The Blake mural has been painted over by the Council

[alba]

My friend saw the workman who had just painted over it. The workman said he'd been told to paint out the graffiti but if that wasn't possible simply to paint out the offending section. He agreed that how the mural has been left, is now a real gift to graffiti artists, a blank canvas in fact.

[Nero]

Cultural vandalism that actually invites vandalism of the more prosaic kind. Jumpin Journo - sell this on to the Mail!

[????]

Whilst I agree with the sentiment I don't think the mural is (was) all that to be honest

[candj]

I don't think it's about the artistic merit of the mural (it's rather naive, in fact), but rather that it is/was part of the community and people enjoyed it. It also looked nice over the playground. But now the space looks even worse than it did before and is ironically open to being targeted by the very graffiti it was covering.

I honestly think it can be restored if the council were to take the time and spend some ??. It would entail removing the offending blue paint and subsequent graffiti underneath and having someone to basically repaint the areas that were damaged (ie, where the original mural paint were stripped away). The mural itself is not that old and is on brick as opposed to something more fragile like gesso on plaster so it could probably handle the process.

Thanks for the link, will send off an email to the appropriate drone at Southwark.

[Mark]

As Goose Green lies on the boundaries of a few wards, probably best to write to all of the following councillors:

East Dulwich

james.barber@southwark.gov.uk

jonathan.mitchell@southwark.gov.uk

richard.thomas@southwark.gov.uk

South Camberwell

peter.john@southwark.gov.uk

jenny@greensouthwark.org

veronica.ward@southwark.gov.uk

Peckham Rye

aubyn.graham@southwark.gov.uk

evrim.laws@southwark.gov.uk

robert.smeath@southwark.gov.uk

[Brendan]

Am I the only one to feel that the local cultural significance of the mural runs even deeper than is evident? Surely it is a direct historical reference to the fact that mind altering substances have been for sale in Peckham since the 18th century.

[jumpinjourno]

The local press are on to it... graffiti cover up is the official line but there are apparent plans to restore the original mural,

PM me to air any individual concerns or comments!!! Might have been nice to have discussed this before painting over it?

DY

[Marmora Man]

Mark Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> As Goose Green lies on the boundaries of a few

> wards, probably best to write to all of the

> following councillors:

>

> East Dulwich

> james.barber@southwark.gov.uk

> jonathan.mitchell@southwark.gov.uk

> richard.thomas@southwark.gov.uk

>

> South Camberwell

> peter.john@southwark.gov.uk

> jenny@greensouthwark.org

> veronica.ward@southwark.gov.uk

>

> Peckham Rye

> aubyn.graham@southwark.gov.uk

> evrim.laws@southwark.gov.uk

> robert.smeath@southwark.gov.uk

NOTE: Richard Thomas has already responded on this thread and by e-mail:

see below:

  Quote

Dear Richard

Graffiti removal is carried out on our behalf by Southwark Cleaning and

I have forwarded this e-mail on for their comment.

Regards

Jon

-----Original Message-----

From: Thomas, Richard

Sent: 21 September 2008 19:46

To: Davies, Gill; membersenquiries; Sheaff, Jon

Cc: Ian Whitehouse

Subject: FW: Blake Mural

Dear Gill and Jon

Please could you go to this link and and view the pictures. Why was

this done to the mural?

Best wishes

Cllr Richard Thomas,

Liberal Democrat, East Dulwich.

www.richardthomas.org.uk

[Mark]

I've been informed that the mural's actually in the Lane Ward so the councillors for that are:

susan.jones@southwark.gov.uk

mark.glover@southwark.gov.uk

gordon.nardell@southwark.gov.uk

Tessa Jowell's office contacted me to let me know that they "have contacted the local councillors and also Southwark to add Tessa Jowell's concerns to those already expressed."

Which is nice.

[PeckhamRose]

Blimey. Her day off?

[davidm]

isn't it great that tessa has broken off from the labour party conference to tackle the concern about a mural

[Sue]

I have received this:

Dear

I've spoken with my colleague Bimal Kotecha in the Public Realm section who deals with this area. He tells me that as the mural is on private property, there there will have been an agreement between the vicarage and the council to carry out this painting. The Parks team are going to visit the vicarage on Wednesday to agree what will happen with the wall, i.e whether the mural will be restored.

