November 2013 Archives

Many birthday parties and anniversaries this summer meant more afternoon tea. In the middle of August, we went to the Montcalm Hotel's "The Crescent" tea rooms and restaurant near Marble Arch to enjoy afternoon tea with champagne. The afternoon tea included all of the other trimmings of course: finger sandwiches, scones with jam and clotted cream, and a selection of pastries. In addition to the standard tea trimmings, we also received fruit and a fruit smoothie. These was delivered to us on a three-tier stand. The room was well-lit, and we were entertained with live music.

After our first 'course' of a glass of champagne, I opted for the Earl Grey tea with cornflower petals. (I tried to get a photograph of these as they looked very nice, but you cannot really see them, but I loved the clear pot of tea that I was given).

Champagne and the menu

Earl Grey and cornflower petal tea

Sandwiches, scones and pasties

A selection of sandwiches

Scones

Smoothies and fruit

Our pastries were a selection of treats, including a type of bread, fruit flapjack, tart, and puff pastry. 

Pastries

Pastries

Over the past few months, I have been photographing London's street art. I've added a few here that I have spotted around east London, and these are from various artists. London's street art changes so rapidly.

Roger Malloy

Roger Malloy is a photographic street artist based in east London. He recently created the four panels on Great Eastern Street. The above photographs show his work in progress and completed.

Rodrigo Branco is a street artist from South America, and he painted the piece above just off of Brick Lane. (Unfortunately, I was unable to photograph this without a car over part of it.)

'Rob the dog' creates paste-ups, such as the ones above.

'Sell Out' has been creating a lot of work recently, including famous toy Lego and video game characters, such as Sonic. They have also been pasting up many butterflies around existing artwork around Brick Lane.

Endless is a stencil artist, and his work can be seen around east London.

Prozak and cheese

Prozak is a street artist that uses colourful paint to create works of art. The artist is from Brazil, and the colourful work is always recognisable.

Ketones and Kemet painted the pieces above.

Tw@t painted a series of ears with the American flag around east London.

Unknown 'goodbye blue sky'

Thrashbird created a series of imagery at the start of the year, and these often featured racy imagery of women. Not surprisingly, many were painted over quite quickly. The artist is from California.

Tizer is a street artist and grafitti artist who keeps busy painting walls in London. I've added a couple of pieces here, but his work consists of characters, and the work is recognisable. 

It has been about a year since I walked across Millennium Bridge. On my last visit, I discovered several locks attached to the bridge. These are similar to the ones I discovered in Shoreditch a couple of years ago and blogged about here: Locks of Love, Shoreditch. All of the locks were different, and some contained messages of love written on them.

It seems that this craze started in Paris before expanding to other bridges in other cities across the world. Seeing these locks on the bridges with their own personal messages is really sweet.

The Hackney Peace Carnival Mural was designed in 1985 by Ray Walker. The mural is located outside the Dalston Junction railway station. The mural's subject is the 1983 Hackney Peace Carnival, with street entertainment and peace protesters processing down Dalston Lane. 

The artist died before his work was painted, but family friends Mike Jones and his wife Annie Walker made sure that the piece was finished and painted onto the building off Dalston Lane.

The artwork recently appeared on the album cover 'Home' for the band Rudimental (an east London group). It is one of the oldest street art murals in east London.

I recently returned from a long weekend in Dublin. On the first day, we took the tourist bus around the city. We visited Kilmainham Gaol, Phoenix Park, Jameson's Whiskey museum, Dublina Museum and Christ Church Cathedral. We finished the day by having a traditional Irish meal with music and folklore. It was a great start to our trip in Dublin, and I really recommend the Gaol as it was one of the highlights.

Kilmainham Gaol (jail) was our first 'stop', and the tours are all guided. There was a queue, so we had to wait approximately thirty minutes in the queue but managed to just make the next tour.  The location was used in several films, including The Italian Job. The jail was designed for the interests of rehabilitating the prisoners, and it has been used as a model in building other jails since. We were shown around various areas of the jail and told its history and key events of Irish History in relation to the jail and the activities that took place inside. Many of the stories were sad ones.

Lamp on the front of the arched entrance. Public hangings used to take place above the door.

