Vivid Art on the Cycle Track

 I'm managed to get in another two hour walk without my ankle giving out, brought on largely by guilt as I had a very lazy weekend avoiding the freezing gales of Storm Arwen, although we did not have any of the snow that fell so plentifully not too far away. 

I took myself through the cemetery and round the lakes, complete with my new cheap monocular, looking for early snowdrops - they've sprouted but nowhere near flowering - and also early goosander which were very much present; 15 of them on the Blue Lake, drakes and ducks earlier than I've ever seen them here and in greater numbers too.

As ever, they were far too far out to be able to photograph them, even if I'd had my bridge camera. 

The good stuff on this walk was actually along the N64 cycle track, and was safely immobile, easy to get close to, and made of brick and paint.

After a few years during which the previous artwork had become faded and graffiti'd over, artists were again commissioned to team up with local schoolchildren to create new environmental and socially conscious designs to be painted on the bridges, which have been tidied up in an attempt to reduce crime levels in the area.

Well good luck with that one, but the designs themselves are absolutely stunning, vivid paint bringing all sorts of animals to life. Hopefully the odd passing family may be inspired to become more aware of what they can see around them, and become more inclined to protect it. 

That would be a result.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 02.12.21

Trompe l'Oeil

Well it's not really a "Fool the Eye" job, but this mural has graced Appletongate in the town for as long as I can remember. I've always loved the low level fauna, the scurrying cat, the ducks in the river...it does have a rather dated feel to it I admit, and it's not going to make the owner of the house it's on rich like a Banksy, but it is a Pokemon stop.

I think.

Such are our cultural aspirations in this town.

Cod Philosophy By Night

No nature hunting, as I'm now in the time of winter when it is dark both as I leave for work, and when I get home.

But I do get to see other things, walking along, sticking my curious head into various nooks, crannies, allies and follies.

Like this ping pong table, a reinforced structure that sits sadly unused outside a bar I frequent, where by some miracle it hasn't been turned into a giant ashtray. It never gets ping-ponged upon, even in summer. But in winter, with a thin rime of damp and frost upon it, it became an irresistible magnet for crap philosophy, for writing things upon it that look really good when you instagram them.

My magic finger wrote, I felt smugly artistic.

For a very short time inded.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 23.11.16

The Asperger Child

I was trying yet again to get rid of a load of horrific clutter in my horrifically cluttered flat, when I found various notebooks that I have kept haphazardly at various times in various places.

Most of them are comparitively recent and full of various scrawls; the book of holidays, which is red, and the book of moon-a-mucks, which is brown, and horror and prose and thankfully no bad poetry whatsoever.

What I also came across was a very 80s design A4 notebook, which I was using in about 1987.

This was the book of planetary geology and economics, of flying saucer sightings, interstellar space craft design and a navy belonging to a nation and history that never existed.

These are all my designs. My stories, the external expression of what went on in my head and what still does, endless design of aircraft and navies and cricket teams and all sorts.

I had no idea back then, but thanks to reading Oliver Sacks I have since discovered that this is very much a trait of Asperger Syndrome, as is the obsessive bowling of tennis balls against trees while commentating on it in Richie Benaud voices. Which I've greatly enjoyed doing since 1980 and never will stop doing.

Tourettes and Aspergers do often run together, their spectrums ribbon around each other like friendly snakes, and both share OCD and ADHD co-morbids. What I am, and which bit of all this does what, is very unclear to me and doesn't matter anyway.

So here it all is, the created universe of Si!

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 15.11.16

Another Walk for Wellness I Put Together

I seem to be making a regular Friday feature of these; I will have to do more and more walks to generate more copy!

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 17.10.16

It's Gone for a Burton

Having been a staple of Newark life for 80 odd years, our Burton's store here has finally closed.

Apparently this is related to the BHS collapse in some way due to the ownership chain - Burton's is also struggling these days - but I really have no idea. I think it tends to suffer for being neither seen as high quality nor budget in this day and age, and it never seemed to get any high profile campaigns going like M and S did.

I always remember that at school to be seen wearing Burton's gear was something to be ashamed of; a geek thing, a nerd thing, something you wouldn't want to be seen in on a non-uniform day. If my folks ever got me any casual clothes from there I was always nervous about wearing it out for fear of being taunted by the hip kids.

As I got older, I just cared less and less.

It's a landmark building in this town, surely Grade 1 listed as a wonderful example of Art Deco design in a town that has a fair bit of it kicking around. I can only hope it finds a worthy new occupier.

Chances are, we will end up with an Art Deco nailbar.

Si

Back from the Sick

Aploogies for the absence, but literally while on my bicycle ride to work on Friday I started to feel very ill, and in the end was sent home with some form of norovirus or other bug.

Heaven only knows how I managed the ride home, but I did, then had a really nasty day feeling terrible and my body doing terrible things. Luckily, it was only a 24 and a bit hour virus, and I was able to go into town for supplies by Saturday afternoon, but I was very annoyed at missing a game of cricket on Saturday.

Luckily I was able to masquerade as a father for the "Lads versus Dads" match the next day, which was a lot of fun, and today, I found myself doing a reconaissance of the route I've worked out for a charity cycle ride I'm arranging with work.

To be honest, I didn't feel up to it at all, but I needed to get it sorted out before the event.

So, I found myself out and about on a lovely day, making my way through the cricketing villages of South Notts - Car Colston, Flintham, Syerston etc - with all their churches, and village greens grazed by animals, and wildflower meadows.

The most bizarre sights, however, were at Screveton, a village I've never seen in my life, where cycling towards FLintham, I was suddenly confronted with a giant green statue of a woman doing something "farmy".

