Waterford Walls

Waterford Walls 2017 – some more

Dan Leo is one of my favorites. I just love these thick black lines! Unfortunately, I have lost his pictures in an accident, but you can visit his Facebook page. Dan Leo was born in London and moved to Ireland in his youth.

To see more details, you may want to enlarge the pictures by clicking on them.

More birds 🙂 Another favorite from Toronto, Canada. BirdO! You can follow him on Instagram. It is BirdO‘s second time in Waterford, and I am proud that Waterford Walls festival is bringing artists of this caliber to our city.

Just around the corner – Magdalena Karol, Poland. Her girl with the bird house backpack reminds me of Dr. Jack Vallentyne, AKA Johnny Biosphere, whom I met in the 1980s.

ARCY, mural artist from the USA, accepted the invitation to participate in Waterford Walls, and I hope he returns to our city again. He includes a hidden Mickey Mouse head in his works for his two young sons to find, and you are welcome to spot one in this work 🙂

Kelsey Montague, also from the USA. I love her works, especially the Wings anyone can step into. Hope she will paint a pair of wings for Waterford some day.

Talented Spanish artist Lula Goce changed the look of O’Connell street with her gorgeous mural. Working in the rain was challenging, but she did it! 🙂

More in O’Connell street. Australian artist Fintan Magee known for his stunning large-scale murals is working on the highest wall available in Waterford 🙂 It is so cool to have his work in our city.

Amazing constellation of street artists at Waterford Walls this summer. DMC – Dermot McConaghy from Belfast- is back with another beautiful female image.

Dermot and local photographer Patrick Lyons.

Taking a look.

Jess Tobin AKA NOVICE, from Dublin, is working in George’s street. Her previous marriage-equality themed work was vandalised in 2015.

Charming Kathrina Rupit – KINMX – from Mexico lives in Dublin. It is her second Waterford Walls festival.

Her smile is as beautiful as is her mural.

Sadly, the map in my copy of the festival brochure doesn’t exactly help me locate some artists. Hope I will come across their work by accident some day 🙂 Like it happened with this work of Joe Caslin.

Ta-da! The old painting is still there 🙂

Thank you for your interest in Waterford Walls festival. The Harvest Festival is on the way.

You might love to visit Graffiti Lux and Murals blog by Resa McConaghy from Toronto Canada and enjoy the ephemeral art of murals.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Waterford Walls 2017

2017 is the third year of Waterford Walls festival. They say there are 40 artists working in the streets, some names are already familiar from the previous years. This year’s festival hosts artists from five continents – Australia, both Americas, Africa and Europe.

In the picture below: Sarah Jane Hanton, Visual media and event manager, and Gabe McGuinness, Assistant project manager.

I start with the New Street Gardens, a temporary community park built on the derelict site in 2014. Edel Tobin, founder of the Gardens, is also the founder of the Waterford Walls festival. There is plenty of wall space for artists and their projects. My opening image is the work of Caoilfhionn Hanton, 19 years old artist from Tramore, Waterford. Caoilfhionn is a veteran of Waterford Walls.

(Click on the images to enlarge them if you want to see more details)

These Love Hearts are the work of Kevin Bohan , Ireland.

Louise McKenna, Waterford based artist.

SHUK , Ireland.

ADOR, Fance, and SHUK.

I am leaving the Gardens and walk up the hill, in direction to the Barrack Street. There I find a few more works.

ADOR, France. The Cloud. I love this character 🙂

OMIN, from Dundalk, Ireland.

The side wall of Bobby’s Bar is particularly loved by artists. This time there is a stunning work of SONNY , British born artist based in South Africa. Electric Fury!

I turn to the Major’s Walk.

ANIMALITO LAND, brilliant artist Graciela Gonçalves Da Silva from Argentina.

Looking down to Stephen Street I see another work. CRUINNIU WALLS – Louisa Donnelly & Ciara McKenna, Ireland.

I walk down the hill again, but cannot get a closer picture because of the parked cars. Next to CRUINNIU’s work, I see the Irish graffiti godfather RASK, from Drogheda, giving a lesson (workshop?) to a lone student.

There is another work of SHUK in Michael Street.

It had been raining almost every day during the festival. Some artists from ‘dry’ countries had a hard time in Waterford helplessly watching paint drip down their works. The artists from the Emerald Island were not bothered.

VERZ, artist based in Belfast, working away in the rain.

I am heading to the Patrick Street where, according to the Festival map, I will find SMUG and FIVE8 working on their projects. No such luck, but I see another artist who has just started working. It is Jonny McKerr, or JMK, from Belfast.

The artist works in a steady pace, regardless of the weather.

This is the final image. Beautiful.

James Earley’s work still stays unfinished.

Thank you for taking the tour around Waterford Walls. You might love to visit Graffiti Lux and Murals blog by Resa McConaghy from Toronto, Canada and enjoy the ephemeral art of murals.

Blaa

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

A blaa /blæ/ is a doughy, white bread bun (roll) speciality; particularly associated with Waterford, Ireland... 12,000 blaas are sold each day.

There are four bakeries making blaas, two of them in Waterford city – Hickey’s Bakery, and M & D Bakery. The Waterford blaa has been around three hundred years, since the Huguenot settlers introduced this simple bread to the locals. Never cut a blaa with a knife! It has to be torn apart by hand and eaten with butter or any filling of your choice, like rashers or chicken filet.

