The day the Urban Art simply vanished

Really peed off today. I had everything planned, and arrived in Ipswich to begin getting some video shots and photos for use in my video short for use in my dissitation.
Every week whenever I am in town I find new and not so new and some really dated works of art (along with some default black pen work..not my favorite but interesting all the same)


Anyway, with video camera in hand and bag of vid supplies along with new blank tapes and the last of the Sony "normal-life"[2 1/2 hrs recording time]
I must have walked for miles this morning. I got the 9.19am bus from near where I live and headed into Ipswich with a really good feeling in my gut. Trouble is, wherever I went, the Urban Art had been disintegrated by those above (council treated with default yucky pink or worse colour they can usually find).

So I ended up going back to where I remembered there was some artwork scattered around an old building site, an old church yard and behind a Supermarket in the car park area.
To be honest, I at least got some footage for use in the work I am doing, but all the really great art has been vandalized and has been painted over. I understand that to some (and I DO agree that certain work is not that cool) but to remove the works that I remember being up on specific places is a travesty. When you stop and consider what the council or whoever has done this has put in place of the work it is laughable. I have a few shots that I will try to unload of before and after shots.
Just glad I live in Suffolk as some of the artists are more talented that mere words can describe. Some work I have seen in particular, the stencil work and a small percentage of past ups and stickers have been really nice to bump into whilst walking the streets heading to the shops or wherever I have been going.
Anyway. I guess I will have to leave it a while and try and hunt down some new places where artwork has been "hung" upon the concrete gallery of Urban Life and start from there.

One Last Time

I've never seen the corridors so chockablock before!
So many new faces!

I came home feeling both elated for various reasons and somewhat strange having taken nearly ten minutes to get my head around a room number (ok so even after all this time I forget where certain rooms are) which turned out to be ten feet away from the sign I was reading. Stupid was the operative word at 1:30pm yesterday.

PASSED!!

One step at a time and all will be reachable

All good things come to those who wait

Chess and Chips

"Apparently..I was taking too long to take my turn"

A video from my own"WONDER YEARS" which I found on line recently.
I used to love Roller Skating to this song at the then "rink" at Langer Park in Felixstowe. They ripped the place up and now its a parking spot for council vehicles and various bits and bobs. Life can be so sad. But thats pen pushing progress for you...!

Classic Car Rally

I stopped along the road the other week to watch the classic cars driving past. Every year they come from miles around and head along the High Street to the seafront, where they all park up in a line from one end of the beach prom to the other. Great to watch. My favorite has got to be the ZZ-Top Eliminator look a like.

Ride like the wind

Bought my little angel a second user battery operated motorbike she'd been after. I had to replace the old battery with a new one and now it is as good as new.
The crash helmet I bought her she hatted so we swapped it the day after this photo was taken and now she uses the new helmet for riding this and her push bike.

_______Day trip to Norwich________

Spent the day in Norwich of all places thanks in part to a spur of the moment thought and the fact that I couldn't remember the last time I was there.
It was quite a memorably day in all. We did a spot of shopping (for therapeutic reasons you understand) a spot of lunch, a good look round.

I took several photos. The first, below is one I took of a Brain sculpture which became on reflection the high-light of my day. I'd never seen anything like this before and I doubt I ever wil again. There are actually numerous sculptures in and around the City Center of Norwich, and this (the Brain) was the most bizarre and mind blowing.
My second thought after being quite literally shocked was thinking that where I come from in Suffolk: that no council around here would ever dream of being so cool and so original as to allow or commition an artwork like this.

The Brain Sculpture in Norwich City Center

I have to mention the House Of Frazer Center. By car we entered an underground car park which without exaggerating was THE cleanest, sweetest smelling and most well looked after car park I have ever seen. It would have been almost perfect had it actually had a litter bin somewhere and fresh pumped in air. The air was sweet but still too hot.

Underground Car Park

Coming out the car park, the lift or escalator takes you right into the House of Frazier. Even the floors are much the same as the actual car park, in that the impression is that one could almost eat you dinner of it. Entrance

The next photo shows what I felt was the most abstract......no, make that "bizarre" way of utilizing mannequin's I have ever seen. To take the heads of them after setting them in place and removing their heads was something I had never seen before. My immediate thought and one that I do not use in a derogatory way, is that it came across as thought removing the heads and getting the dolls to rest the odd arm or two on the balcony / rail came from either a student who had only just started work at the house of Frazier, or from the mind of someone who had lost a love that same morning and was having difficulties removing their negative thoughts towards their now "ex" partner and was instead finding Solis in removing the heads that way.

...and those Mannequin's

We had a good look around and it was extremely difficult to move away from the chocolate shop. I almost bought my daughter a rather nice sweet dispenser but realized that it would probably end up with me using it more than her. (Truth being that it was a subconscious thought really that I was wanting it for myself and just trying to excuse the fact that it would add even more pounds of weight onto my already fat body)

Cafe Zest

We stopped off to have a relaxing coffee after a long drive. I found a beautiful cafe called "ZEST" It is situated on one of the highest levels of the shopping mall which gave for great views of the shopping strip and walkways. The coffee was £2.50 each which was in my book more expensive than any local Felixstowe or Ipswich Cafe would dare charge (correct me if I an wrong) But in all it was worth it.

That View!

The Norwich city center was jam packed and we both agreed that Norwich people in general lack manners. If theres one thing I like about where I live and Suffolk on the whole, its that when people accidentally knock into you or over shoot their personal space, they react to it and will either give a polite gesture or an apologize. Unfortunately in Norwich manners are definitely a no no. The best way to describe Norwich is to describe it as a wanna-be London. It's certainly busy and people are certainly in a hurry to get to where they are going. But it doesn't seem quite real. Its as if people have read a book that teaches those with inadequate lives "how to look like you have somewhere to go"

Apart from that, the artwork in the city centre was certainly a welcome surprise