February’s Street Chair

Street chairs are everywhere. You just do not notice them. How do they get there? Does anyone use them? Does anyone ever take them home? Do cats sleep on them at night? Did you just fall out of favour because there was a new chair ready to take its place?

Street type.

Typography, or as most people would refer to this art form, lettering, is ubiquitous within our contemporary society.  These letter forms are vehicles for information whether from a practical sense or for a more abstract purpose.

Typography has become a vehicle for post modernist design over the past 30 years.  Some may say that this style of typography it is not intelligible, not legible and therefore a pointless exercise. Others may just enjoy looking at the letterforms as a visual object that communicates a notion on a more expressive or emotive level rather than an analytical, immediate, objective level.

 

Taking it all in, Newcastle, Australia

Taking it all in. It is not just seeing what’s around you but truly absorbing the experiences, and the feelings these experiences trigger. Because being conscious at all times is not tiring, it’s enlivening. These images are some of shiftazine’s summer moments at the Roller Door Cafe in Islington, Newcastle Australia.

Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

May Lane, St Peters, Sydney, Australia

 

Good idea

The combination of some milk crates and a couple of Hessian bags with groovy graphics printed on them produced this very clever and inventive street seating problem for the staff at Sonoma bakery and cafe.

A clever solution that was both appealing and cost effective. How very Shiftazine.

 

Detail, detail, detail

This image is a perfect example of how many details are waiting for us on the street.  These funny little metal stools with their quirky leg design.  The odd wooden table / cupboard that compliments the stools.  And then there is the divine colour scheme of the blues, blue greys, browns, biscuits tones, and warm greys that is out of this world.  It’s all there.

 

Street graphic

 

Street Poem

The street is full of wonderful markings of all kinds which can be found on the tarmac. Strange little drawings of faces or stick figures, odd graphics and symbols related to some road works in the area. A piece of poetry of a kind, which brings an instant smile to one’s lips. This piece was found in a back lane in Surry Hills, Sydney.

 

Street Chairs: No 22

 

Street Chairs: No 20

 

Street Chairs: No. 18

 

Street Chairs: No. 19

 

Street Chairs: No. 16 & No.17

 

Street Chairs: No 15

 

Raise the pink lantern

Walking through the back streets of inner city Sydney, Chippendale in this case, or for that matter any city, even when it’s too hot, too cold, too wet, too late or too early , will result in a discovery or two that will bring you delight.

The street is full of spontaneous art. Raise a pink lantern was found in a small parking spot come back yard, one late afternoon. Clearly evidence of a celebration from the night before… these lanterns stayed firm to their role of supplying a sense of event, joy, fun.

Best thing I can say is… look, look, and look some more all around you, all the time.

 

Joy Lines

  

Tree jumpers

Winter wrapped its icey fingers around us and all the other objects found in the urban landscape. Mysteriously street objects such as bicycle racks, park benches and even trees, were suddenly wearing bespoke jumpers. Someone was knitting jumpers for everything that did not move.

Why? How strange but delightful, and how warming for the trees and my heart to see it.

Nothing remarkable

A block of flats at dusk. Nothing remarkable unless you look at the rhythm of the elements, then it’s a painting, a modernist image. It’s an Edward Hopper.  Its beautiful. But you have to look past the surface. It’s all there.

Joy!

The Figaro was introduced at the 1989 Tokyo Motor Show under the slogan “Back to the Future”. It was built by a Nissan special project group called Pike Factory, which also produced other niche automobiles such as Pro and S-Cargo. 

Only four colours were available: Topaz Mist (pink), Emerald Green, Pale Aqua and Lapis Grey. Each colour symbolised a season of the year. It was designed by Shoji Takahashi. Only 8,000 were originally available with an additional 12,000 added to meet production numbers to meet demand. Prospective purchasers had to enter a lottery to be able to buy a Figaro.   

 

Creative thinking

Once it could be said that Redfern Street in inner city Sydney was a little on the thin side for a place to take a coffee and have a chat with friends or locals. And then a shift occurred in the hood. An explosion of cafes, restaurants, and wonderful new retail full of beautiful pre-loved objects appeared.

The cafe COFFEE TEA & ME which opened a while ago, helped change the sense of the hood in a good , better, best way.

Coffee Tea & Me introduced inventive cafe furniture which was a delight. Interesting people taking their coffees, sitting on the most charming pre loved, up cycled objects that were very effective…form following function in the form of an old ironing board serving as a table for four , a bicycle seat that has been placed on top of a stool post, kindergarten tables and chairs all offering a place to sit and watch the hustle and bustle of the street. Small tables made of an old bathroom scales anchored securely to metal legs.

Witty, charming ideas for all of us to enjoy.

 

A new way of thinking about food,  Redfern,  Sydney,  Australia

I found this amazing caravan one day walking down Redfern Street. I love it! This caravan is a part of an initiative called KoolPurpleKookas and it is all about indigenous people teaching other indigenous people and communities the health benefits of eating bush tucker.

 

Chalk talk

A pink pixel-like creature lies flatten on the deep grey tarmac. A pair of brighht orange Mary Janes and navy blue nail polish bears witness to the chalktalk.

Place: William Street, Redfern, Sydney Australia. Time: Afternoon. Evidence: Play sometime after school. Engagement: Imagination and some hot pink coloured chalk. Result: Delight for all who come across the drawings.

 

We are all in the gutter, but some of us look up at the stars

My mother grew up on Bondi Beach. She was deeply engaged with the constant presence of the sea and the beach during her younger years. She ran in its waves and walked on its golden sand. Spending her days looking not out at the horizon, but down in order to gather evidence of her powerful companion, in the form of pretty seashells, seaweed and quirky, strange detritus.

Many years on, another generation in the form of me, also look down when walking along. My landscape is not the beach, but the urban landscape of the inner city. Attempting to find interesting fragments of life.

Being in the gutter is often used as an insult. But looking in gutters will allow you to find a constant source of the curious and engaging artifacts that always bring a smile or a question to one.

 

Blue sky thinking: Frank Gehry’s Sydney master piece

Wandering around the Chinatown precinct of University of Technology Sydney, I stumbled upon a wondrous piece of architecture that made no logical sense and for that reason, I instantly fell in love with it.

This is a Frank Gehry project. All curves and brick and blue sky thinking. Perfect.

 

Tiny stories in a big world

Street art comes in more than one format. It comes in many guises. Someone, god love ’em, in Enmore and Newtown (two inner city areas of Sydney’s inner west), have made such a wonderful effort to cut tiny beautiful birds out of tin, paint them and then place them in secret places that are out in the open.

Looking at the bigger picture sometimes means you miss the tiny stories within. It is in the detail or in the punctuation that the subtle is found.

 

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The art of the street

 

A tale of tiles