A London Vandal at work in Leeds

Last week we went along to the Creative Networks 'Artistic Vandal' event with street artist James Jessop. After a sneak peak around the end of year shows showing some future street artists in the making we found Jessop in the courtyard, at play recreating one of his designs ahead of the talk. 

Despite the crowd gathered and a number of photographers snapping away Jessop continued to paint almost trance like, until called in for the talk. As soon as Jessop steps up to the mic and starts to talk about his work it becomes clear that he treads a fine line between street artists and vandal.

He talks of bunking off school and stealing the now famous 'Subway Art' by photography legends Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant. On this occasion his 11year old self gets caught and battered by his parents for his troubles, only to be rewarded with his own copy on his 12th birthday.

Jessop clearly had respect and awe for the subway artists of the 1970s, who risked prison sentences, life and limb for their art. He shows a short film of him meeting his heroes including Martha, recreating those iconic shots and talking to the artists behind the work.

He goes on to talk about his own career initially as what he describes as a vandal leaving his tag across London and the south of England. As he grows up he want to know more about art and seeks inspiration from renaissance masters recreating abstract versions of their work.

At first many would have dismissed this cheeky Londoner with an air of shoreditch as a vandal, a graffiti pest leaving his mark and a mess for others to clean. But as the talk goes on and he talks about art history at a level most Oxford born and bred professors would struggle to articulate, he talks about the music scene and how that influences art and more importantly he talks about an 'art', not a way to pass half an hour scrawling his name on the side of a building.

There have been comments on this blog and others about what constitutes street art and sets it apart from lazy vandalism, and nothing answers this argument better than the closing few slides of Jessop's talk.

The camera pans to the same iconic location of one Martha Cooper's photographs. A single bright white, soulless train glides across the track. This could be anywhere, as Jessop says 'now they clean the graffiti off as soon as it happens in New York'.

Compare this scene to the one in 'Subway Art' that inspired Jessop and many others, that gave 1970s New York soul and vibrancy that people from across the globe still seek out, and you start to understand the importance of street art for giving a place it's soul.

There will always be those who are vandals and who seek to destroy, but there will equally be those who seek to add character, life, vibrancy, colour and heart to anodyne, sterilised environments.

[bows as steps off soap box]

For a bit more of an insight to James Jessop here's a link to the man himself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Y2orcPZtp0

On a Loop

A few weeks ago we went along to Loop Arts Fair at Marshall's Mill which promised to be a mix of work and play with live studios, art exhibitions, work for sale and a series of speakers to make the £15 price tag a snip. We weren't disappointed.

Set across one floor of the historic mill building the art fair alone featured work from an array of artists including Pogger, a regular on the Leeds street art scene.Five minutes in and there was already a list a mile long of things we'd like to buy. We did however show a bit of restraint and head in for the first speaker, Drew Millward.

Known for his gig posters carrying a street art and graffiti vibe at the likes of Brudenell Social Club, Drew has a string of music posters to his name including Flight of the Conchords and Sonic Youth. He spoke passionately about his work as a craft and his old school approach to illustration preferring pens and pencils to high end tech. Here's a few pieces of his work that had us loosening the purse strings:

Find similar at Gig Posters.

We took a break for a while and had a snoop around the gallery/shop space and discovered design delights from Lord Whitney, Jones, Maisie Violet Rees, and Nous Vous all up for grabs at affordable prices. Here's some of our favourites:

Saturday brought the live studio sessions from the likes of Sister Arrow signing guests up to make a paper plant greenhouse to Matthew The Horse's calligraphy workshop for type fiends and Catalogue's made to order book binding service.

All in all Loop Arts Fair was a awesome display of talent on one floor over one weekend. The Streeterarti Towers walls are now well stocked with work from some of the finest artists and illustrators you can expect to see spilling out onto a street near you.

On the look out in Leeds

So here's another quick and dirty post about things coming up in Leeds with a slight street arty, illustration theme that might be of interest.

First of all the jam packed Loop Arts Fair this weekend (17th-19th June) at Marshall's Mill featuring artists and illustrators including TOY, Jez Burrows, Lizzy Stewart, Yoke Books, Nous Vous, Matt Hodson, Analogue Books, Catalogue and many others. Also, as the name suggests, it's a fair so you can buy this stuff!

In other news we're quite excited to see the next Creative Networks event focusing on street art. James Jessop: Artistic Vandal is on 23rd June at Leeds College of Art and free fror creative types to attend.