If you have any further questions, Bimal can be contacted directly on 020 7525 0814 or bimal.kotecha@southwark.gov.uk.

Thank you very much for contacting us about this.

Regards

Katherine

Edited again to remove reference to the Dulwich Society as I realised the above was not in response to my email to them but to an email to someone else, duh.

[candj]

That's odd. So the council did or didn't consult the vicarage before painting it blue, but now have to consult them with regards to the restoration of the mural.

[Moos]

But the mural isn't on the wall of the vicarage, so I don't see a connection. It is on the side of someone's house, so perhaps there was a mixup.

[Marmora Man]

but the EDF has caused the council to pay attention - which is a positive thing.

[candj]

Oh how tragic!

[PeckhamRose]

It's always AFTER the event.

These council types never have a problem cauding the event, but when trying to discuss fixing it, it's all "Oh that's not our wall/pavement/fault."

[Siduhe]

> I've spoken with my colleague Bimal Kotecha in the

> Public Realm section who deals with this area. He

> tells me that as the mural is on private property,

> there there will have been an agreement between

> the vicarage and the council to carry out this

> painting.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, this exact thing happened to a youth group in SE1 who had painted a mural on the side of the building that they meet in. Also to some land belonging to Network Rail on the South Bank (ditto a community mural which NR had agreed to being painted). In neither case did Southwark Cleaning obtain the permission of the building owners before painting out large sections of the artwork, as there was a huge fuss about it and complaints galore, just as there are here.

I am very certain of there was no permission in respect of the youth group mural as I was heavily involved with them at the time and I still have copies of the letters from Southwark Council which assert that, because the mural was on a public street, albeit a private building, they had the right to paint it out. This was eventually amended to "we had complaints from the neighbours and weren't able get in touch with anyone from the group" (despite the fact it is part funded by Southwark Council and even appears in their own directory). We didn't even get an apology. This was a few years back so maybe internal procedure has got better, but I'm not convinced at this stage.

[capt_birdseye]

Tessa Jowell's office contacted me to let me know that they "have contacted the local councillors and also Southwark to add Tessa Jowell's image to the wall."

The results are attached...

[lozzyloz]

LOL. Perhaps we could employ some out of work bankers to repaint the wall on the street.

[candj]

Received Councillor Susan Jones' out of office reply to my email sent to her yesterday. She is on holiday until the 27th September. No response from the other two councillors as of yet.

[steveslack]

Well done EDF for getting people to notice this issue. We've posted something on Dulwich OnView as well, to aid with the efforts:

http://dulwichonview.org.uk/2008/09/23/angels-and-some-little-devils/

[p_in_ed]

I'm heartbroken to see the mural painted over.

Art and local artists have been at the heart of re-generating the Bellenden area (Anthony Gormley, John Latham, Tom Phillips, Zandra Rhodes and many others), building on historic artistic links such as association of Peckham Rye with William Blake. The mural transformed the immediate area when it was painted and is treasured by many/all who live in the area.

The mural with graffiti is infinitely preferable to a bare wall with no mural and no graffiti. The ideal, obviously, would be for the council to maintain the mural and keep it free of graffiti.

According to Wikipedia, the orginal artist was Stan Peskett:

Wikipedia entry for Peckham

Stan has a website at the following addess:

Stan Peskett

which includes an item on the William Blake Mural:

William Blake Mural

I'll email Stan to see if he's aware of the damage to the mural and if he still lives in the area.

On his site, he talks about a similar incident in 1997:

"In 1997 part of the mural was stolen brick by brick. Unfortunately neither the Local Member of Parliament Tessa Jowell nor the local church that used the mural for fund raising purposes wanted help in the reinstatement of the mural. Even though it has become a historic fixture and featured in the tour guide books along with the Globe theatre for the London Borough of Southwark."

Unlike 1997, on this occasion we know who is reponsible. And hopefully, some kind of concensus can be achieved on re-instating the mural.

[Sue]

I have emailed Bimal Kotecha (see above) and asked him to let me know the outcome of the council's discussions with the vicarage tomorrow.

I'll post on here as soon as I have any news. Won't be till after tomorrow night though as I'm out all day and evening.

[sphillips]

Except that it?s not the Vicarage.