Joanna Moore, Artist
When I arrived to meet Joanna Moore at the end of an afternoon’s drawing in Christ Church, Spitalfields, a small crowd had gathered to peer over her shoulder at her work. As you can see from the photo above, it is an interior that presents a considerable challenge to an artist. I would not choose to sit down with a pen and paper and try to draw it, but this was precisely what Joanna had done. It was her first attempt and, in a single session lasting just a couple of hours, she succeeded with such style that as the drawing approached completion, people stopped to marvel at her facility with lines.
I took Joanna to the Market Coffee House afterwards, to celebrate her remarkable afternoon’s work, of which she appeared modestly unaware. In the Coffee House she opened a portfolio to show me her other drawings of Spitalfields. Last year, Joanna came to live in an old house in Hanbury St for a couple of months and while she was here, something extraordinary happened, she discovered a compulsion to draw. “Life started changing and I went part-time in my job because I needed to see how well I could draw. I realised that if I didn’t do it now, I’d never do it. And this coincided with moving to Spitalfields – I found it so inspiring here.” explained Joanna, recalling this last harsh Winter which proved such a cathartic and creative time in her life.
As Joanna produced an array of the fine drawings from her portfolio which record her time here, she spoke of the excitement of the circumstances from which they arose. “It was lonely living here in this beautiful old house, but I was determined to draw – separated from the people around me, I didn’t know anyone, I was just renting a basement. I bought myself fingerless gloves to work outside, but it was so cold I could only do an hour’s drawing at a time. You can deal with the cold in your head and body, though when your hands get cold, then you can’t control your fingers to draw anymore.”
It was apparent from these fluent drawings that Joanna’s achievement was far greater than simply retaining control of her fingers, but more than this, I was inspired by the personal discovery these works manifested. The nest of lines within these quiet yet sophisticated drawings trace the birth of a vibrant talent. Within the pluralism of contemporary art, there is a resurgence of drawing and a recognition that a talent and facility for draughtsmanship – which Joanna has found within herself – is not to be under-rated. In architectural drawing, most people struggle to get their lines in the right place when attempting to record structures, but for Joanna this is second nature, she can do it with ease, and brings wit and humanity along too.
Joanna never set out to draw, she trained as an architect yet became alienated at the idea of life in front of a computer terminal, switching to Art History in the middle of her studies. Since leaving Cambridge in 2007, Joanna worked as an architectural historian but found herself increasingly fascinated with looking at the buildings she was working on. Now, at twenty-five years old, Joanna has discovered who she is and exactly what she wants to do, embarking on a year’s course at the Prince’s Drawing School in Shoreditch this September.
“Now I’ve started, the more I draw, the faster I get and the freer I get – so when I go to drawing school I want to be pushed, because it’s something I have to do.” admitted Joanna, her eyes gleaming with determination and passion for her chosen course in life. The loss of income will mean moving back home to South London to live with her parents, though as both her mother and father also possess the talent for drawing, this could turn out to be the supportive environment Joanna needs to launch herself upon her new path.
“It’s a very pure pleasure,” said Joanna with a gentle smile, considering her portfolio and aspiring to find words for the dynamic experience of drawing,”That’s why I’m driven, it’s the purest art form you can get – to record what’s in front of you. I don’t want to use my drawings as the basis for paintings because I’m more interested in drawing the next thing.”
Too few people follow their enthusiasms, and so I was inspired to meet Joanna Moore at this crucial moment in her life. In learning of the special meaning that Spitalfields has for Joanna, I encountered a young woman of willpower, intelligence and talent commencing a great journey, astute yet open to all the possibilities that life can bring.
You can see more of Joanna’s drawings on her website www.town-mouse.co.uk and I hope you will see more here too because Joanna will be accompanying me upon some future assignments.
Princelet St
Petticoat Lane Market
Spitalfields Antique Market
Fournier St
Christ Church, Spitalfields
Columbia Road Market 39
Last night, I wandered down to Limehouse and enjoyed a quiet supper of haddock & chips at The Grapes on the river. On this beautiful Summer’s evening the place was pleasantly empty, on account of the lack of a television set on the night of the commencement of the World Cup. I was woken at four thirty by the chorus of birds in Spitalfields and, before seven, my neighbour and I strolled up the road to the flower market in the sunlight and breeze of the morning – where we found the place similarly deserted. I can only assume that many drowned their sorrows after the match last night and are feeling the effects today.
