Tagged: art
Nipping Up the Zig Zag to the Shops
19 Aug 2023
It's been a long while since I did one of these walks.
I'm thinking of finishing up the project by walking one or two last bits of road, thus being able to declare with all honesty that I've done my best to walk every public road within my mile (and quite a few alleyways besides.) As a prelude, and just because I felt like it, I decided to drag out the camera and GPS on this little wander to the local shops.
Also looking nice and fresh since my last wander is the pair of community noticeboards, with a plethora of local news.
I found out recently that I was a winnner of one of the Hotwells & Cliftonwood Community Association 500 club prizes, which, alongside my membership, is a fun way to give money to the local organisation that puts up these noticeboards and does so much else for the community.
A random reminder of a TV show of my youth: Londo Mollari, the Centauri Ambassador to Babylon 5. Spotted in the window of the Oxfam shop on Victoria Street after I grabbed a coffee from Foliage Cafe.
Baltic Wharf and Marina
04 Nov 2020
You never know what you'll find when you go for a walk in Bristol. This gorgeous Mustang was in the Marina car park. Nice. I also surprised myself by getting a good photo of The Hand (to give it its full title, Green Hand of a River God, by Vincent Woropay. Thanks, @mfimage!)
Man on a Mission
17 Apr 2021
I went rather outside my area today, as I went to pick something up from the Warhammer shop on Wine Street (Games Workshop as-was, and before that I think perhaps a rare retail outlet for Her Majesty's Stationery Office? I may be mis-remembering...) Anyway, a friend of mine wanted something picking up and posting to him, so I figured I'd knock some streets off my list along the way.
I first headed for the St George's Road area, walking down the narrow Brandon Steps and finding some strange wall art on Brandon Steep, then headed to the Old City via Zed Alley. The Warhammer shop visit was friendly and efficient, and, mission accomplished, I treated myself to a sausage roll and a flat white from Spicer + Cole, to take away and eat in Queen Square with its current decoration of hearts. I finished off with a detour up Park Street, looking out for St John's Conduit markers, before finally crossing Brandon Hill on the way home.
Quite a long wander, all told, and I'm a bit knackered today...
This didn't look like a banana when Duncan McKellar first put it there, from what I recall...
With the old Lloyds bank building in the background. When I used to work on Wine Street, around the front of the building, back in the 1990s, every now and again there'd be the sound of sirens as the police stopped the traffic through the centre and armoured cars would drop off or collect (I can't remember which) large amounts of cash from the giant bank vault in this rather defensive-looking concrete building.
I have to say, whoever moulded this form really has captured the intrinsic banana-ness of the banana very well.
I don't know what I was expecting to see on Brandon Steep, but a sculpted stone frog sticking out of the wall would have been pretty low on the list.
Docks Heritage Weekend Day One
09 Oct 2021
I could spend a lot of time at the Docks Heritage Weekend, poking my nose into industrial places along the harbourside that are usually closed off, but throw open their doors once a year to show off a bit of the backstage area of Bristol's floating harbour. In fact, I warn you: the next wander is a long one, and will have quite a few photos.
However, for today's wander, on the Saturday, my friend Lisa needed a shorter walk than our usual long rambles, as she's recovering from an operation and still a little under the weather, so we just wandered into town for some food and back, with me making mental notes of the places I wanted to come back to on the Sunday... We walked through Underfall Yard, along to the L Shed (this is the warehouse next to the M Shed museum, where they still have the kind of fun old industrial stuff that used to be crammed into the M Shed's predecessor, the old Industrial Museum), through the street food market in town to Ahh Toots for cake and then back home. So, still quite a walk, but no hills and not so much of Lisa having to hang around waiting for me to fool around taking photos as usual, at least...
A Door, a Square, a Few Night Shots
04 Dec 2021
I didn't take many pictures on this quite long wander, partly because Lisa and I wandered across to Bedminster via Bower Ashton, which I've snapped quite a lot of on the last couple of walks, and also because we lost the light fairly quickly, though spending a half-hour drinking mulled wine in the Ashton might have had a little to do with that...
Before we left Hotwells I wanted to visit a door I'd heard about on Cornwallis Crescent and also take a little look at a couple of houses in Dowry Square to consider the 1960s regeneration of Hotwells.
Favourite detail: the American Gothic style family portrait. (Though I'm guessing it depicts the husband and wife of the family, as opposed to father and daughter, like the original...)
When it's three doors in one! Apparently this door has had this trompe-l'œil effect since the summer, but the vine was only recently cut back, which might explain why I've not noticed it before...
Not the front door we were looking for, but I like the hand-carved digit at 9 Cornwallis Crescent.
I have snapped this section of Cornwallis Crescent before, but apparently only en bloc.
