington's Cat

Turn around turn around Lord Mayor of London.
For almost 700 years people have been relating the story about how young Dick Whittington was leaving London after realising the streets weren't actually paved with gold after all and, when climbing what is now Highgate Hill, he heard the sound of Bow bells calling him, predicting a bright future.
He is often depicted dressed like Errol Flynn in Robin Hood mode, carrying his meagre belongings tied in a handkerchief knotted onto a stick, accompanied by a cat, usually a black.
The Archway area has a few places named after the man which include the hospital and health centre and a park (see my last post). And it was whilst walking through the park last week that I thought to put this cat collection together.

The memorial to the story now sits just up from Magdala Avenue on Highgate Hill but as shown in this c1910 postcard the railed-in cat used to be sited outside the original Whittington and Stone public house on the corner of Macdonald Road. It stayed there well into the 1960s as shown by the third pic.

A fabulous view of Whittington Hospital's metal cat sculpture and beyond can be seen from the outpatients department. The Whittington and Cat public house on Highgate Hill has been converted into flats but branded lettering still hangs on for dear life. The last pic is of a lovely old toffee tin I gave my friend Jen as a present because she lives near here.

Three cats from Whittington Park, all very close to the main Holloway Road entrance; topiary, tiles and wall art.

Read about Dick Whittington here.

Update (Dec6th): My good friend Jen Pedler is now leading a marvellous guided tour all about Mr Whittington – 90-minutes long, starting and ending at Bank tube station. Booking here.

Cally Festival – Sunday 18th June

A section of Caledonian Road will be closed to traffic this Sunday for the yearly street festival which takes place between noon and 6pm.
It's basically a vibrant community-led street party – there will be all sorts of stalls lining the road plus live music, arts projects, dancing and creative workshops.
Find me at my stall selling my cards and prints of photos I have taken in the area including some new ones.

A selection of new cards (prints to order)

  

The Banksy Job

Last night I went to the preview screening of The Banksy Job, an often hilarious film about the thefts of a Banksy statue that he had based on Rodin's The Thinker which stood for a while at the north end of Shaftesbury Avenue.

Before and after which included a Q&A session – Andy/AK47 is in blue.

I am not going to give too much away here (see the link to the trailer below if you like your films squished), but this true story spans a decade and centres around a tit-for-tat feud between AK47 (Andy Link) and Banksy about signatures and ownership.

The film will be available to purchase through iTunes, Skystore, Amazon, Googleplay, Virgin and Microsoft from Monday 19th June.

Enjoy... AK47, the man behind it all, is a joy to watch.

See the trailer here.

The latest bits of Kit in Hornsey Road

You may recall that last December I wrote about Kit's amazing foam sculptures in Hornsey Road.
Some of them got broken and some got stolen but most have been replaced with new models as shown below.

Photos taken Sunday 26th March 2017. There is another foam fella imprisoned behind a fence but I couldn't get a decent pic of him

I love em.
See more here.

Update
Below are pics of Prisoner 24601 and what happened when someone tried to help him 'escape'.
The bottom row are the latest editions* – as you can see there is a lot of thought and hard work going into theses lifelike foam fellas.

All Hornsey Road, between Marlborough and Fairbridge Roads

*photos taken 24th April

Love and peace – not just for Valentine's day

In a back street within the Peabody Estate to the side of Whitecross Street market there is a mosaic on a wall. In a circle it says I (heart) EC1. But look closer and see the messages and drawings within because there are lots of lovely quotes and sentiments there.

The caption on it reads: "This mosaic has been created by Western* Primary School working with Carrie Reichardt, Karen Wydler and Sian Smith, supported by Islington Council, Whitecross Street Party, Whitecross Street Community Centre and Peabody". 

Mad In England – Carrie Reichardt – Craftivist and Renegade Potter

Love isn't seasonal 
I have produced some cards using my photographs of this artwork. 
Also see 'Love Love Love' using my adaptations of the sign that currently wraps around the old Angel tube station on Pentonville Road.  

Cards available all year round – contact me directly or purchase online

Or how about a Vinegar Valentine?

*Spelling error here: The school is actually called Prior Weston Primary School. Sir William Weston was the last english prior of the Order of St John. 

Yellow foam people – street art in Hornsey Road – by Kit (?)

Updated 27th Dec 2016 – see last paragraph

Over the past few weeks a community of devilish little foam men has been appearing around the junction of Grenville Road and Hornsey Road, London N19.

