Some time ago I found an old wiro notebook in a drawer. A scruffy wiro bound notebook with a photo of 2 men in a kayak with a bear on the front cover. In that notebook I found terrible sketches drawn in pencil made while travelling in 1991. One sketch leapt out at me. It was a rough pencil sketch of Mt Ararat from a backpacking trip to eastern Turkey. The sketch really surprised me – it was a very basic pencil sketch, drawn using a .5mm technical pencil on a cheap notepad. The sketch is just black and white… To my surprise the sounds and smells of the day came flooding back. Meeting some Kurdish goat herders and their flock near the base of Mt Ararat, about 10km from the Iranian border on a bright sunny but cool, alpine day. Along with memories of driving across the mountain steppe in an old Renault 19 and the smells of chai and coffee in a Doğubayazıt pasta solunu. It all came back come flooding back! Why did it evoke such vivid memories? I’m not really sure to be honest. Maybe t...
There's nothing like a bit of full-on destruction to loosen up the sketching arm! I did these really quickly on the way home the other night, and the noise dust general chaos made me attack the page in a similar fashion, quite good fun for a change.
I'm not sure what the reason for demolition is; is it to make way for a new tower or was it simply too expensive to earthquake proof? I don't know, but one thing I do know is the removal of this last remaining classic completes the transformation of Swanson Street from old school and interesting, to more forgettable recent styles.
I have dim memories of visiting the Victorian terrace shops in lower Swanson as a kid, it certainly had more character back then.
Comments