Well, seeing as we're snapping details. Lisa pointed this one out. It's pretty damn big.
Sunshine and Coffee
05 Feb 2021
I did try to knock off one tiny bit of Baltic Wharf I've missed, but I don't know yet if I succeeded. Mostly this trip was just a reason to get out of the house and into the sunshine while it lasted. Spring is in the air.
Up for the flu jab
21 Nov 2020
A trip up the hill to get my winter flu jab. I'm not sure I really needed it this year, what with avoiding Covid—I haven't had so much as a sniffle in more than a year—but seeing as they offered... Instead of the doctor's surgery on Pembroke Road, they'd taken over Christ Church, presumably to give more room and ventilation for the necessary social distancing at the moment. As usual, it was their typically efficient operation, and I was in and out in about three minutes.
On the way there and back I snapped as much as I could, but I wanted to be home in time for the first online Times Crossword Championship. As it turned out, I needn't have bothered, as the technology at the Times couldn't keep up with the demand from competitors, and their system just collapsed under the weight of page-views. They tried again the day after, and it collapsed just as badly. Maybe next year...
This wander is split into two parts, as I turned my tech off to go into Christ Church for my jab. The walk home can be found over here.
I've been pretty awful at reading so far this year, apparently averaging about one book per month. That's a far cry from 2019, say, where I got through 41 books in the year. Today's wander was prompted by my rubbish reading, as I needed to go hand back some books to the library, because I'd managed to renew them so many times that I hit the limit on renewals. Oops. Several of them were still unread.
So, off to the Central Library for me, tail between my legs. On the way there I did my best to recreate a historical photo of Dowry Square; while I was in the area I walked under the adjacent Norman arch and poked around behind the Cathedral, and I also had a little diversion to the city centre and came back along the south side of the river, hitting some trouble with the lock gates as I finally crossed the harbour back towards home.
Library business concluded, I decided that my feet weren't quite sore enough, so decided to head back home by completing a circuit of the harbour rathter than just heading back down the noisy Hotwell Road. Wandering past the Arnolfini, I spotted this from a viewpoint not far from where the status of John Cabot stands, surveying the docks.
According to the website this is "a research site and artwork to help us think about the future" by Ella Good & Nicki Kent. I'll be interested to go back for another look...
"Porter's lodge and gateway to Augustinian monastery, now school. Mid C12 archway in C17 house, rebuilt mid C20", says the listing.
This was the poster on the A-board at the head of the alley that leads to the Centrespace Gallery, and is usually worth a look. It wasn't particularly eyecatching, though, with an A4 poster rather lost in the middle of the much larger board...
I'd seen from maybepaints feed that they'd popped a couple of new faces up on the Ashton Avenue bridge. Here's the first...
Nothing New
02 Dec 2020
This may be the very first time I've gone for a One Mile Matt wander and not actually gone down any new roads, trod any new steps. I just wanted a coffee, frankly, so I went the same old way to Imagine That in the marina and back again.
I shot this on a film camera when I lived at Baltic Wharf during the mid-nineties. Interesting to compare with the present day, I think. "Hand of the River God" by Vincent Woropay has lost its figure of Hercules carrying an obelisk in the meantime.
A London Wander in Southville
10 Apr 2021
There's a bit of Southville that I've been meaning to get to for some time, where the streets seem to take some strong inspiration from London. There's a Camden Road that crosses with an Islington Road, and a Dalston Road, even an Edgeware Road. For me these names are more evocative than the rather more exotic names I passed by to get there—Sydney Row or Hanover Place, say, because I've actually been to the places in London. The last time I was in Islington I saw Monkey Swallows the Universe play at The Angel, and I can't think of Camden without remembering a gondola trip with my friend Tara where a cheery youth played Beatles music for us on a saz...
I really liked this little area, with its mostly well-kept pretty houses and hints here and there of the creative side of the residents. It's arty and down-to-earth at the same time, and I wouldn't mind living there, I think.
On the way there I got the chance to walk through Underfall Yard for the first time in a while, and on the way back I had my first take-away hot food for many months, grabbing some crispy fried squid from the excellent Woky Ko at Wapping Wharf.
I've actually looked this place up with a view to getting a bumper repaired. Apparently he's very good.
Audre Lorde (/ˈɔːdri lɔːrd/; born Audrey Geraldine Lorde; February 18, 1934 – November 17, 1992) was an American writer, feminist, womanist, librarian, and civil rights activist. She was a self-described "Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet," who dedicated both her life and her creative talent to confronting and addressing injustices of racism, sexism, classism, capitalism, heterosexism, and homophobia.
There's a lot of are to look at on his website. A venerable local street artist; he's been going since the 1970s