We bought a tray of Tobacco Plants (Nicotiana), eight plants for a fiver, to share between our gardens. For myself, I bought a Scabious for £5, and another Astrantia (Major) for £6 my collection. Although I already have several Astrantia Major, the plant I bought today was distinctly different. I must admit to a growing fascination with the subtle detail and variety of these starry flowers which draw the eye with their exquisite detail.
All the roses of East London are in bloom now, and everywhere I walk around the territory I come across extravagant fragrant displays, from Spitalfields to Limehouse. In my garden, this old moss rose, Alfred de Dalmas (a variety of 1855) has come into flower. With its multiple layers of petals and sherbet scent, it resembles some fancy confection, conjured out of meringue by a pastry chef.
A Walk With Mike Myers
This distinguished gentleman is Mike Myers, known as the Spitalfields Crooner, whom I wrote about earlier this year. You may recall that I republished his 1986 pub profile of The Golden Heart from “Spitalfields News”, which Mike edited during the nineteen eighties.
Last week, Mike and I took a walk together through Spitalfields. Undaunted by the cold weather, he was waiting for me eagerly, sheltering from the rain under the market canopy – just outside the front door that leads to his flat above the shops in the old market building. In spite of the dismay weather, Mike looked cheery with his colourful golfing umbrella in one hand and his file of photos in the other. We were going to undertake an epic journey through time and emotion to the other side of Spitalfields, where Mike grew up in the nineteen thirties. For Mike, Spitalfields is a rich mythical landscape of the imagination filled with colourful images and legendary characters from his long life in these streets surrounding Christ Church.
Mike hummed show tunes under his breath to raise our spirits as we made our way across Brushfield St, down Frying Pan Alley and up Middlesex St to The Bell at the corner of New Goulston St, where he spent the first forty years of his life. We took shelter under another canopy to survey the empty street in silence, while Mike opened his file of photographs. “At one time it used to be a thriving street and now look at it!” declared Mike, shaking his head in wonder at the transformations time can wreak. Pointing to the closed shops that now only deal wholesale, he indicated the former locations of the draper, the boot & shoe repair, the sweet shop, the shoe shop on the corner, the laundry and the synagogue. “It was a self-contained area, everything you needed you could get in the butchers, fishmongers and delis,” Mike recalled proudly,“People came from all over London to shop here when it was the Jewish quarter.”
Opposite us once stood Brunswick Buildings, one tenement among many, that stretched from here to Aldgate. It was the dwelling where Mike spent his early life and a crowded residence for many hundreds living in overcrowded conditions, with one family to a room, and shared toilets, washing and cooking facilities on stairwells. “There’s been two books written about it,” added Mike, to emphasise the drama of the life that he knew. Yet in spite of the poor housing, Mike has very positive memories of his time in New Goulston St, “Everybody coped with the small amount of space. What you haven’t got you don’t know about, so you don’t grieve for it. I had a great childhood, safe to go out and play. You made your own amusements. We used to play football and cricket in the streets, because you never saw a car – nobody could afford one.”
“We enjoyed the radio at home, but the cinema was the place to go out for entertainment,” continued Mike with enthusiasm, introducing the opening of the Mayfair Cinema in Brick Lane in 1936 where he saw William Powell in “Escapade” in the first week. Thanks to the presence of the Mayfair Cinema, now long gone, Mike became a film buff and was the only one in the audience when Laurence Olivier’s “Henry V” and “Hamlet” were shown, years later. Looking West towards the City of London, Mike indicated the street where he had one of his first jobs, “During the war, I was working across the road, loading dresses into a van and the next thing I knew I was on the floor of the van, because a V2 rocket had dropped just round the corner.”, he revealed, still grateful for his lucky escape.
As Mike and I walked slowly back through Wentworth St in the gentle rain, he admitted that – although the once vibrant market was a wonderful playground for a child – he is not sentimental for the world that is gone. After the war, most of the Jewish people left these streets to seek a better life in the suburbs. “In the seventies, everything started to go down.” he explained dispassionately, “The tenements housed people at cheap rents. They served their time just after the war. But people wanted change. People wanted better homes – especially if you are bringing up five kids in two rooms.”
