What could have been.....At the end of the cul de sac on which I live is a large and extremely boring grey concrete wall. It measures approximately 30 feet tall and 60 feet across. A while ago a few of us inhabitants on the avenue decided that it would be an ideal site for some kind of beautification. No firm ideas : just vague hopes. Interested parties were consulted and meetings were announced. Some people were enthusiastic and motivated and attended. Many were apathetic and did not. Any prospective art work would need, we realised 100 per cent approval and tolerance as the work transformed the wall. To cut a long story short it never got off the metaphorical ground. Hostility was muted and polite but nevertheless it was enough to spoil the party.
At one meeting several books of art graffitti were produced to show more extreme forms of wall-covering. "Graffitti" or even nowadays "Street Art" are not however terms to make the more conservative brethren amongst the avenue forget property values or automatically embrace a culture of artistic adventure. Whereas Ben Eine or Banksy or Roadsworth have achieved acceptance within areas of the art world outside the north of England critical acclaim would not necessarily be bestowed on them by the folks of Exley Avenue. They could, of course, really like concrete. Or really distrust Artists.
Of course I had a plan. I always have at least one plan. I wanted to create a Trompe L'Oeil effect. I wanted to make the cul de sac into a road. To fade the grey tarmac into moss, grasses, undergrowth and a path seen through to a country trackway. To change the Urban of the real into the Rural of the imagination. To have the trees in the distance fading into greyness, their boughs interlocking to encourage that sense that here, there, was the road not travelled.
If I had to demonstrate the beauty of this type of art I would recommend not the art versions of shock and awe, the patron saints of taggers but the narrative illusionism of John Pugh and I am not for a second suggesting I could create anything as fine as his masterpieces. The idea however still exists and now it is documented in cyberspace. The question becomes: How to persuade people to decide on Art in their environment rather than the merely utilitarian. I even made the point that if it was unsightly or somehow offensive a decent coat or two of battleship grey would assuredly bring back the beauty of the concrete wall. It is possible to live with the wall as it is but it is not strictly necessary that it always stays the same. A future artist is equally entitled to suggest his cunning plan and put that to the vote. Even if that obliterates my work. The point is that if Pope Julius II had decided to go with the flock wallpaper and said no to Michelangelo then the Sistine Chapel might also now be a road not travelled, an artwork that exists only in the mind of its potential creator.
Perhaps, in the middle of the night, with a stencil and an aerosol I could make a start....
At one meeting several books of art graffitti were produced to show more extreme forms of wall-covering. "Graffitti" or even nowadays "Street Art" are not however terms to make the more conservative brethren amongst the avenue forget property values or automatically embrace a culture of artistic adventure. Whereas Ben Eine or Banksy or Roadsworth have achieved acceptance within areas of the art world outside the north of England critical acclaim would not necessarily be bestowed on them by the folks of Exley Avenue. They could, of course, really like concrete. Or really distrust Artists.
Of course I had a plan. I always have at least one plan. I wanted to create a Trompe L'Oeil effect. I wanted to make the cul de sac into a road. To fade the grey tarmac into moss, grasses, undergrowth and a path seen through to a country trackway. To change the Urban of the real into the Rural of the imagination. To have the trees in the distance fading into greyness, their boughs interlocking to encourage that sense that here, there, was the road not travelled.
If I had to demonstrate the beauty of this type of art I would recommend not the art versions of shock and awe, the patron saints of taggers but the narrative illusionism of John Pugh and I am not for a second suggesting I could create anything as fine as his masterpieces. The idea however still exists and now it is documented in cyberspace. The question becomes: How to persuade people to decide on Art in their environment rather than the merely utilitarian. I even made the point that if it was unsightly or somehow offensive a decent coat or two of battleship grey would assuredly bring back the beauty of the concrete wall. It is possible to live with the wall as it is but it is not strictly necessary that it always stays the same. A future artist is equally entitled to suggest his cunning plan and put that to the vote. Even if that obliterates my work. The point is that if Pope Julius II had decided to go with the flock wallpaper and said no to Michelangelo then the Sistine Chapel might also now be a road not travelled, an artwork that exists only in the mind of its potential creator.
Perhaps, in the middle of the night, with a stencil and an aerosol I could make a start....
