a field student of interactive maps

http://myplace.walthamforest.gov.uk/

a field student of tweed runs and cycles

Cycling home from west London this afternoon I came, by chance, across the Tweed Run - a retro fashion critical mass which consisted of hundreds of cyclists dressed in tweed riding a great variety of bicycles including penny farthings. I was told 450 cyclists had signed up however it seemed like a lot more. Given the gorgeous weather these elegantly attired cyclists made quite a spectacle. It is a shame a certain black cab driver didn't appreciate this outing and chose to drive through the procession at the junction of Clerkenwell Road and Farringdon Road. Visitors are welcome to download this video if it in anyway helps with making a complaint against or about that driver.

a field student of public art

How does Waltham Forest Borough Council support and care for (or curate) public art in the borough? What does 'generous support' for a work of public art mean? What sorts of judgement about public arts provision can be made on the basis of a visit to a council website?

My questions are asked with a bias towards outdoor sculpture and site specific installation. I acknowledge I am not addressing the full spectrum of arts, entertainment and culture.

Here is a collection of London borough council public art web pages to compare to LBWF's. Each link was sourced using the search term: 'name of council public art'

http://www.walthamforest.gov.uk/index/leisure/arts-entertainment.htm

http://www.brent.gov.uk/arts.nsf/Arts/LBB-27

http://www.camden.gov.uk/ccm/content/leisure/arts-music--culture/arts-and-tourism-service/arts-projects-and-programmes/public-art-development.en;jsessionid=7CE0A22904F47340E3980CDE76036F09

http://www.westminster.gov.uk/services/environment/planning/publicrealm/public-art/

http://www.southwark.gov.uk/info/200006/arts_in_southwark/1769/public_ar t/1

http://www.lewisham.gov.uk/LeisureAndCulture/ArtsService/PublicArt/

http://www.bexley.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=8991

The question of how LBWF manages the portfolio of public arts was prompted by my experience of trying to access, 'Linked' - an audio walk/installation by Graeme Miller.

Despite being supported by the London Borough of Waltham Forest, there is very little information about this work (by an acclaimed international artist) on the council website. All I found about this work, via 'lbwf.gov.uk', was this list of celebrities and notables, which features Graeme Miller.

If the information is there, it is not virtually, literally or metaphorically jumping off the page. When I went to various local libraries, and a museum, to borrow the equipment necessary to participate in Linked, many members of staff (council institutions & employees) did not know what I was talking about. The equipment was (eventually) provided following various protracted enquiries. I recommend Linked as a public art work. The work is about people who lost their homes, sometimes via forcible eviction, to make way for the M11 Link road.

I appreciate it is of little consequence I expended a little more time and effort getting access to Linked than I expected, however the experience prompted me to ask what is the point of cultural strategies. The council has expended public funds on a variety of strategic surveys and initiatives which might be considered ineffective. Perhaps, like the provision and management of public footpaths, public art in Waltham Forest gets lost in a labyrinth of strategies - a relevantly dated blank map.

Further afield, beyond the M25, other borough councils appear to be more inspired by London 2012. I was in Ipswich recently, and I picked up this free guide at the city library. Below are a few scans from the 35 page A5 booklet. It is available for download via Ipswich Council website.

Perhaps such a guide is whimsical 'surplus value' in a time of social and political deficit, and thus do most of the arts have to accept less government funding - local or otherwise?

The E17 and Leytonstone Arts Trails have done a great deal to energise public art in Waltham Forest recently, creating events which reveal a lot of enthusiasm for the arts locally - but with how much support from the council, and what sorts of expectations is that support based on?

Here is another site about public art

http://www.publicartonline.org.uk/

a field student of highway contraventions

Kingsland Rd. 5/4/11

Presumably the poppy on the front of this truck is not intended to commemorate the many innocent cyclists and pedestrians who have been crushed to death beneath such vehicles. By the looks of it, this driver would never show any such solidarity, sympathy or empathy - let alone straightforward respect for the law and other road users. This was not the first ASL on Kingsland Rd, that truck had intruded on prior to arriving at this particular junction.

I was on my bicycle in the ASL area. I took the top photograph while standing there. I had enough time to walk forwards and photograph the stationary vehicle from the front, to include the registration number. The driver caught sight of this and lowered a window and started shouting abuse. I made an equally rude gesture and, as the lights had changed, headed off, north up Kingsland Road, keeping in the bus and cycle lane. The same lorry drove slowly alongside me and the driver persisted in his intimidating abuse. This abuse included, at one point, veering towards me as I avoided some potholes in the bus lane.