Kilmainham Goal - interior of the newer part of the jail to increase visibility and efficiency

To lighten our moods after the jail, we got back on the bus and had a ride through Phoenix Park on the way to Jameson's Whiskey museum. The park was lovely, and unfortunately, we did not get time to go back and explore this later. We saw deer, a monument that looked like Washington Monument, and the president's house (which looks very much like the White House). The American ambassador also has a house here. 

At Jameson's, we had to wait for the next tour, but we each had a whiskey-based cocktail at the bar. We were then given the tour of the museum, which was the location of the distillery. We learned how they make the whiskey and had a free tasting. (As the bloke prefers whiskey, he and a small group of others had their own whiskey taste session to compare this Irish whiskey with a Scottish whiskey and an American whiskey.)

Whiskey-based cocktail at Jameson's

Distillery copper tanks

After Jameson's, we got back onto the tour bus and got off at Ha' Penny Bridge (Half Penny Bridge). The bridge is named this because it used to be the only bridge across the river, and the toll was a half-penny. From the bridge, we walked into the touristy pub area of Temple Bar.  

A pub named 'Temple Bar' in the Temple Bar area

We eventually found ourselves at our destination, Dublina and Christ Church. We had a look around the museum, which is mainly for children as it has many interactive displays, and then we walked across the bridge to Christ Church. Christ Church looks impressive, and the crypt had many interesting items from the church's treasury and props from a popular television series. We also saw the mummified cat and mouse, which are nicknamed "Tom and Jerry". Workmen found the cat and mouse in the pipe organ's pipes; it is thought that the cat chased the mouse in and they both got stuck.

Interior and exterior of Christ Church

After our exploration of the church, we eventually found our way to 'The Brazen Head' pub, which is possibly the oldest pub in Dublin. This area (including the location of Christ Church) is the oldest area of Dublin as many remains of ancient buildings have been found. The modern day 'Brazen Head' pub is also thought to be built on an older pub and that there was a pub here in ancient times. We had a traditional Irish meal and listened to Irish folklore stories and singing and music. It was a fun night. We were able to admire Dublin in the dark on the walk back to where we were staying.

A green glow under the bridge 

There's been a few interactive Google Doodles recently, but one of the best has got to be the fiftieth anniversary of 'Doctor Who' doodle, which has been launched today.

The British science-fiction television series 'Doctor Who'  aired in the 1960s and brought scary villans, such as the Dalek, into homes. The series aired for several years before being discontinued for a while. The series is more popular than ever now with the new episodes, and many seem to be inspired by the show. It is certainly more widely-known world-wide now than it was previously. 

This lets me write about two of my interests as I like the 'Doctor Who' series and I like seeing how Google rebrands itself and gets the public to interact with it.

The game is fun. In brief, the player gets to start out with the 'Doctor Who' of their choice. They are then taken to a series of different planets/times where the Doctor has to obtain the missing Google letters, stolen from a Dalek, while avoiding the Dalek. Running into the Dalek means that the Doctor regenerates into one of his other forms in order to continue.

For more information about the Google doodle, read one of my previous posts here: The Google Doodles Story: Evolution of Google's Doodle 

Don Smith (the banker, Street Art: Don Smith) added some new artwork this summer on the walls in east and north London, which I documented here: New Street Art and a Meeting with Paul Don Smith (the Banker). Since adding these pieces, a few new pieces have turned up at the beginning of autumn, including a series of Winston Churchill. The works can be found on and near Brick Lane and near Petticoat Lane, although the ones taken on Brick Lane are no longer there.

Sinatra, Churchill and Hendrix. Elvis. The Who.

The following painting on Brick Lane did not last long at all...

"The Mrs" by Paul Don Smith

Churchill

I recently discovered Whitecross Street, and I found a lot of street art by artist Paul Don Smith. The themes included are the Olympics, Batman, The Lorax, Star Wars, and football. I loved the Star Wars artwork. I've included the lot below. These brought back some memories of the Olympics. (It is hard to believe that the Olympics were sixteen months ago now; it does feel a lot longer.)

Whitecross artwork by Paul Don Smith

Star Wars

Jedi Knight from Star Wars

I am happy that this work remains intact and has not been tagged over. Some of the pieces are covered when the market on Whitecross Street is opened, so it is best to visit early in the morning when I did. I went back to the street to get more photographs when the street was quieter.

