James King, Eamonn and Friends

Derry: Mainly street art today

Friday 3rd June 2005

Eamonn and I mainly did street art today, and became observers too - at Amanda Coogan's superb and hilarious show at the Void Gallery and Colin Darke's breath-taking display at the Context.

Our first find was on the pavement in Strand Road on our way to the Void: the small, bright yellow head of a chrysanthimum flower. We stared at it lying in the centre of a concrete paving stone. It gazed into the sky at the bright early summer sun. It was a tiny sun itself - bright yellow with rays of petals. Eamonn drew around it a leaf-shaped frame. We considered titles such as SUN DOWN and DE-CAPITATED GLORY. We eventually agreed upon (RE)MOVING EXPERIENCE, because as we watched, the delicate head rolled soulfully and helplessly in the breeze, which would have caused it to dance if it had remained on a stem.

Eamonn was keen to know what other people thought of our endeavours. We invited passers-by to comment. I think, with practice: choosing the right people, and applying the right approach we could reduce the number of refusals. The first person to stop was a man in his twenties, whom I had addressed in a quite loud and cheerful tone. Although not particularly interested in art he listened carefully to our explanation of what we were doing; before walking off ,literally scratching his head.

Another successsful encounter was with a woman about the same age. She was standing nearby in conversation with a couple of men connected with the unloading of a van. This woman was dressed in a striped, dark grey trouser suit. What attracted us to her was the flower and plant designs embroidered on the suit's arms and legs. I paitently waited nearby until her conversation ended, and then respectfully invited her to view our work and speak to Eamonn. She was most obliging. The lady denied any artistic proclivities herself, in spite of her floral patterns; but did admit that many acquaintances perceived her as artist because of her style of dress. She was interested in our device and , like myself, connected the fallen blossom with the sun.

We were standing at the corner of Strand Road and Great James' Street; a spot frequented by passing buses. Eamonn recalled a favourite poem, written by Margie Barnard. He attracted considerable attention as he chalked upon the pavement corner:

Further along Strand Road was a well-worn litter bin. It had a flat top, square like a coffee table and severely corroded. Rust had eaten away the black paint revealing a brown metallic surface. The pattern made looked vaguely like a map of the world. We chalked around the intricate coastline indentations and titled the result WEATHER(ED) MAP.

On the city walls, outside the Millenium Forum theatre is a bronze statue. It consists of two homan figures welded back to back, arms outsretched. Some schoolgirls had picked up zips, from a scattered trail of which intermittently led from the Playhouse resource centre. They had stuck a couple of them in the vacant eyes of the statue. We improved upon their improvement to the statue by transferrring one of their zips to where ther mouth would have been in the sculptures. (The features on the faces were almost imperceptible- except for the blankly gazing eye hollows) We chalked on the ground LOOK BEFORE YOU SPEAK.

A young looking , uniformed official came out of the Forum having been commisssoned to remove the zip. We debated with him the merits of our intervention, but failed to convince him that we had made an improvement to the original.