In 1974, when Brunswick Buildings was compulsorily purchased and demolished by the GLC, Mike was moved to the flat in the 1886 Horner Building where he still lives today, in rooms adorned with movie posters and lined with shelves of DVDs. When we arrived back from our short sentimental journey of less than a mile, I was curious to learn more. But I had to content myself, for now, with photographing Mike there in his home above the Spitalfields Market, his point of arrival, surrounded by the evidence of his passion for cinema that began at the Mayfair Cinema in 1936.
Witnessing the changes in Spitalfields over a lifetime has given Mike a generous philosophical outlook and you will see him most days in the streets about the market, a benign presence – commonly absorbed in thought, yet ever curious about the life of the street – humming show tunes to himself, expressive of his characteristic levity and lightness of touch which have carried him through life with such grace.
As part of the Spitalfields Festival, Mike Myers has recorded an audiotour, enabling you to hear more of his stories of the neighbourhood and follow in Mike’s footsteps along his life’s journey from one side of Spitalfields to the other. You can download it by clicking here.
Mike Myers in Wentworth St, “Singin’ in the Rain.”
Brunswick Buildings, New Goulston St, where Mike grew up.
The explosion of the V2 rocket at the top of Middlesex St in 1944 that gave Mike a close call.
David Sawer, composer
The composer in the rose garden is David Sawer, whose opera Rumpelstiltskin is performed at St Leonards Church in Shoreditch tonight as part of the Spitalfields Festival. He looks full of life in the bright morning sunshine, photographed before one of the final rehearsals. Though perhaps a second glance at the picture reveals a certain professional reserve too – because I have no doubt he has a few adjustments in mind that he requires, before everything is as it should be for the performances. Even this seventy minute opera took ten months to compose, so you will understand – with so much work involved – David has a right to be particular.
David Sawer’s music is distinguished by a bold vibrant emotionalism, persuasive in tone and dramatic in effect. Although aware of his antecedents in modern music, David writes compelling melodies which are engaging to the widest audience. To put it simply, anyone that has got ears can recognise David writes beautiful music. I cannot separate David from his music because, as a personality, he is blessed with a rare animated quality, which means that when you are with him you cannot fail to be aware he has so much going on inside. Sometimes I wonder if David has one layer of skin missing, because his mercurial internal currents of thought and feeling are almost legible upon his large oval face, changing like patterns of light on water, just as the layers of texture in his music constantly shimmer and transform. It makes for exciting conversations and gives him a bewitching charismatic intensity too.
Once upon a time I wrote the words for an opera of David Sawer’s produced by the Royal Opera, it was an unforgettable experience and it brought me face to face with the magic that a composer works. I spoke to Myfanwy Piper who had worked with Benjamin Britten and she gave me salient advice. She told me to create a dramatic story but avoid overtly emotional language, leaving that to the music. So, in my libretto, I restricted myself to lines like “Open the door.” and, once David was happy with what I had done, I absented myself only returning at the dress rehearsal, months later, to hear the music for the first time. Although we had constructed an emotional drama on paper, I was entirely unprepared for the musical realisation of this. In his music, David had manifested the emotions of the characters more vividly than I had ever dreamed. I thought I knew what was behind the words, but David found so much more. It was a revelation, and it remains an elusive mystery to me how a composer can conjure music of such potency out of air.
When I met with him this week, three more operas down the line, David was eager to talk about the nature and ambitions of his latest work, “Rumpelstiltskin”, a seventy minute piece which involves ten performers and thirteen instrumentalists, staged by his long-term collaborators, director Richard Jones and designer Stewart Laing. “I didn’t want it in a theatre where the detail gets lost, I wanted to create an intimate ballet that works like a silent film – where the audience are able to get more involved because they haven’t got people singing at them. Instead the story is told through people moving and articulating the music. If you look at Tchaikovsky’s ballet scores there are stage directions every five lines – so I just pulled the story apart, writing my own directions throughout the score.”