A student who preferred to stay anonymous, kindly gave me permission to take a picture of his blaa and rashers.

Blaa has a very special place in the heart of Waterford people.

The graffiti in my opening photograph is not a blaa advertisement though. The other side of the river Suir in Waterford – Ferrybank – mostly belongs to County Kilkenny, and traditionally, some Kilkenny people risking their lives leave teasing graffiti on The Flour Mills or on the high vertical cliff behind the railway station to annoy Waterford folks.

The Flour Mills, as they look in my photograph from 2015, don’t exist anymore. This summer the grain silos were taken down first, and the derelict buildings followed.

There are a few more photographs of the Mills taken in November 2015.

Tall Ship Festival 2005. Russian four-masted barque Kruzenshtern with the Flour Mills in background. Happy days.

The Mills were always there, ruining pictures 🙂

The nine storey building constructed in 1905 and listed in the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage as ‘an imposing building of national importance’, has been preserved.

The rest of the mill will have to go.

There is another ghost on the other side of the river in Waterford City – the Ferrybank Shopping Centre on Kilkenny/Waterford border, that was completed in 2008 and has never opened. Its cost is € 100M.

ferrybank

And one more ghost is hidden behind the Joe Caslin’s mental health artwork – abandoned Ard Rí hotel.

Ta-da! This picture was taken in 2005 with Ard Rí already abandoned five years prior.

But the ghosts are not easy to rid off. Especially in the internet. There still is a booking page for Ard Rí! 🙂

Hope this beautiful Sumac that grows in Ferrybank brightens the story of this less fortunate suburb of Waterford city.

And here is my latest picture of Ferrybank on the other side of the river Suir – with the Supermoon shining through the clouds 🙂 I didn’t have enough enthusiasm to camp by the river and wait for the clouds to clear away.

Thank you for walking around Ferrybank with me! I link this post to Milford Street , Equinoxio and Geezer 94 – the blogs that are often showcasing history and old buildings. Please visit and follow.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Waterford Walls 2016

It is too late to write about this festival, but I wasn’t in the country in August and took my pictures only last week. An artist from Toronto created a mural for this festival, and I am happy to mention one of my favorite blogs Graffiti Lux and Murals that belongs to amazing Resa from Canada. If you want to see breathtaking street art, please visit and follow her blog.

The first two images are the most impressive. Smug One, a Glasgow based artist, created these two photo-realistic works just a block from each other.

Very detailed artwork by AOW, Ireland.

Work by ESTR, Ireland

Blue Tit by Danleo, Ireland, is about to snatch a student 🙂

More works in the New Street Park. I am pretty sure the Fox is created by Brendan Butler, but have no clue who is the author of that Happy Girl mural. Lisa Murphy, may be? Her work was in this exact spot last year.

This is one of my favorite works by Serbian artist Vunik.

Two fantastic murals by London-based artist Louis Masai are dedicated to preservation of wild life. Hammer sharks in Barrack street…

… and Elephants in Barker street.

Around the corner, there is a dreamy work of Kathrina Rupit (KINMX) from Mexico.

Next to it is a surreal piece created by Jerry Rugg (Birdo) from Toronto, Canada (sorry for the obstructed image!).

This work of Joe Caslin is dedicated to mental health. You can see it in the previous image, far in background, because it is on the other side of the river. I shared two of Joe Caslin’s works in my blog last year. In my next blog I will tell you what is hiding under the mural 🙂

I am sorry I didn’t share all the murals scattered around the city centre. There are more, and they are all beautiful. Murals often cover unattractive walls, but some buildings just have to go. We will talk about such buildings in my next blog 🙂

Have a wonderful weekend!

Waterford Walls

Waterford Walls is a visual Street Art project in Waterford City, Ireland. Irish and International street artists and talented school students transformed old spaces into extended art gallery. The first image is the work of Joe Caslin, a street artist and art teacher from Roscommon who is known for his project “Our Nation’s Sons” – large scale portraits of young men from disadvantaged social backgrounds.

In the image below, a man stopped to touch the surface of the portrait. I will tell you why. Joe Caslin paintings are done on biodegradable paper, and will come down within a few weeks. We are lucky with the weather, and I hope the paintings will last another month.

Another work of the same artist in Olaf Street. It is sad they won’t stay here too long.

I went around the city center to look for the other murals. First of all, I visited one of my favorite places in O’Connell Street and was pleased to find an interesting work.

After that I walked to Stephen Street. This is unused De La Salle Hall built in 1915. I love the new look of it’s facade. As it often happens in life, the facade is the only attractive part…

More murals in Stephen Street.

I like this mural because the girl is holding a camera in her hands.

It is where the rain started, and I rushed under the roof of a garage. From there I took a picture of a mural and a family with the matching umbrella.

The rain didn’t last long and I walked to New Street to see the gardens and more murals.

It was my last destination. There are about twenty murals, very colorful.

This one is dedicated to Waterford Hospice.

I stood there waiting for someone to come over and do something amazing, or at least something worth a picture, but there was no one in the gardens, so I just took a snap of the girl and her bees.

Thank you for walking the streets with me. I know, it is not a once-in-a-lifetime trip, but think about the murals that won’t last longer that a couple of weeks. You have seen them!

This is sort of a similar exposition in 2008.

Have a wonderful weekend!