There seems to be a few of these in these fields, made of a substance akin to, butchers grass and a handy information board was in place to tell the visitor about them.

In virtually the same place, was a memorial for the crews of two aircraft that crashed into each other during World War 2. There were a lot of incidents around here, as a lot of airfields in the area were involved in training and heavy bomber conversions. This was one of the worst, however.

In the end, I did nearly 40km, and saw more village signposts than I ever have in my life.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 30.08.16

From Creative Studio at Work

Day 6 of my new role at work, and I've been engaging in a bit of design work.

Don't get me wrong. I can't design anything. I can't draw. I can't paint. But, I found myself needing to do a bit of design work today, as opposed to the wordsmithery that is normally expected out of me, and so I began working on what I remember in my University days where called "Creative Executions".

Posters, in other words.

As I went around my new office, scrounging highlighter pens, magic markers and other stationary and giving a moderate display of Tourettisms to the unitiated - Latvians aren't going to know what my constant bowling of imaginary cricket balls signifies - I set to work scrawling, and had a chuckle as I remembered that I'd finally found myself doing the same thing as my father had.

My father could genuinely draw, and worked in advertising for many years until he realised it was a young mans game. Very occasionally as a very small boy, I would meet him as his work day ended at his agency, and I would be given these to play with.

They smelled like Russian petrol and were as toxic as a dip in a Chernobyl stream . They dried up if you left the top off for more than 12 seconds. But they were so vivid, the colour just poured out of them, onto the paper and whatever was beneath it, on to your hands, and thence to your face and mouth.

But they were pure art, for proper artists. They are also a design classic.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 22.06.16

The Ghost Signs of Newark

I guess a Ghost Sign is a sign, most commonly painted on brickwork, for a business no longer in operation at that premise. Obviously, age is a factor too, our Wimpey closed a few weeks ago, but you'd hardly call its iconic red and white sign a ghost sign! Likewise the endless failed businesses this town has had for American style soda shops, motorbike chop shops, nail bars and boutique fashions don't count either.

A ghost sign should also ideally look like a "ghost" sign, cracked and faded, looking like it might be fading back into the wall, giving its life force to the brickwork.

So, I've had a very fine time of it, out running and walking with my head in the air, trying to find as many examples of ghost signs as I can. I can't remember where they all are, and there's an area of town I've not managed to explore yet. But I've managed to collate a large number of these signs for you, some of which date back to Victorian times I'd say, and reflect both the brewing heritage of the town, and the importance of the Newark Navigation as a commercial waterway.

We do well to keep them in view.

Si

Uncovered during the renovation of the old Blockbusters, this sign has now been already consigned back to oblivion.

Barely legible, but it's there

Might have been a greengrocer or florist here

The ghost was repainted ready for redevelopment down on the waterway

Home of the Navigation pub, unsurprisingly

Pelham Street. Exorcised from history.

Lombard Street, near Asda

Boar Lane

Cartergate, site of an old pub

A ghost sign for a pub that changed its name, and changed its name back again, thus de-ghosting the ghost

Got a feeling this one might have been imported onto this Millgate building

The Imperial Hall has been a snooker hall, a nightclub rejoicing in the name of "Bootleggers" and "Lightning Jacks", and now it's just a dark, damp empty space.

Newark's Art Deco Heritage

I've had a busy morning, getting what's sort of left of my hair cut and buying new running shoes, but I still managed to fit in a project I've been meaning to for a little while.

Not the ghost signs, that requires more work as they are far more spread out around town and I wasn't planning walking any further away from the town centre than lunch. What I was able to do was actually collate Newark's art deco heritage in one place, on a swift walk around the perimeter of the centre, and bring them to you here.

Art Deco, christened as such by the famous architect Le Corbusier after a 1925 Paris expo showing off  "Arts Decoratifs" is something you've almost certainly seen without perhaps realising it. Characterised by geometric polygon forms, chevrons and starbursts, the world's most famous example is probably the Chrysler Building in New York, completed in 1930. Ocean liners of the time were inspired by its forms. French art deco  "Swallow Clocks" turn up on antiques programmes all the time, nestled amongst the endless Clarice Cliff pottery.

The form in the UK is quite uncommon however, the Daily Express building in Manchester being perhaps the best known example, although I would much rather watch retro aircraft taking off from Shoreham Airport near Brighton for my personal dose of the style.

Newark then, is relatively blessed in having a few surviving examples of the style, preserved due to the heritage status of the town centre. You can walk around the best examples in less than ten minutes.

First up is the Ladbrokes betting shop at one corner. Formerly this was the town job centre but originally was one of the two Burton's shops in the town. As you will see, they have previous in this department.

Leaving the town centre heading North, you pass this absolute dream of a  jewellers shop (psst, not Art Deco but stunning)...

...and arrive at the theoretically not terribly promising frontage of, er, Pound Stretchers. I'm no expert - what, you mean you hadn't realised? - but I wonder if this is an art deco inspired pseudo-column design.

Middlegate boasts probably the town's most stunning example, the glass tower of the old Odeon cinema. We have a new Odeon cinema in Newark that tries to ape the deco style - in fact I can see it out of the library window behind me - but it is nowhere near so attractive. Note one of the UK's last surviving Wimpy bars, an icon of another time period.

Just around the corner there is Marks and Spencer, showing off the classical form of the style. I always find that style of window an absolute deco giveaway.

And then to finish off, the other Burton's in town. I'm told that this design is typical of their stores from the period; apparently the one in Brighton is very similar. I love the window, which reminds me of the "oyster" ice cream wafers much beloved of my grandmother in Scotland.

Well, I hope you enjoyed that little trip through the style heritage of Newark's town centre, with your inexpert guide. Keep looking up, you never know what you might see.

Si