“It’s about the fact that someone puts a lie into the world because he can’t pay his rent,” David added with an enigmatic smile, setting up the premise of the story,” So he says his daughter can spin straw into gold and she’s put in a dungeon with straw and has to spin it – The idea of spinning straw is very enticing musically, music’s very good at expressing change and transformation over time. – Then Rumpelstiltskin offers to do it, but the pact is she agrees to give him her baby in a year’s time.”
Originally transcribed by the Brothers Grimm in the eighteen forties, the story of Rumpelstiltskin can be seen as reflecting the anxiety around the replacement of human skills, like spinning, through mechanisation. But David’s interest is in the ambivalence of the character of Rumpelstiltskin himself – the mysterious outsider who becomes the eventual scapegoat. In this production, his identity remains ambiguous, allowing the drama to retain its fullest resonance as a fable. “It is quite religious, a crucifixion story.” added David contemplatively.
It is clear that David loves the collaborative world of the theatre in contrast to the solitary months at his desk. A large-scale opera can entail years of labour, composing and transcribing all the parts for the orchestra and singers. “You’ve got to get the balance right,” said David, sketching out his relationship to his craft, “The problem is if someone wants an opera for 2018, how are you going to pace yourself? It can be hard, because you need to have adrenalin but not get hysterical either.” Then he rolled his eyes in self parody, but afterwards left the question hanging in the air, because he did not want to think about it too much today. Instead he had critical time with the musicians and performers, before everything came together, after ten months of composition and weeks of rehearsal, in the performances that are the culmination of his work.
As he spoke, David’s hands were in constant precise motion – tracing lines of thought in the air -occasionally tapping the table and once applying all his fingers, as if it were a piano. To David, music is a concrete thing that he can describe with his hands, and it is also something intangible, coursing through his mind and body as he speaks. It is inside him and outside him, like air, it is his element. David’s singular movement and nature are expressions of his remarkable musical talent. I cannot imagine David without music. It is what he does and who he is. More than anyone I have ever met, David Sawer incarnates his music.
Production photo of Rumpelstiltskin by Keith Pattison
Spitalfields Antique Market 11
This is Jimmie Fish of Fish Island Antiques in Hackney. An ex-cocktail waiter on cruise ships who once served Rod Stewart, in an impressive reinvention, Jimmie now deals in industrial and workshop items, like desks, lockers, lamps and trunks. A proud Cumbrian from Carlisle with dark ginger hair and keen grey eyes, full of humour and bristling with positive energy – thriving in his new profession – Jimmie declared, “You get on better, if you’ve got a bit of character and personality about you. It’s good fun, every day’s different and you are your own boss!” Plain words that, in Jimmy’s mouth, became a declaration of independence.
This is Lily Beth Wood, daughter of Stuart (who we featured in May), which makes her a third generation market trader, at least. Lily was enjoying helping out her dad on his stall, while on half term holiday from St Peter’s School, down in Wapping where she lives. “I collect small things when the tide goes out,” said Lily, proudly outlining her mudlarking activities on the banks of the Thames, and revealing an inherited curiosity about things from the past, “Sometimes I find old ship’s nails, bones, oyster shells, bullets, book hinges and once I found a clay pipe in three pieces.”
This is Paul the Urban Shepherd. “I work with serious clothing but make it fun. My stock is countrywear, not made in the city but worn in the city,” said Paul, introducing the trend for men’s clothing from the provinces, appropriated by fashionable gallants here in London and worn with an urban attitude. Fondly drawing my attention to the quality on display, “It’s very well made – designed to last a lifetime – and, if it doesn’t fit exactly, it can easily be tailored to the new owner.” he explained. A style ambassador, Paul intuitively understands the necessary combination of levity and sobriety in menswear.
This happy couple comprises Sue Stokes & Leo Kurunis, loving mother and son. Sue lives in Bath and is an antique dealer while Leo lives in Hackney and is in a band. “Leo doesn’t come home very often,” confided Sue, who got up at three thirty in the morning to drive down to London which her stock of French antiques. This is Sue’s first week in Spitalfields, but she plans to be here every Thursday in future, taking the opportunity to stay over at Leo’s place in Hackney each week and see more of her son – that is, if he is not out gigging with Lord Auch.