I made some more gestures and then broke away as the lorry arrived at the back of a queue of traffic.

About 15 minutes later I passed some police community support officers cycling up the road. I asked one of the 'cycle mounties' to stop as I had something to ask. I gave an account of the encounter with the truck and showed the officer the photographs. I was told the lorry driver would easily 'get off' this one as he could claim the photographs were taken while on the move. I pointed out a closer inspection would reveal the vehicle has not moved in the time taken to take both photographs and I am on the inside lane - where I would not stand if the lights were on green. I didn't completely reject her point. Then I was told I would need a witness and, with their details, to go to a local police station and fill in the appropriate forms. She added a witness is more valid than photographs as there are all sorts of 'loopholes' regarding photos.

I have tried going to a police station once before. The task took an excessively long time and my complaint (being bumped by a black cab which did not stop) was met with such indifference I decided not to bother with the formal process; which, I believe, is precisely what the station officer wanted.

In recent weeks there has been a spate of fatal collisions involving cyclists and lorries - as the inexhaustible Freewheeler's, Crap Cycling and Walking blog, reports - a depressing litany of death notices it seems sometimes.

To return to the photographs, something in the blatancy of the contravention and the proximity of the cycle symbol with those massive wheels brought home the violence of the situation on London roads.

a field student of E17 blossoms

Blackhorse Road April 2011.

Blackhorse Road April 2011

Saturday night saw a lonesome field student of E17 temporarily vacate his cloister of erotic misery to make a bee line for the bright lights of the High Street, Walthamstow. Intent on stripping a bridesmaid bare (or two, even) he proceeded with an artful swagger. He thought his luck was in when three headless bridesmaids emerged from the darkness of the Crest charity shop.

He tried courting their attention, volunteering his services from down on one knee, however he was incapable of arousing anything but a mannequin stillness and silence - which he thought dumb before thinking better of such a judgement.

Determined not to be deterred or frustrated in his erotic mission our man decided to try dating some buildings instead. Earlier in the week the field student had loitered on several apartment block corners admiring the ornamental facades, at times lost in an Arcadian reverie. That evening he could not find the date stones for the building of St James St Apartments and the International Supermarket.

Suddenly the Grotesques (grottesco) of medievalist fantasy cried out like an awful conference of emergency service sirens. So intense were the cries, screams and wails of these terrible visages the field student had no choice but to seek the sanctuary of an altogether more peaceful and refined location - fleeing the arcade in search of a night garden.

Earlier in the day, north along the Blackhorse Road, the field student had spied a front garden between the corners of Courtenay Rd and Cornwallis Rd. Close to a bus stop, the garden was occupied by a line of resplendently blossomed trees; a free(?) cherry blossom festival. Seeking some philosophical solace, the ornamental male headed for the mysticism of the sakura (or ume) and the consolation of hanami. Given the field student’s nocturnal predilections this hanami would be a yozakura. Were the trees plum or cherry? Would there be, as in parts of Japan, a rowdy lantern lit party? No.

The field student strolled about the trees imbibing the atmosphere of the blossomed place hoping to revive his spirit. But for the flow of traffic along the Blackhorse Road it might have been a more peaceful experience. Although without a lantern the student had a camera and flashed the trees, capturing their floral images. He imagined this site and ephemeral illumination viewed from a greater distance. Two young women arrived at the bus stop, and finding the sight of someone photographing trees at night amusing, started laughing mockingly before being shuttled off by a night bus.

The field student recalled another tree in full bloom; one which during a hot and sunny June day had been so full of foraging bees of all sorts, it hummed or sang of a nectar flow.

According to this site, the rowan has some relevance to those searching for ghosts.

The wood of European Mountain Ash is a tough, strong wood used in making tool handles, cart-wheels, planks, and beams. The Rowan was once a tree of ill repute in Northern Europe, where the Celtic Druids had venerated it. It was associated with witchcraft in 15th-16th century England where it was a symbol of paganism and the supernatural - and in some circles it has magical properties good for the virility of the male essence.

For this student however, the digital camera screen blinked indicating exhausted batteries, and without an ash in sight, he made his way home

Rowan Tree - Budleigh Salterton June 2010

a field student of crooked billets

a field student of lonely hearts and minds

Volunteers urgently needed.