“Up the gangbangers.” Hoods from the New Lodge Road (some recent disturbances: Belfast Live | Irish Times | BelTel | Irish News) leave a graffiti message on top of Ed Reynolds’s (web) mural, seen previously in The Old New Lodge, On My Wedding Day, St Patrick’s and Faces From The Past, the last of which includes an image of the mural getting a coat of anti-graffiti varnish.
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Copyright © 2018 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Kintsugi, according to WP, is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with a metallic lacquer, which means that the repair is visible, and “treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.”
Conor McClure (web | Fb | tw) writes that “My Hit The North piece is based on the link with this philosophy and mental health in our society. Rather than have to hide round the stigma of mental illness people should be able to display their scars and wear them with pride.” October 10th was World Mental Health Day.
Previously: More Wolf Than Woman | Spring Wings
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For the third time, these two panels – one of the signing of the Covenant in 1912 and the other of soldiers in collarettes and sashes defending their trench against a German attack – are visible at Barrington Gardens. They were originally on the gable at the corner before it was demolished (see July 1st); during re-development they were placed on a metal frame (see Out Of The Rubble).
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Alice Pasquini (web | Fb | ig | tw) from Rome, Italy, took part in this year’s CNBX/HTN18. She describes her Donegall Street piece with a quote from Italo Calvino: “Take life lightly, for lightness is not superficial, but gliding above things, not having weights on your heart”.
To the right is David Creative’s Nosey Cat.
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The mythical basilisk is able to kill its foes with a glance, but this one – painted by Swiss artist Sonic Oner (Fb) for Culture Night/Hit The North – fights its eagle prey with the barbed name of his creator.
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“Fáılte go Cnoc na Foınse – Welcome to Springhill.” There are a dozen new boards on either side of the Ballymurphy entrance to Springhill, highlighting positive aspects of the community, such as the work of Mother Teresa and four Missionary Sisters Of Charity from 1971-1973, the Upper Springfield Festival of 1973 (later revived in 1988 and years following as the Springhill Festival), Tara Stores and The Craft Centre, set up as a form of local enterprise in an area of mass unemployment, and the Springhill Community House, still in operation today but going back to Des Wilson and Noelle Ryan. There is no explicit mention of the 1972 Springhill-Westrock Massacre, though there is a picture of Fr Noel Fitzpatrick on the south side of the street, which will be featured in a separate post.
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Danni Simpson (web | ig) is a world-travelling Australian who has settled (for now?) in Belfast. Between trips abroad, she painted the piece below back in May for Wardrobe Jam near CS Lewis Square in east Belfast (Andrew Stewart has a gallery of pics of the wardrobes being painted) – the two lions’ heads on the corner walls are intended to look like wings – and for Culture Night 2018 she painted more wings, this time on the hoarding around the demolished 100-year-old buildings in North Street (Belfast Live | BelTel).
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The female characters from the Hulu adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale is used again (seen previously in She Is My Spy As I Am Hers) by Leo Boyd, this time to support the abortion referendum in the Republic (see Yes And No).
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Communism and the Connolly Youth Movement (web | tw | Fb) compete with a Menagerie (front | side | car-park) flyer for the for the attention of young people in Divis Street, Belfast.
In her autobiography, Living My Life, Emma Goldman wrote, “At the dances I was one of the most untiring and gayest. One evening a cousin of Sasha, a young boy, took me aside. With a grave face … he whispered to me that it did not behoove an agitator to dance. Certainly not with such reckless abandon, anyway. It was undignified for one who was on the way to become a force in the anarchist movement. My frivolity would only hurt the Cause. I grew furious at the impudent interference of the boy. … I was tired of having the Cause constantly thrown into my face. I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from convention and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. … If it meant that, I did not want it.” (p. 56)
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Keep On Truckin’ is a famous one-page 1968 comic by R. [Robert] Crumb, and the first panel in particular has become iconic. Dublin artist ADW (Fb | ig | tw) has adapted it here to show four spray-can street artists, each a different colour, truckin’ along.
Previously from ADW: Born To Create | Keep ‘Er Lit | Labelz Are For Jars
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Extramural Activity 