Back in Glasgow after my recent travels, I noticed a couple of new pieces, 3 good looking portraits by James Klinge in Midland Street, a nice little piece in my favourite pub, The Raven by EJEK and a couple of Giant Pandas loose in the city, one on Sauchiehall Street and another on the hoarding next to the Safe Hands Barbers on Miller Street.
Now that things have quietened down a bit for me, I’ve been able to get my blog and site updated, I have now added sections for the Street Art I discovered whilst in Sweden and Denmark, the photographs can be seen here.
I had a bit of a pub crawl on Friday, I had arranged to meet my son Graeme for lunch starting off with a pint in Brewdog’s Doghouse on Hutcheson St. Looking for something different for lunch we went round to Mikaku, Glasgow’s new Japanese Izakaya-style restaurant on Queen St. Lunch there was brilliant, the Ramen and Yaki Gyoza’s were excellent, all washed down with a nice pint of Asahi. The large Blade Runner styled mural by Rogue One along the main wall made it more enjoyable for me.
Graeme had to collect some records from Mono in King St., where I bumped into Nick, a friend from the Barn in the Gorbals, so we stayed a while for a beer with him. We were joined later by some of Nicks mates, including Conzo & Globel, (which reminded me that I hadn’t posted my wide angle shot of their Yardworks piece, you can see it above).
A good few pints later we decided to move onto the Scotia Bar on Stockwell St, this turned out to be a great choice, the beer was very good and we happened to be sitting next to a guy called Danny, Danny, a visiting American music teacher, who had his fiddle with him, was desperate to play some of his traditional music in Glasgow, we eventually convinced the staff there to let him play, we, and the punters in the pub, really enjoyed his playing and he was asked for more and more tunes. After a few too many beers and eventually after getting Danny on a train to Edinburgh, I drifted home after a really great day out with Graeme, I certainly felt a wee bit fragile in the morning.
Some of you may have noticed that I’ve been a wee bit quiet online lately, following the March for Men we completed on fathers day and my Fathers Day lunch at Drygate, I decided I had to spend some time in my much-neglected garden. The weather was in my favour and I managed to get quite a bit done before it became too hot to work in the sunshine.
I also had a brilliant day volunteering at the Glasgow Mela in Kelvingrove Park, this was a fabulous event, attended by over 40,000 people, luckily the weather was great, there was loads of great music and dance, plenty of good Indian Street food and I met a great and interesting bunch of people.
During this time I came across Oor Wullie’s Big Bucket Trail, which sees sculptures of Wullie, the iconic wee Scottish laddie sitting on his upturned bucket, dotted around the city begging out to be photographed, there are 58 of them in Glasgow and the West, from a total of 200 around Scotland. Each of the sculptures has been designed by leading Scottish artists, and to date, I have managed to capture around 25 of them, they can be seen on a new page here, I’ll add more as I find them.
Just before arriving in Vegas, Graeme sent me a link to the Greene Street Kitchen, a newly opened restaurant and bar in the Palms Casino Resort, with an original Banksy.
When Jim & I got there we pleasantly surprised to see it and works by other well-known artists, including one of my favourites, Vhils. We didn’t have much time to go spotting other works but did manage to photograph some, the photographs can be seen here.
Followers of this page know that I visited San Francisco during my recent trip to the USA with my mate Jim. Whilst there, I was on the lookout for some good street art and I wasn’t disappointed, I thought myself lucky to find two original Banksy’s, but I wasn’t so lucky with the weather on the day I visited the Mission District where the majority of the art was found.
Most of the photographs can be seen on the following San Francisco page, I have split the city into three distinct areas, the City Centre, Haight Ashbury and The Mission and each can be seen separately. There was so much art to be seen that I’m sure I missed plenty and I would love to go back to capture more, this time in better weather though,
Just updated my Yardworks post with some more photographs taken over the weekend. I certainly will be back next year. Check it out here.
I had a great weekend at Yardworks, the weather for a change was brilliant. The crowds turned out and the artists working put on a tremendous display. In addition to the local favourites, many national and international artists created some tremendous work.
There was something for all the family in a carnival atmosphere, skateboarding and art experience for the kids and plenty of street food and bars for the adults, definitely something to add to the diary for next year.
Some of the photographs I took over the weekend can be seen here.
I had a ‘cracking’ day in town yesterday with my mate Jim. We were pleased that our efforts at the Kilt walk raised over £900 for Cancer Research UK, not bad for a couple of old guys out for a Sunday Stroll. We also were able to go over our plans for our coming trip to San Francisco, Vega and New York, deciding what we are going to do with our time there. After a nice lunch in the Shilling Brewing Co. we headed over to Paisley Road Toll for a beer in the Old Toll Bar and to see how Rogue-One’s latest work there has progressed since my last visit. Jim hadn’t seen them before and he was very impressed, especially by the one of Mark McManus.
Well, the Jim Jimmies have done it, we’ve finished our kilt walk and managed to raise a tidy sum for Cancer Research UK into the bargain. It was a great day, loads of fun with the rest of the walkers in nice weather, (it didn’t rain on us!). We really got a sense of achievement when we crossed the finish line.
As usual, when I’m out walking, I come across street art and today was no exception. There was a nice mural on the walkway alongside the river Leven and a nice big mural by Bobby the Cat on Bombay Jock’s restaurant in Balloch.
Jim's travels 