I first noticed these characterful people made from pipe lagging two weeks ago but it wasn't until yesterday that I had a chance to take some photos.
I think they are marvellous – they have so much personality. When I was taking these pics no one else in the busy street was paying them any attention. What is wrong with people?!
A couple of the original ones have already gone and others have been damaged such as the second one on the bottom row which in the first week was walking down the post and then last week he was doing some kind of circus pose (one limb having become unattached. Now he's legless and looks like he is clinging on for dear life!
Some have a Christmas theme – note the santa hats. One is hanging from a scaffold firing what looks like a ray gun or it might be spray paint – he has two canisters on his back and more in his thigh pockets. Another little foam fella is sat above the burned out shop lighting a cigarette with his face covered in soot.  The group of three angels/sprites is amazing and reminds me of the sprites in Midsummer Night's Dream.
I have no idea who made these artworks. Someone is evidently busy  at night time scaling ladders armed with cable ties. I have googled and come up with nothing. I went into the upholsterer's on the corner of Grenville Road but the girl at the desk didn't have a clue about the artworks and neither did she seem to care much and those three fabulous angels are right outside her window! I am now wondering if Deti's Deli Cafe might be involved seeing as one of the yellow fellas is walking down the wall following arrows to there.
Hmmm... This needs more investigation. I will keep returning to this junction to see if more little yellow men appear and will post pics and updates here.
Whoever is doing this, I salute you. Thanks for brightening up the world with street art that does not deface or damage anything.

Update:
On Christmas Eve I noticed the name Kit at the foot of the smoking man – see pic to the right. Perhaps this has been there for ages and I missed it before. 
I asked the man who runs the convenience store below if he knew who Kit was and he says he thinks it's a customer who uses the shop.
I have an idea that Kit the creator lives above the shops near the carpet store... am I right?  Do tell.... ;-)

Brentford canal

An interesting guided walk following on from my visit to Boston Manor House, starting near the GlaxoSmithKline building and ending in Brentford town centre.

I have never walked around that area before and was impressed how lovely it is. Apart from the flyover and the bloody planes on the Heathrow flightpath.
More about the Brentford area of The Grand Union Canal here.

A walk along Kings Road (part 2) – The Chelsea Potter, RSoles and The Pheasantry/PizzaExp

This continues from my post on July 24th

An Art Nouveau-esque typeface on the optician's sign uses a cut of Arnold Böcklin by Otto Weisert harking back to the 1960s when this kind of retro look was very 'in'. Think Biba.
Next, The Chelsea Potter's ornate railings and pub sign.
On the next row, hints of the road's distant history can be glimpsed when looking at the lovely old house, home to RSoles boots and shoe shop. Note the  quirky cyclist art for sale above the ground floor. Possibly sold by the time you read this as I took these pics in March.
And then we have the splendid Grade II listed Georgian frontage of The Pheasantry, so called because in and around 1865 George Samuel was breeding pheasants, cattle and foxes at this site. Three plaques on the building show that the site was occupied by Amédée Joubert & Sons (1880-1914) who seemed to be masters of a multitude of trades including upholstery, cabinet making, wood carving and gilding. They also manufactured bedding and furniture and imported and restored tapestries and carpets. It would have been during this period that the triumphural entrance, the courtyard and architectural mouldings and details were added. AJ&S produced and sold not only full size items but miniatures for dolls' houses.
After 1914 the building became the home of a dance studio/ ballet academy, and was used as studio space by artists. In the mid 1930s the basement was turned into The Pheasantry Club and for decades was a popular haunt of artists, actors, writers and the like. It closed in 1966; the basement became a nightclub and the upper floors were converted into apartments.
It has been a branch of Pizza Express for as long as I can recall (date to be checked).
I can't find any info as to who the two people depicted in the roundel on the main gate are (shown in the pics bottom right). Possibly it's Monsieur Joubert and his wife? ... any ideas?

Dirty Millennium Bridge – here we go again

Just like the Golden Jubliee Bridges, the Millennium Bridge's handrails are the only clean bits to be found along the structure as people take in the views left and right.

View from Millennium Bridge looking east

Beneath the rail, previously shiny areas are now really grubby, and dirt sits tight in the textured metal underfoot. Filth! 

Chewing gum has been trodden into the grooves onto which Ben Wilson paints his wonderful little designs. Indeed, he was busy creating a new one on the evening I took these photos.