'Love Piepenbrinck' (lovepiepenbrinck) is a street artist from Germany who creates small pig sculptures and pastes them up onto walls in various cities. There are several of these in London, and I have only seen a few by chance. I would love to spot more, and I always keep my eyes open in the hopes that I will notice a new one. Recently, the artist has been in London posting stickers and paste-ups around Shoreditch and Spitalfields, and I discovered two of the new pigs the day after they were pasted up. 

I enjoy seeing these cute piglets, and they always bring a smile to my face. All of them are unique. Sometimes, they are difficult to notice because their colours have worn down. The two immediately below are my favourites.

One of the newer pigs put up this year.

This pig was placed earlier in the year; the astronaut has since gone missing

This was a 2011 pig; originally it had a ball and chain around its foot

This was a 2012 pig

These pigs in a clock formation were placed in 2012

Miraculously, this purple pig was placed in 2012 and still looks clean; this was the first one I noticed, but i did not know what I was looking at

A painted-over pig and a sculpture by Xylo

A row of pigs

Butterfly pig  

A colourful pig

If you know of the locations of any that I have not posted here, please tell me where they are so that I can photograph them.

For more information about Love Piepenbrinck, visit the official website: http://www.lovepiepenbrinck.com/

Or, see photographs: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovepiepenbrinck/

View the Facebook page with photographs of various pigs: https://www.facebook.com/love.piepenbrinck 

A couple of months ago, I visited Swedish bakery, Fabrique. This bakery is located outside Hoxton station and inside one of the archways underneath the station. I tried a cinnamon bun and a chocolate chip cookie. I liked the warehouse-feel to their cafe/bakery, with bread stacked upon shelves and layers of baked goods on sheets. I had a hard time deciding which baked goods to try as they all looked so good, but nothing can go wrong with a cinnamon bun, and as cinnamon buns are popular in Scandanavia, I had to try one. I was not disappointed. They had cardamon buns, brownies, a vast selection of breads, flapjacks, cookies, and sandwiches.  

A selection of treats at Fabrique

I took these series of photographs over a year ago on near Shoreditch High Street station in London with various silhouettes and speech bubbles. Since then, they have been painted around with other street art. I am not sure who the artist is, but the name looks like "MOO KS 2011" in a close-up of the last photograph. Let me know if you know who the artist is.

Recently, Graffiti Life have been busy creating new artwork in London. In the entrance to a courtyard near Brick Lane, where there's always work by them, I caught a glimpse of them painting a poppy. On the opposite wall were portraits. This wall always seems to be covered with portraits, and I have included some of their older work in this entry as well.

Poppy

A month or so ago, this Bart Simpson street artist appeared off of Brick Lane. Since it appeared, other street and graffiti artists have been using the image for their own benefit - adding their own tag to the image over the top of the 'Graffiti Life' tag.

Bart Simpson

Portraits

Older artwork by Graffiti Life

Gee was a street artist that I covered earlier in the year (covered here), when his work was popping up all over east London. He's since been busy painting several images in a car park off of Hackney Road and near Petticoat Lane. I've included a sample of his images below. Favourite themes of his appear to be punk hair styles and Star Wars.

Gee

The following appeared near Petticoat Lane Market along with other work by other street artists, such as 616 and Paul "Don" Smith.

Gee

The streets in London were recently brightened up by paste-ups created by Bortusk Leer and Melbourne-based street artist Phoenix. 

Phoenix's recent series of paste-ups (see below) include the Earth and humankind, and his work follows similar themes based on nature. I've only just become aware of this street artist, but more of his work can be seen on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Phoenix-the-Street-Artist/113866898632397). I really liked the piece below; perhaps there will be additional pieces coming to London at some point. 

In contrast, street artist Bortusk Leer (Street Art: Gee, Paul Insect, Sweet Toof, Bortusk Leer) creates work that is more whimsical and light-hearted. He recently added some new work to brighten up the streets in east London. Last year, he had done the same, and all of those pieces had disappeared over the course of the year, so these fresh pieces were welcome. His work always consists of bright, child-like drawings of monsters and jars with funny labels. My favourites from Bortusk Leer include the labelled jars below.

