London/Stolenspace Part 2

Day 5
I got up the next morning and decided to walk to St. Paul's Cathedral. On my way I found "The Monument" which is a huge column commemorating the Great Fire of 1666 that wiped out most of London. This city has been through a lot over the years! Plagues, bombings, fires...


Got to St. Paul's. It was pretty impressive from all angles but inside there were no photos allowed. I did sneak one photo of the inside dome which looked to be under construction.


The Gherkin is a great landmark, it really helped me find my way without a map. Yeah, it's more than a little phallic, still, it looks pretty rad against the older London architecture.


Got to meet Ian from Wallkandy.


Ate some more candy (we have Nutrageous in the states but never seen Twirl)


In the afternoon I resumed painting the two walls I'd started previously. The big white wall took me another couple hours...


Then I tried to finish the metal doors. It started raining so I had to cut things short, I had bigger plans for you, metal doors! This was an interesting place to paint. A small mob of local kids were trying to pick pocket me- kinda crowding around me a little too close and going behind me (luckily I always carry wallet in front pocket while traveling), but they ended up running off with some of my paint. Actually it was D*face's paint.... I owe you a can D! There was also what I think was a prostitute asking me to let her write her name on the wall (you can see her on the left in the next picture). And tagger kids coming by to see what was going on. It was fun but the rain started coming down good and I got soaked. You can see the water was making my paint run which I think added to the eyes.. I did have more planned but I think the weather had other plans.


Finished and dragged my art supplies home exhausted and very damp. Got more candy to try. Never heard of a Milky bar but apparently it's an old staple of British candy. It was white chocolate, kinda thin, and pretty good. By chance on this same night there was a show on TV about classic British commercials, and the Milky Bar Kid has been around for 40 years. And the Flake girl is super famous there too. Pretty funny commercials.


Day 6
My last day here, I decided to see some art galleries and just walk around. Got the highly recommended bacon/cream cheese/honey/cucumber bagel for brunch. It was good.

Took some better pics of my own art:


Then walked north from Bricklane and looked for anything that caught my eye...


I found an old cemetery near Old Street and City Road called Bunhill Cemetery. The name comes from what they used to call the place, "Bone Hill" because so many people have been buried here. I always enjoy exploring the old ones...

Went by White Cube, but it was closed.


Got to hang out with Word To Mother for a while, we traded some art and had a good time. The dude is awesome! Check out his July show at Upper Playground..

After painting a small piece I felt like leaving one more little token of thanks for the city of London. So grabbed my green bag o' paintrollers and brushes and found a quiet wall.


Thanks London!

Next morning I was packed and ready to fly home to my girls! Thanks to Stolenspace and Jonathan Levine for making this happen, and thanks to all the new friends I met out in the UK. Can't wait to come back...


I realized I never posted images of the work in the show... That will be the next post...
-Jeff