HELP JAMAICA...ROUND FIVE...THE LAST PAINT

HELP...                              

KINGSTON... 
NICE UP THE WALLS... 

im not even sure i know why i have taken so long to get this chapter blogged...chapter five...the final paint...it certainly was a very busy last ten days... three paintings, several live shows, lots of pasting, and an interview, we were kinda glad we had come to a closure, sad that we would be off in a few days but it felt good to finish in a school..we started in a school so made perfect sense to finish in one...

help jamaica is a purely sponsorship funded project...its run by a couple of germans that became inspired to start there own library/project after seeing the impact that trench town reading and writing school had on the trench town community...its based in cassava piece kingston, next to two rivalling gully side communities...the desire was to provide a service to two separated communities in an attempt to merge them together. There is an education programme for adults as well as children, reading writing, art, and many other necessary subjects are taught on the grounds after school hours and in to the evenings for the adults. The centre has gone from strength to strength, building more classrooms and expanding its library contents continuously...there is a particularly strong reference to afrocentric books on the shelves...

I have painted a few madarills in the last couple of years...what i love about this animal is that it has such vibrant colours in its face, i love making the features pop out of the wall...several paintings down the line and i was finally getting used to the Jamaican sprays...i wont be missing them though..hahahaha...Hille, founder of help, asked us to adorn the paintings with a message to the audience...so both our paintings adopted pencils behind their ears...these guys below started doing some martial arts practise on the wall, had to snap some shots...there were a lot of youth around us whilst we were painting this wall as u would expect in a school...it was great to give them an insight to what can be achieved with paint and some dedication...

Given that it is the penultimate intention of nice up the walls to launch a jamaican visual arts school...it was really important to link up with a centre like help...our heads were filled with thoughts and realistic scenarios as to how that will come about...i feel optimistic that it can happen and that the first stage has been incredibly successful... the next step will be a show documenting what has happened in london and then we will look for funding to fly back out there with a large group of international artists...nice up the walls is just getting started...but it has started...

click HERE for a link to help jamaica....

THERE IS LOTS MORE PHOTO ON THEIR WEBSITE OF THE PAINT

 

I wonder if hille and i saw duppy or something in this photo....

we have the same perplexed expression...hahahahaha

lindas blog soon come....click for link...HERE

NICE UP THE WALLS - round three...black scorpio records

My sound, my sound, is the baddest sound around...an even if it weren't who gonna challenge a towering 6ft, whatever he is man (BFG) that go by the name scorpio...yeah thats what i thought...pipe down you...but trust me the production out of this mans two studios is somewhat ridiculously good...with artists like Capleton, Everton Blender, General Trees, Gentleman, Halfpint, Luciano, Buju Banton....blah blah blah blahhhhhhh....im like a little kid in this country, i get so excited because i been collecting this music for the past 15 years...we were staying with Jack Scorpio whilst we were in Kingston and as a result was taken as his guests to Rebel Salute and the trench town Bob Marley EARTHSTRONG celebrations...via Jack i met people like Queen Ifrica, Capleton, Damian Jr Gong Marley, Stone Love, blah blah blah...sorry lets get back to the painting...

Im used to painting furry things with big eyes and finding ways to link in something friendly or funny to the image...a scorpion...okay...its got a bit of hair on its legs...actually the ironic thing is that i have been toying with the idea of painting some insects soon, so its a kick in the right direction...first roof top i done too, so that was exciting...what wasn't, was that in Jamaica all the roof tops still have the foundation iron poles sticking in the air, this is so they can build extensions...my flipflop worn feet aint no match for that, and apparently i don't learn neither...blood cuts and bruises...

So here we have Jack Scorpio in the flesh, showing some love for the wall...nice up father...another wall done and now we off to Tuff Gong studios for a paint...HUH...yup...thats right time to be a little bouy agin...


click HERE to get some images and stories from linda...

You want more...
Round four...
Soon soon...


ONE LOVE............................................................

Nice Up The Walls.... ROUND TWO

FRENCHMAN'S COVE TREASURE BEACH ST.ELIZABETH

ROUND TWO

MADAGASCAN LEMUR

Almost Three weeks on island. Two attempts to paint One madagascan lemur...im a fond believer that a problem is a mistake and a mistake is presented so that one can learn from it. My problem was, the person i asked permission for the use of the wall to paint my lemur, wasn't the owner of the wall...she leased the building. First thing in the morning after confirmation the night before, i started outlining and filling first coat of the lemur on a restaurant back wall... it faces the oncoming traffic to everyone entering frenchmans cove...a nice wall to nice up...

"what you doing..." 

"painting"

"have u got permission to do that"

"yes"

"no you don't...my father in law owns that wall and i know he wouldn't want you doing that"

.....oh shitttttt....

"owner of the restaurant say i can last night"

"well she don't own the wall, my father in law does., im gonna have to get him down here"

.....please dont be big and bad and ugly....

So after the owner came down, he did alot of cussing an fussing, refused to reason with me and order i paint it out...have to say i was pretty bumbed out...sympathetic towards his annoyance but vex he wouldn't talk it out...anyway en route home, an american woman form newyork popped out and said... "hey come and paint my wall instead..."

