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

  

    

  

Nice Up The Walls....street art...jamaica mi soon come....

NUW... Nice Up The Walls

From 12th January to 12th February 2012

JAMAICA WE SOON COME...AND WE "NICE UP THE WALLS"

Linda Zina Aslaksen                       Louis Masai Michel

have a look at our funding proposal 

CLICK here

To our knowledge, no international artists have visited Jamaica since the recent Hurricane to use street art as a means of bringing colour, life and aesthetic remedies to the community. This is the key objective that we wish to achieve with Nice Up The Walls. 

read more

These photos are a small collection from the photos that i took 5 years ago on my last trip to Jamaica...they are taken in the hills of Gayle, at a surf camp with billy mystic, Kingstons closest beach (i have forgotten its name) and a place i don't rate to highly, Negril...

YOU CAN JOIN THE "NICE UP THE WALLS" FACEBOOK PAGE 

TO STAY IN LINK WITH THE PROJECT 

CLICK HERE

WHOLE HOUSE, FREEEEEEEEEEZE.....

JUMPING JACK FROST AND THE TIGER CUB

its october...we are in london...we dont have any snow...least not yet...were in a derelict gasworks station...and yup thats a mountain peek up there....lots of artificial snow and one slope that is one hell of a long way up...way too many neon colours, bobble hats and shirts that look like dresses...gotta love the snowboarding scene...making ends out of an english winter...o and they love their bassline...its a bit like a surf festival but with angry bass instead of hellow mellow beats...lots of wide eye people instead of stoners...i wouldn't have called this a festival as rather an excuse for making some money as there was a lock down que on the main tent to see any of the live acts...at least the slope was a good consolation prize...just felt sorry for all the people that bought their tickets....not being a grandad about it all though as had a greet two days....thanks to upfest for setting this up and also to the jumping bean buritto boys and gal, for those tasty burittos...kept me going....

www.louismasaimichel.com

http://adnilart.blogspot.com/

http://www.relentlessfreeze.com/

http://www.upfest.co.uk/

this is the first proper collab that linda zina aslaksen and i have done to date...we talk about it alot and finally got it together...kept people guessing throughout the two days, linking the two bits together, right at the end....

being that it was a snowboarding event i wanted to link in my love for the wooly pattern i wear so much...linda was working in blues so i opted for the pattern being blue...now im looking at the photo i see all the bits on the ears i could have improved on....

the link up in motion

"im so cold im turning blue you so lucky you got all that fur mister...."

"where you want me to plug you into then little man...?"

bit of the details on the fur...really happy with the colour palette....and managed to sneek in a bit of the fabric pattern in there too...

free hand pattern close up on the ear...few people asked if it was a stencil...made me smirk that did...nice up the homemade stencil cap there...

the blue tint to the eye helps to make this little chap look like a cub...well i think so...

brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...damn miss zina you getting good there arent u....nice eye work...

little hipstamatic fun...

snub dropped in....and then zooomed back off again...think its another self portrait that one...

brave....liking that awesome grinners...

dank...showing some frightfully slick tones...gonna have to do a paint together soon....

other artists were... rob wass aka data, id-iom, dephect, pilot...the light was shit by the time i got round to taking shots of everyone else's work and the ones i didn't get too many people were stood in front of...for more shots take a peep at the upfest facebook...

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Upfest-The-Urban-Paint-Festival/123655691054889