And now they calculating the cost of a bloody garden bridge... what kind of state will that be left to get into?

Oh... re chewing gum, and the disposal thereof... #GUMDROPLTD have come up with this clever recycling solution which turns discarded gum into plastic receptacles for disposal. There are many pink recycle points across central London already.

The Walthamstow Fragment – an Ionic Conundrum

Outside Vestry House Museum in Walthamstow Village there sits a short column with an Ionic capital.
Its irregular shape kept me intrigued for quite some time because I noticed that no two corners are the same – one corner is a true right angle, the next an acute angle, the opposite one has a corner cut into it and the last is an obtruse angle. Oh, and for some reason the one true corner is angled at the very top edge.
And, rather than all four side faces being the same, giving the illusion of a scroll falling on a column when viewed from any angle, this one depicts a scroll cut and flipped through the diagonal, such that faces A and B are alike with the usual egg and dart design, but faces B and C have some central foliage.
It's rather hard to explain so here are some photos:

It's an architectural conundrum; a stone mason's nightmare.
Intrigued, and thinking it was an art installation, I looked for an information plaque, but could not find one.
Having just researched it online, all I can find is that it is a relic of a GPO building demolished in 1912. But it doesn't say which GPO building or where exactly it stood.

. . . . .

I wrote the above and hit 'save' rather than 'publish' and went to check out porticos with ionic columns. And I now see that it's all very simple...
This Walthamstow fragment must have been the left corner of a portico. For example, see St Pancras Church opposite Euston Station – for the corner columns of the adjacent outward-facing sides to both depict a scroll they must have a common protruding angled corner piece, and the opposite internal corner needs a chunk 'missing' so that it aligns with the flat scrolls on the interior sides of the other columns (are you following this at the back?!).
Blimey, that was hard work, but I do now feel enlightened.
As for the irregular obtruse and acute angles I noticed on the Walthamstow fragment, I am now wondering if I didn't see that at all; the mind/eye can often play funny tricks... Or maybe, if I observed it correctly, the GPO building was, indeed, a bit out of true or built on a strangely-shaped plot of land.
A return visit is needed, or if anyone lives nearby, perhaps they could go and have a look for me and report back.

Off The Cally – Barnsbury Wood and Bingfield Park

A couple of months ago Jen and I went to investigate Barnsbury Wood, London's smallest local nature reserve, hidden behind a triangle of houses just a few minutes' walk east of Caledonian Road and Barnsbury Station.

This lovely little patch of woodland is only open at limited times – please see here for more info.

It was such a lovely day so I suggested we continue our wander over to the west side of Caledonian Road, just south of the railway line.
On the corner of Lyon Street we spotted that Salami's, a once colourful and popular grocer has closed down. A sign proclaims that Tesco have an application pending for the site. Oh well. Moving on....
Turning into Lyon Street, it looks at first to be a dead end. A raised platform on the right hand side of the road runs parallel to the railway line (I wonder if it was an loading bay for a siding or warehouses – I am still hunting for info on that). The land on the other side of the wall looks to be unused at the moment.

At the end of the road it turns left and then joins Gifford Street where a few walls with brickwork arches are all that the remain of the Christ Apostolic Church which burned down in 2003. Is This Love?
The right-hand/north side of Gifford Street comprises a lovely terrace of well-kept two storey cottages and three storey houses. These finish at the corner where the brick shells of some light industrial businesses and warehouses can be found, some of them gutted with the sun shining through. St Andrews Mission Hall with its pitched roof still sits intact, set back in the corner. I am keen to find out what will become of these lovely constructions as, to my eye, they look too good to be replaced. This area has a wonderful feeling of stepping in time to when children played in the streets. The map below shows how the area looked in the late Victorian period.

Approx 1888 (from The A-Z of Victorian London)
Today Bingfield Park replaces many of these grid format streets
Notice also the Great Northern Railway depot sheds and the Potato Market on York Way.

We then followed the road south around the edge of Bingfield Park, into Rufford Street, around the pointy corner junction of Randell's Road, and into Bingfield Road, managing to resist the temptations of Crumbell's Castle Adventure Playground, and finishing back on The Cally next to some painted parrots.
What a nice afternoon.
I was thinking how lovely it all was and wondered why the area gets such bad press then, less than a week later, near Copenhagen Street, a lad was stabbed and died within minutes. So sad.