Bortusk Leer's monsters are a common creation by the artist. The monsters always look innocent and a bit like a child's drawing. I've uploaded a fairly good selection of the variety of the work that has appeared this autumn.

Here's a selection of purple monsters. I was putting the images together, and it just happened that I had a selection of purple monsters in a row.

And, here's a few more...

Elle magazine has asked three design agencies to rebrand feminism, and their results will be published in its November edition of its magazine. The term is in need of rebranding due to all of the changes that have happened in the past several years as well as trying to get rid of negative stereotypes about the word 'feminism'. The campaign hopes to get the media to take notice of the issues surrounding women in today's world.

Rebranding Feminism campaign

One of the campaigns included the addition of a shutter painted off of Brick Lane, combining art and social media. The art encouraged visitors to use Twitter hashtag #IAMAWOMANAND in order to contribute. Using the #print hashtag after this means that the tweet will be printed and pasted onto the shutter. I logged onto Twitter and contributed to this:

"#IAMAWOMANAND I like travel, design, photography and developing websites!" - from my Twitter feed @jenikya

Rebranding Feminism Twitter tweets

It is great to see this getting some media attention now as I still find that women are treated inequal in the eyes of society, and this is simply old-fashioned thinking. I work in a field (Information Technology) dominated by men, and it would be great to have those barriers removed and for more women enter the field. I have my own stories, too. Imagine if women were equal in this world; perhaps we would be even more advanced in science, technology, medicine, and all other aspects. I certainly think we would if all boundaries (for men and women and other groups) were removed.

Over the past year, I have captured some excellent street art in east London, and I have several pieces to share. In this entry, I am showing work by 2Square, CodeFC, Jim Vision, Peter Drew, Zadock, and others. Keep checking back for new street art round-ups as I have plenty more to post.

2Square:

This American duo have painted street art around the world, and they have recently painted work off Redchurch Road, Rivington Street, and various pieces in a car park off of Hackney Road.

A selection of work by 2Square

For more information, you can read an interview by the artists here: http://thestreetartcurator.com/a-street-art-disney-land-interview-with-2square/ 

You can see their Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/2square

Code FC:

CodeFC painted some work for the London Olympics last year. I blogged about them here: They were back in London painting later this summer, and I got a couple of photos. The first one is located just off of Brick Lane, but it has since been covered. The other was a location of work that CodeFC previously used for an Olympics piece, and it's still intact but tagged over. CodeFC is an Italian artist who is based in London and who paints a lot in Asia.

CodeFC

For more information about CodeFC, visit his Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/codefc/248751956287

Jim 'Probs' Vision:

Jim Vision's artwork contains a lot of colours, wings, and fictional characters. He also seems to experiement with some new styles. Recently, a dinosaur skeleton appeared off of Scater Street, which is a different style to the usual bright colours and wings or winged creatures. The artist sometimes signs his name as 'Probs'. There's so much of his work in east London that I have only included a sample here.

Dinosaur bones...possibly a tribute to ROA?

A ninja girl

Advertising the White Canvas Project

A fantasy girl and dragon

Mr. Cenz:

Mr. Cenz (Julian Phethean) creates stylistic artwork featuring fluid faces out of organic shapes. One off of Club Row was painted this spring, and it was recently replaced by a similar work. I captured the artist painting it. 

Various work by Mr. Cenz, including the latest one in progress

Finished Mr. Cenz work

For more information, visit his Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/MrCenz

Peter Drew:

Peter Drew is an artist from Glasgow, Scotland. He adds paste-ups to the streets, and although I have not photographed all of the ones that I have seen (such as some vintage-style posters) for my blog, I enjoyed seeing these ones (below). They are a series of his work with various messages. There's a though-provoking tone to his artwork, and perhaps because of this, these paste-ups did not last long. The photographs below were not too controversial: "Crimethink" and "Cats 'n' stuff... War 'n' stuff". A box with one of the faces appeared on Brick Lane this October as well; I remembered the style to associate it with the artist. I enjoyed these pieces and have enjoyed seeing some of the others in the series on the artist's Facebook page.

