There’s something wonderful about meeting old friends in new places. You are you and they are they and there you all are, a thousand miles away from where you met a thousand years ago. I had the pleasure, yesterday, of meeting a number of old compadres in London’s East End. The first, Zoya, an artist from my Risley days, I met for an alternative walking tour of the city. Luke was supposed to join us, but had to phone his academic advisor. Regina, another former Risleyite, would’ve come but for class.
On the tour Luke and Regina missed (because they have ridiculous priorities and make terrible decisions), two artists in particular impressed me for their ability to blend their work into the surrounding environment. This talent allows their art to endure, unnoticed, and to reward the astute observer. The first artist, Jonesy, produces intricate, diminutive, bronze sculptures, placing angels atop lampposts and lizards on the sides of buildings.
A Jonesy angel on a speed limit sign
The second, Clet Abraham, adds a creative touch to traffic signs, skewering hearts onto One Way arrows and crucifying stick figures on No Thru Traffic Ts.
Clet Abraham’s controlled zone handshake
Their works hide in plain sight, escaping the hungry erasers of the cleanup crews. Having just seen the whitewashing of 5Pointz back in Queens, it gives me hope (and makes me chuckle) to see these pieces evading those margarine-brained morons who would expunge them.
I did a bit of graffiti when I was younger, more for the adrenaline and the company of my (much cooler and more talented) friends than any artistic mission or sense of territory. We got yelled at for drawing on a lamppost, and an old man with a big dog took away our markers. It was a very big dog. I haven’t been out tagging since, but this tour has me doodling in the margins of my notebook. Shh. Don’t tell anyone.
Later that night, I met up with five Singapore exchange friends for curry, reminiscences, and laughs. In one of those freak symmetries that boring people mistake for coincidence, it had been a year to the day since I’d first met them. “It feels just like we’re back in Singapore. Except it’s winter and we can chew gum.”
You cannot do graffiti in Singapore, they will hit you with a stick
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