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Penge street art tour adds £258.90 to our hospice fundraising

Airborne Mark's Raven
Penge Street Art Tour reaches Airborne Mark’s ‘Raven’, in memory of Dad


Anyone who’s read How Graffiti Saved My Dad’s Life will already know how much the early days of London Calling Blog’s SprayExhibition 20 project in Penge helped us through the final few months of Dad’s life. Even when he was an inpatient at St Christopher’s hospice, Dad insisted on going out to photograph the new works that were starting to pop up in the area.

Three years on, it’s testament to the hard work and tenacity of Steve at London Calling Blog – as well as the huge talent of the many street artists he’s lured to SE20 – that Penge now boasts an incredible open-air gallery to rival any other urban art hotspot in the world. And that’s why yesterday’s Penge street art tour, in memory of Dad – a Sunday stroll around most (but not all) of the walls – lasted a whopping six-and-a-half hours.

Steve and project volunteer John gave up their time to lead the walk – while Airborne Mark made an early start on Maple Road, painting yet another brilliant piece for Penge. Despite it being a typically cold and miserable end-of-January day, there was a huge turnout. Admittedly, some people did have to go home for lunch and/or a lie-down three or four hours into the walk – but there were still around 20 hardy souls who stayed right to the end!

It was great to meet so many people who share our enthusiasm and passion for street art – among them the lovely Lindsay, who made the winning bid in our recent TRUST.iCON print auction for St Christopher’s.

Thanks to everybody’s generosity, the event raised £258.90 from donations and book sales for the hospice. That brings our running total up to £2,486.70 – and there’ll be more money on the way very soon. A massive thank you from the bottom of our hearts to Steve, John, Mark and everyone involved with the project.

And thank you Penge. (Shoreditch is so last decade.)

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Four new pages added to How Graffiti Saved My Dad’s Life…

After a flurry of surprise sales at London Calling Blog‘s Penge street art tour earlier this month, we had to order another print run of How Graffiti Saved My Dad’s Life (At Least For A While).

So I took the opportunity to add a four-page postscript with a couple of new images: Roo‘s lovely wall from the Anything’s Better Than A Blank Wall paint jam, which was dedicated to Dad, earlier in the year; and Airborne Mark‘s beautiful Raven, a tribute wall to Dad, just round the corner from our house. Both of these were organised by the tireless Steve at London Calling Blog.

Raven by Airborne Mark

When I was first compiling the book, I tried to include as many works as possible from Dad’s favourite artists. But I had 33,000 images to choose from – and that’s just the ones he’d put on Flickr! (I’ve since found hundreds more that were just in albums.) Inevitably, there were a few glaring omissions in that first edition. I would list some of the more obvious names here – but I know I’d end up forgetting someone important again.

I will say, however, that Roo was among those omissions. Dad was always pleased to see her, and she’d happily stop work to talk to him. We took him to see her brilliant work in Tower Hamlets Cemetery a couple of months before he died. So I’m very pleased she’s in this new edition.

Roo

Hopefully, I’ll be able to squeeze a few more artists into the next print run – and eventually I can rest easy, knowing everyone’s in there. I wonder if the world is ready for a 33,000-page book, though…