Peter Drew's artwork

Peter Drew

For more information about the artist, view his Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/PeterDrewArts

Zadok:

Zadok's work is also instantly-recognisable on the streets as it features a common theme: birds. 

Various work by artist Zadok

Agents of Change:

Agents of Change is a collective group of artists, and it features artist Remi/Rough. 

King's Cross, Agents of Change

Although the below artwork was attributed to CodeFC, I don't think it's his style and think it's RemiRough, a group of street artists.

Remi Rough

Other artwork:

I've included additional pieces by various artists below.

Walala and Anatole

Wat and more

Base23

Zabou

Putin the Peacemaker

Huemon; Al and Emic

Emic close-up

Mer and Mr. Shiz

The Krah, Rae, and the Krah

Hanbury Street has been a popular place for new street art in the past month with a new mural by Martin Ron (New Mural by Martin Ron on Hanbury Street), next to ROA's crane. Last week, new artwork appeared from Guy Denning on the wall formerly occupied by DALeast (Street Art: DALeast). Guy Denning is an artist born in 1965 from Somerset in England who has an art career spanning a few decades now. His work primarily includes portraits, and he exhibits in museums. The work on Hanbury Street features a portrait of a woman, and the lines (shade and dark) are made up of type (letters and numbers).

Guy Denning

Guy Denning

For more information about the artist, visit his website: http://www.guydenning.org 

On the other side of the road from Guy Denning's mural is a mural collaboration by Alex Face, Mau Mau and Bon featuring a range of odd characters. The characters include a fox roasting marshmallows (Mau Mau), a boy sleeping in a cyclops rabbit onesie, another rabbit onesie with a missing ear (Alex Face), and a psychotic-looking bird taking a knife a bird's leg next to a large 'DELETE' button (Bon). The artwork is quite clever as it interacts with the large mural of ROA's bird on the corner, and when standing in the correct place, the leg looks to be in the right angle. I've photographed the work below with ROA's large crane at the angle where the characters interact with it.

Alex Face's artwork

Alex Face, whose real name is Patcharapol Tamgruen, is an artist from Thailand. He often found abandoned buildings in Bangkok to paint, and the boy in the rabbit suit above is a common character that he paints. For more information about this artist, visit the website at: http://bukruk.com/festival/items/alex-face/

Mau Mau's work consists of witty characters, and these are often portrayed against large brands. For more information, visit the artist's official website at http://www.mau-mau.co.uk.

Bon is another artist from Thailand, and partial-skeleton fish are one common subject. For more work from this artist, visit: https://www.facebook.com/Bon.mue or http://www.flickr.com/photos/tbon/

Bon and Alex Face also and most-recently collaborated on a new piece off of Brick Lane on Pedley Street. The mural features several of their characters, including a scene around the corner of the characters in black and white paint with a hose with coloured spray paint coming out of it.

Bon

Alex Face and Bon

A final collaborative piece by the two appeared across from their work on Hanbury Street on the shutters of a bakery and coffee shop. The work features the two with a delicious-looking pink cake and cups of coffee, representing what can be bought in the shop that the shutters belong to. 

Alex Face and Bon

Mau Mau

This summer, my friend from the states and I planned to spend a day at the three museums (the Science Museum, the History Museum, and the Victoria and Albert Museum) before walking down to Harrods. A day spent in museums required a nice breakfast, and I have been wanting to try Muriel's Kitchen outside of South Kensington tube station for a couple of years now but never got around to it. We decided to go inside this restaurant-bakery combination to have a breakfast, and the baked goods were also very tempting. We both ordered the breakfast sandwiches.

The breakfast sandwich consists of egg, bacon, and avocado inside our choice of bread. The eggs could be cooked as we liked. 

The restaurant/cafe is well-lit and in a prime corner location. The decor verges on homemade and vintage-style. I took a photograph of some plastic flowers in a tin bucket and salt and pepper shakers that I thought looked nice.

The window by the cash machine is filled with pastries and baked goods of all varieties - macaroons, cupcakes, muffins, cakes, cookies, meringues, and brownies.

I ordered a cupcake and a brownie to try. The cupcake still did not beat my favourite cupcake place in London (Morning Indulgence at Primrose Bakery), but the brownie was the best.

This is a place to return to and worth a stop for another day and another visit to the museums.