All cities have it, but some have it more than others. It’s the feeling you get as you walk the streets that something is bubbling just under the surface. From time to time you notice that it has brimmed over - perhaps in voices that you hear, or a chance turn of phrase, or some music floating out of a window somewhere, or a sign that someone has put up. Here, in this city, I recently saw an abandoned freezer with a poem written on its side. Pretty commonly it’s what you see on the walls though. I took all of the photos below within a few yards or a few miles of my house. So you don’t have to look that far.
It can be unintended - just the passage of time……
……or a few dabs with a paintbrush…….
…..or something just as simple but a little more considered…….
…….or maybe just a popular spot…..
….or something that you notice only the twentieth time you walk past it……
…….convention plays its part, as in all creative endeavour…….
…….or sometimes a touch of the existential…..
…..or the classical (love this one……there’s such a lot in it)……
……or the straight representational…..
….you might even bump into it……
I guess it’s sheer energy, sheer exuberance. It’s very uplifting and although cities get their share of bad press you don’t find this kind of thing anywhere else really. Certainly not in smaller places. Maybe it’s a kind of communal energy or maybe spectators will always draw out a spectacle. Whatever it is - long may it last.