Photographs copyright © Jeremy Freedman
Stephanie Sian Smith, headdress maker
When I visited Stephanie Siân Smith at her workshop in the roof of an old warehouse in Bethnal Green, she was working flat-out through the weekend to make a collection of ten different headdresses for an order to be delivered this week. Everywhere I looked there were feathers of diverse kinds, embroidery, lace, cloth and all manner of paraphernalia which Stephanie uses to contrive her extravagant headdresses, that have made such a hit in the capricious world of fashion this year. Meanwhile, her ginger cat, Marmalade Donkey Ron Jeremy Clarkson (given a different name by everyone at the house in Gun St, Spitalfields where Stephanie lives), strolled around among the feathers and debris, intrigued by the spectacle.
Stephanie comes from the tiny village of Hanbury in Staffordshire where her grandmother taught her how to sew. “It’s a lot do with the fact that I grew up in the middle of nowhere,” she revealed, outlining a rural childhood where she devised her own entertainments, and explaining something of her playful creativity that bridges handicrafts and high fashion with such bravura and charm. When Stephanie talks about her family, her father who is a steel fabricator, or her aunt that took her skunking in Alberta, you get a strong sense of Northern personalities, people who know who they are. And Stephanie herself is no exception, because while she enjoys spontaneous delight in what she does, a quality that is communicated by the fanciful drama of the headdresses, she is also taken seriously by Mrs Jones, an acknowledged arbiter of taste, who styles Kylie Minogue and The Scissor Sisters.
There is a feeling of liberation when you don a headdress, a licence for flamboyant, cheeky or mischievous behaviour. Irrespective of your clothing, the headdress is sufficient to set you apart from the world as participant in a surreal drama – the child within the adult is released. “People like to wear them at festivals,” explained Stephanie, and I can imagine that possessing one could be an invaluable confidence booster at a parties, especially if you were feeling a little shy. With her doll-like features, huge blue eyes and unkempt blonde hair, Stephanie is the ideal model for her headdresses and, several times during our conversation, when she tried one on to the gauge the effect, batting her long eyelashes flirtatiously and asking “What do think?”, I was stuck for a response. She looked like someone had taken her photo and scribbled all over the top of it with coloured crayons.
“Would you like to see my pom-poms?” offered Stephanie – a twinkle in her eye – throwing open a suitcase with a theatrical flourish to reveal dozens of those multicoloured woollen pom-poms that every child makes by winding two rings of cardboard with whatever spare yarn is knocking around the house. Jeremy Freedman, Spitalfields Life contributing photographer, accompanied me on this interview and, when the case opened, neither of us could withhold our delight at these super pom-poms which Stephanie made in a whole variety of sizes and gauges of yarn.
It was time to take pictures and when Stephanie, who is herself an experienced photographer, suggested Jeremy photograph her pouring pom-poms from her teapot with a woolly cosy into a giant teacup, it would have been disingenuous not to acquiesce. Jeremy and Stephanie did a dance in the sunlight, photographer and model, prancing in tandem, as they moved around the studio together in a glamorous scene reminiscent of playful sixties movies. There was an intoxicating sense of infinite possibility in the fleeting moment, an effervescence generated by the exhilaration of youth, the seduction of romance and the escapism of fantasy.
Once the impromptu dance was over, the time arrived to leave Stephanie and Marmalade Donkey Ron Jeremy Clarkson to complete the other seven headdresses in time for the opening of Mrs Jones’ shop. You have to admire Stephanie’s wit and confidence, “I am just doing it for myself, I like working with feathers,” she says plainly, before listing the gamekeepers of Suffolk, Staffordshire and even Balmoral, that she has befriended to keep her supplied with the materials of her trade, which are a byproduct of the making of game pies. Engaging with the emotional vocabulary of childhood dressing up games, Stephanie has refashioned these images, introducing rare humour into high fashion and having a lot of fun too.
As we shut the door on this colourful and bizarre world, I wondered if this could be the start of major trend for the cognoscenti to sport headdresses in daily life. Walking along Bethnal Green Rd in the noise and dust, I wondered if I should ask Stephanie to make me one to give me confidence when I visit the supermarket in Whitechapel. Hats off to the ingenious Miss Smith, making whimsical headdresses for Mrs Jones!
If you want to get one before everyone else does, you can visit Mrs Jones, and see more headdresses by looking at Stephanie Siân Smith’s blog feathersmith.
