electric avenue
Now playing at Radio Fleece Station… This song reminds me of when I first came to London. I bought my art paper from John Purcell‘s warehouse which led me to do a lot of exploring around the lively Brixton market area. I particularly liked a certain Caribbean bakery and a bookshop called Bookmongers, just next to Electric Avenue, run by a bunch of beatnik Americans and their dog. It’s a great neighbourhood.
I did a series of paintings of Peckham, and started taking some reference photos in Brixton to do some more. People were generally very friendly but when I took one photo of a butcher’s shop, the guys started yelling at me fit to bust and almost took my camera away. When they came at me, one of them hollered, ‘Where do you come from’? I think he had me pegged as council, or police or immigration or something. I gave them a very blank look and said in my best homegrown accent, ‘I’m from America!’ They looked at me and realised I was a stupid tourist, and after a lot of grumbling and telling me NEVER to take photos again without asking permission, they let me go. I didn’t have the guts to post the photo at the time (or take it to the police), but I just dug it up again right now. Anyway, here it is. I think something serious dodgy must be going on, there’s a story in this picture.
On a totally different note: just in from Jill Collinge in Geneva, a lovely painted Vern and Lettuce bunnies bowl!
Sounds like Vern and Lettuce are still on their world tour, and Jill’s sent their latest update:
Vern and Lettuce are still with us. We took them down into Geneva on Sunday to see the lake and found that monsters were taking over. (The Bristol based artist Filthy Luker had been invited to help celebrate the Festival of Water – you can see more of his work at filthyluker.org.)
Being comic book stars themselves, they were very interested to see that the local organisation that campaigns, educates and works to keep the lake clean uses comic strips in their work. We bought an
adventure bande dessinée (¨comic strip book¨ – not sure of the English) with a plot line involving the dangers of phosphates being released into the water cycle and causing algae to grow in the lake. I´d send you a picture but the book seems to have disappeared (the joys of living with children). This is a shame because there were some green tentacles in it very like the ones we saw attacking the lighthouse. They do have a few pictures on their website.
Today the sun is shining and, unperturbed by thoughts of monsters, the local rabbits have got their paddling pool out. They are hardy things these mountain lapins.
I quite liked this video, especially the giant dolphins. Thanks, Jill!
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