Then on the 27th June keep your eyes peeled for these little things of ordinary beauty, as Situation Leeds commissioned project 'Junction' hits the streets.

And the best of it is we're going to all of them with our trusty camera so will report back with proper posts like a real blog!

A rainy Sunday in Hyde Park

Well we did promise a less lazy blog post over the weekend, so despite the rain we took our camera to the streets of Hyde Park. A tip off about large-scale freehand mural had us heading off the beaten track towards the edge of the park.

We were rewarded for our efforts with this dark masterpiece lighting up the walls of a house across from the main Hyde Park next to small play area.

Tagged by 'Replete' this giant artwork takes up most of the building, skillfully navigating windows and a door in the process. We would have stopped to admire it longer but it was pouring with rain so we jumped back in the Streeterarti chariot and continued to scour the streets for secret snippets of street art.

After a drive through the rabbit warren of streets resisting the temptation to dive into Hyde Park Picture House, (definitely worth a visit if you're in the area) we discovered an ingenious use of newspaper near Hyde Park Corner.

Prolific Leeds street artist Pogger makes his art in the warmth before venturing out in the cold to display them in a street side gallery.

Then as the cafes and coffee shops beckoned we found this stencil art urging on the revolution down an alleyway next to a brightly lit cafe and decided that, with our work here done it would be rude not partake in coffee and cake!

So hopefully by now you know the rules. Seen something we've missed? Take a picture, pass it on and we'll add it to our Hyde Park Collection here.


*AMENDMENTS*
Here's a few that we missed supplied by the eagle-eyed @FranGraham

Take a picture, pass it on...

Since our guest spot on Culture Vultures we've had our inbox and twitter stream filled with street art that made the people of Leeds smile, so this is a lazy 'weekly round up' blog post of some of our favourites, that we'll keep adding to.

We loved these cute characters found by @explainlater behind Flames:

This intricate find was posted to the back of a street sign at the top of Neville Street outside the Scarborugh taps and a few similar designs from the same artist have been spotted elsewhere around the city:

Looks like the artist known as 'Kosy' from whom we pinched our lovely avatar, has struck again on the corner of Sovereign Street:

And these cheeky little pieces of stencil work found on Cookridge Street by @fleeberella and Park Row by @ShangTingPeng show that it's not just stickers making us all smile:

To make up for our lazyness with this post we'll write a proper one over the weekend, we promise! But while we get out and about snapping, keep sending us your street art finds and we'll try to do a regular round up of our favourites.

Spreading the Street Art Love

For those of you haven't seen it we recently did a guest post over on the Culture Vulture blog (woo-hoo!)and got a mixed review from lovers and haters of the art.

Have a read and let us (and Culture Vultures) know what you think.
http://theculturevulture.co.uk/blog/behindscenes/street-art-in-the-city/#comment-60292

Sticker City

Over recent months we've watched the Leeds love affair with sticker art blossom, as each morning brings a new piece to the street-side gallery. From ornate line drawings popping up on street signs and post boxes to simple but effective scenes played along the banks of the canal, stickers seem to be on the rise.

One of the simplest forms of street art, stickers can be found the world over at all scales. A short walk from Leeds Railway Station to the city's iconic Kirkgate Market takes in more than 200 varieties. From branded motifs displaying the city's club culture and music scene, to the kitsch and cute 'Kiss Me Quick' stamps, the city is awash with stickers in the simplest forms.

But look a little closer and you can find an army of talented illustrators at work experimenting with everything from the surreal to the comical, playing with typography and materials. The stickers at this end of the street art spectrum are on par with some of the most well known street artists and illustrators the likes of Hop Louie, Jon Burgerman (who will be visiting Leeds next month for the Loop Arts Fair) and Obey.

With meticulous attention to detail the stickers are reproduced to high quality showing every intricate complexity and posted up smooth and clean.A blank concrete canvas can be transformed into vibrant, un-censored exhibition featuring thousands of artists, bringing  a splash of colour and personality to an otherwise mundane urban environment.

One of the easiest forms of street art to get involved with or just a great starting point, stickerering is a growing fraction of street art with several sites acting as trading posts to spread your art across the world by a sticker-loving network of street art ninjas.

Here's a few we think are worth a look: Bomit, Sticker Trader 

Seen something we've missed? Take a picture, pass it on and we'll feature it here.