Photographs copyright © Jeremy Freedman
In The Debtors’ Prison
Walking into a cell from an eighteenth century prison in Wellclose Square was an especially vivid experience for me because, if I had lived then, I and almost everyone I know would have invariably ended up in here at some point. Although almost nothing is known of the occupants of this cell, they created their own remembrance through the graffiti they left upon the walls during the few years it was in use, between 1740-1760, and these humble inscriptions still recall their human presence after all this time.
No one could fail to be touched by the emotional storm of marks across the walls. There are explicit names and dates carved with dignity and proportion, and there are dozens of crude yet affectionate images, presumably carved by those who could not write. There are also a few texts, which are heartbreaking in their bare language and plain sentiment, such as “Pray Remember the Poor Deptors.” The spelling of “deptors” after the model of “Deptford” is a particularly plangent detail.
About six feet wide and ten feet long, with a narrow door in one corner, and lined with vertical oak planks, this is one of several cells that once existed beneath the Neptune public house. There is a small window with wide bars, high upon the end wall, corresponding with street level – not enough to offer a view, but just sufficient to indicate if it was daylight. There would have been straw on the floor and some rough furniture, maybe a table and chairs, where the inmates might eat whatever food they could afford to buy from the publican, because this was a privately managed prison run for profit.
Wellclose Square was once a fine square between Cable St and the Highway, which barely exists any more. St Peter’s School, with its gleaming golden ship as a weathervane, is the only building of note today, though early photographs reveal that many distinguished buildings once lined Wellclose Square, including the Danish Embassy, conveniently situated for the docks. When the Neptune was demolished in 1912, two of the cells were acquired by the Museum of London, where I was able to walk into one this week to meet Alex Werner the curator responsible for putting it on display. “We’re never going to know who they are!” he said with a cool grin, extending his arms to indicate all the names and pictures that people once carved with so much expense of effort, under such grim conditions, to console themselves by making their mark.
It is a room full of sadness, and even as I was taking my photographs, visitors to the museum came and went but did not linger. In spite of their exclamations of wonder at the general effect of all the graffiti, people did not wish to examine the details too closely. The lighting in the museum approximates to candlelight, highlighted some areas and leaving others in gloom, so I took along a flashlight to examine every detail and pay due reverence to the souls who whiled away long nights and days upon these inscriptions.
In a dark corner near the floor, I found this, painstaking lettered in well-formed capitals, which I wrote on the back of an envelope, “All You That on This Cast an Eye, Behold in Prison Here Lie, Bestow You in Charety.” The final phrase struck a chord with me, because I think he refers to moral charity or compassion. Even today, we equate debt with profligacy and fecklessness, yet my experience is that people commonly borrow money to make up the shortfall for necessary expenses, when there is no alternative. I was brought up to avoid debt, but I had no choice when I was nursing my mother through her terminal illness at home. I borrowed because I could not earn money to cover household expenses when she lived a year longer than the doctors predicted, and then I borrowed more when I could not make the repayments. It was a hollow lonely feeling to fill in the lies upon the second online loan application, just to ensure enough money to last out until she died, when I was able to sell our house and pay it off.
So you will understand why I feel personal sympathy with the debtors who inhabited this cell. Every one will have had a reason and story. I wish I could speak with Edward Burk, Iohn Knolle, William Thomas, Edward Murphy, Thomas Lynch, Richard Phelps, James Parkinson, Edward Stockley and the unnamed others to discover how they got here. In spite of the melancholy atmosphere, it gave me great pleasure to examine their drawings incised upon the walls. Here in this dark smelly cell, the prisoners created totems, both to represent their own identities and to recall the commonplace sights of the exterior world. There are tall ships with all the rigging accurately observed, doves, trees, a Scots thistle, a gun, anchors and all manner of brick buildings. I could distinguish a church with a steeple, several taverns with suspended signs, and terraces stretching along the whole wall, not unlike the old houses in Spitalfields.
I shall carry in my mind these modest images upon the walls of the cell from Wellclose Square for a long time, created by those denied the familiar wonders that fill our days. Shut away from life in an underground cell, they carved these intense bare images to evoke the whole world. Now they have gone, and everyone they loved has gone, and their entire world has gone generations ago, and we shall never know who they were, yet because of their graffiti we know that they were human and they lived.