Thats me painting the americans shack above...resolution....lesson to be learnt for i an i, check person saying yes is the owner...

I remember reading an article about the lemurs in a metro newspaper last year, it stated Mister Richard Branson was planning on exporting an entire Madagascan Lemur colony to his own Caribbean island... to help save them from extinction...don't think it was granted, probably a good thing too...but i get to gloat that i got one over, and he didn't....hahaha...i have used the same african fabric pattern as the prairie dog on this piece and its in both the tail and the hands...

Owners of the building

When u see lindas peice next to mine both characters are holding the jamiacan kite...we wanted to give the painting a Jamaican reference and since the lemur is dancing it seemed to be pretty fitting... 

TO READ ALL ABOUT LINDAS PAINTING FOLLOW
HERE

Part of the journey, was to discover if any other street artists had been out to Jamaica to paint.  We did find a few, but these guys were the first we found and had wheat pasted the whole of the front side of a bar shack on the beach. The Everlasting Freshness Crew come from Australia and the artists is RONE...it would seem he's on a tour, hitting up miami, cuba and hawai...and by the looks of it we missed him by about a month... Frenchmans cove must think a sign is hanging above them pointing artists in their direction or something...anyway....

links here

Black river...named, because its bottom is of a black mud...on a sunny day the water is completely transparent clear but u wouldn't know cos the mud is so dark, so they say...it was a rainy day when we were there, so who knows...home to the most species of ferns in the world, and fresh water crocs...why...no one knows, perhaps they were dumped in the river by germans after the war, maybey they swam down from florida...our guide said there were over 100 around...we saw some biggins, but they very timid and there w alot of tourist boats checkin em out, so no wonder...above is some cool rasta looking roots dropping into the river, this is how the trees get their water...

More of the herd of 50 went up and this cru were keen to get a photo shoot underway...Blessup Treasure Beach...the ones that were on our side that is...

Round three... soon come...

Kingston...

Black Scorpio Records

ONE LOVE

NICE UP THE WALLS...painting Jamaica round one...Winifred beach

WELCOME TO JAMROCK

January 12th 2012 myself and Linda Zina landed in Jamaica Kingston...leaving behind over 100 cans of the finest spraypaint on English turf and soil...well at Gatwick airport...just as we were ready to board, they pulled us aside and investigated what we had in our second luggage...spraypaint of course...what else would someone on a flight to Jamaica be carrying...Virgin booking desk you bunch of dumb-asses...when a man ask if your flights allow for spray paint to be carried across...the answer is no...thanks for wasting our time...disheartened, we sat on the plane looking at each other thinking what do we do now...okay so we got over it by the time the first film had finished, and figured the island had to have some spraypaint somewhere. They got cars and therefore must have spray...i hope...that plus house paint and brushes...we came to paint so lets paint...we got to nice up some walls havent we? above is what we found and used...

 

 In 2000 when i was 18 i first visited Jamaica...i quickly got chaperoned up to the hills in St Mary Gayle and adopted by Mrs Cameron and her daughter Mrs Campbell...the rest is history and i now have a Jamaican family spanning through many generations and all over island...comes in very handy when trying to oganise a workshop or two. Especially when Mrs Campbell, Eve is a teacher. Everytime i go to Jamaica i do a couple workshops but this year was the biggest and most exciting...over a course of 4 hours Linda and i had over 100 youth come and see us...PHEWWWWWWW...that was Lindas first workshop...anyway we did poster design with them all, below are some of my favourite results...

Initially it was intended that we would be painting in gayle also but since we had our paint knicked at gatwick, we had to change plans...so the first paint happened at Winnifred beach, which is  in Port Antonio, one of the islands tourist hotspots...as a result the locals arent allowed to use there own beaches anymore...i find this some what disgusting and so does the lady whom we were staying with...so carla italian born local legend has started the fight to save the last of its kind...

 find out more... here... 

So we flexed our new paints, bought in a hardware store in Port Antonio...its always good to try new styles and i think that things just get better from this day onwards...have to say i was not happy with the feet, but the face and ears i was feeling went well...this image strated of a bit contraversial in some respects beacuse Jamaican people dont like dogs like westerners...its a bit different to your london jamaicans that pride themselves in the Staffie on the rope next to them...Jamaicans are a bit scared of hounds...but after learning that the dog was an african praire and descndent of the original african dog they looked at it more kindly...

so here is a link to lindas blog where she has lots of her images and so on....

press HERE 

nice up linda looking fresh as ever 

 

  

port antonio town below... winni sand above...

    

not a bad place to spend winter working im sure you will agree...

Jamaica has a rich cultural history, one that i keep learning more about every time i visit...every child that attends school learns the culture and is very knowledgable...this year is Jamaicas 50th independence celebration...in recognition to that i have posted and left with the locals a total of 50 of my herd of gazelles...i tried when appropriate to photograph them with a local... this was one of the first to go up...

one love

STAY TUNED...ROUND TWO TO FOLLOW