Our semi-detached house was built on a hill. Consequently, as you step down the street the houses also step down. The neighbours above look down on our garden and we look down on the other side's garden.Above us there's Tony and Jill - a lovely couple who are now well into their eighties. They have lived on this street for fifty years. Between our two houses, near the back doors, there's a brick wall with a concrete panel on top of it.
Recently, I repainted our side of this rough-textured panel with white masonry paint. In idle moments I have often thought about adorning it with a mural - perhaps sunflowers or a giant robin but a month ago, a much simpler idea came into my simple mind.
The garden is west facing so I thought of painting the word "WEST" upon it followed by an arrow. I know the idea is slightly bizarre but as I said to Tony and Jill when explaining it, "I am a bit mad". The design I had in mind would be reminiscent of the painted directional graphics that may still be spotted in old football stadiums.
In any case, the word "west" crops up quite a lot in our culture. "The west" is where most visitors to this blog reside and Percy Shelley wrote "Ode to The West Wind" in another October - two hundred and six years ago...
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing...
And once young men were advised to "go west" to seek their fortunes. In contrast, the expression "gone west" means to have met with death or disaster. So "west" isn't just a cardinal point, it has plenty of other connotations.
Anyway, anyway beyond the dark midnight I have hatched many wild plans. Mostly they are not followed through but this time, this time I did it as the two pictures prove - taken I might add on a rather cloudy afternoon.
Oh, please, please, Mr. P. My brother. Please! What a wonderful place for a mural of your liking. I know it will take a great deal of thought. But in the end, what a wonderful statement it could and might be. Oh, please do a mural!!
ReplyDeleteMaybe next year.
Deleteyou could add compass points and a map or dsitances to cities near and far. It could become a bigger statement than it already is. Anyways, I like it
ReplyDeleteThe rough texture is quite hard to paint accurately and I would need suitable masonry paints.
DeleteThe west was the great unknown by Europeans for so long, of course the indigenous people didn't share that sentiment, they knew who they were and where they were.
ReplyDeleteThere is always someplace further west, even if it's the ocean, and of course there is west beyond that, all the way back home.
Head west and carry on and you will end up where you began.
DeleteI wonder where going west stops?
ReplyDeleteIt stops in Red Deer, Alberta - where the wild things are.
DeleteNot Sendakian New York?
DeleteYou've done a very neat job of it, and I understand your reasons for chosing "WEST".
ReplyDeleteWhat I do wonder is why the concrete panel exists at all. Did Tony and Jill have it put up to prevent you from clambering over their garden wall for short cuts, or because they didn't want to have to avert their eyes everytime you were having a nudist session in your garden? Or did you originally have it put there for additional privacy?
I guess the panel was put up for safety reasons when the houses were built one hundred years ago. Tony and Jill like to join us for our garden nudist sessions. We frolic around and play catch with an inflatable beach ball. Come down and join us next time you are in Ripon.
DeleteAt least now you can be sure no one will get lost within your garden walls. I like kylie's idea.
ReplyDeleteI am sure that the sign would assist any visiting Australians.
DeleteIt reminds me of Berlin. You could add goosestepping Russians on one side and JF Kennedy giving his "ich bin ein Berliner" speech on the other. Incidentally, Kennedy was badly advised when he said that. To put the word "ein" in front of the word "Berliner" makes it a food item, namely a doughnut. (Like you would say a Hamburger or a Frankfurter.) To say you were from Berlin, you would say "Ich bin Berliner". So he actually said "I am a doughnut". German lesson over.
ReplyDeleteMaybe Kennedy meant to say that he was a doughnut... or as they say in America - a "donut"!
DeleteHe was a silly sausage.
DeleteTakes one to know one Marcie.
DeleteIt's wonky!
ReplyDeleteHa, no, I like it. Simple and stylish.
I used a spirit level to ensure that my "WEST>>>" was perfectly horizontal but the concrete panel is slightly out.
Deletei like it, very.... deconstructed.... post-modern you might say.... the typeface is good..... west IS best!
ReplyDeleteMakes me think of Fred West. I hope he is not lurking about at the bottom of our garden... in spirit form of course.
DeleteWhat do Jill and Tony think of it?
ReplyDeleteThey see it as further conformation that I am stark raving mad.
DeleteA mural would be ideal YP, and brighten up the garden on a dull day. Something on a smaller scale to those you see on the end walls of old buildings?
ReplyDeleteI have had various ideas Carol but the rough texture you can just about see will not make it easy. Also - you have to have the right kind of paint.
DeleteDear YP,
ReplyDeleteWe see that, in addition to the white paint and WEST, the wall lower down is decorated with objects. Is this the beginning of a contemporary art installation?
P.S. The only thing which would concern us as one-time gardeners is the ivy poking through the lower part of the wall...this could just bring the whole lot down.:(
Dear Jane and Lancelot,
DeleteThat is not ivy... but once we had ivy covering that entire concrete panel. Painstakingly I have removed it all but ivy has a way of coming back like a bad penny. If it ever returns I will be ready to zap it with my trusty flame-thrower.
Yours,
Major Pudding
I'm not sure I understand. I mean...why?
ReplyDeleteThere is no reason - but why not?
DeleteI'm impressed, but it would have been nice if you hired a muralist to paint the sign in a stylish and creative manner.
ReplyDeleteI might hire a couple of hefty Melbourne muralists to duff you up Andrew.
DeleteI have lived West, then moved for a time further West and then went all the way East to the other side of the country.
ReplyDeleteTime you headed North or South then.
DeleteTo be honest I was born in the South, in Mississippi, but left at six months before the South took over my brain.
DeleteNeatly done.
ReplyDeleteThank you.
DeleteAnd if Banksy was to come along and add a thought or two, you would have an expensive masterpiece to add to your very neat writing.
ReplyDeleteThat is a very helpful sign. I wish more people would do it to help orientationally challenged people like me.
ReplyDelete