Street Art Exmouth Style (Part 13)

STREET ART EXMOUTH STYLE (Part 13)

I don't know what they put in the cider down here in Exmouth but I can guarantee you can enter any local pub on a Saturday night and be met by some bloke standing on a table with his wife's knickers on his head singing "Zider I up, landlord! Zider I up, landlord! Put more zider in my jug, I just can't get enough! Zider-I-up-landlord!" Over and over again. The more reasonable customers in the meantime are usually sat around urging each other to "Sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff up thy snuff"; whilst over pints of Pernod and black (and cider chasers) their lady friends discuss the size of their husband's and boyfriend's nether regions.

Its an emotional experience, I can tell you.

Down at The Grove on the seafront things can sometimes take a turn for the weirder and there's been a few occasions when I've left that particular drinking den soaring ten miles high above the earth as life below turned into a Walt Disney cartoon. I've left there being able to touch sound and hear colours. It's really quite strange.

With this in mind, the pub sign for The Grove is a very apt work of art that serves not only as a warning but as a preview of how the world might look when you leave. I particularly like the little park bench at the centre of the painting, suggesting this is where you're going to end up sleeping that night.

It's probably one of the best pub signs in Exmouth.

Street Art Exmouth Style (Part 8)

STREET ART EXMOUTH STYLE (Part 8)

Ho, ho, ho....

Street Art Exmouth Style (Part 5)

STREET ART EXMOUTH STYLE - THE CLIPPER

More art on display in Exmouth and this time it's the pub sign up on the facade of The Clipper, down at the far end of The Strand.

The building that's now one of Exmouth's better known pubs used to be a tea warehouse during the eighteenth Century owned by the East India Company. In recognition of this, the painting is of a type of sailing ship called a Tea Clipper, used to transport tea from China alongside large amounts of opium from India. The opium would be grown in India then transported to China in exchange for the tea which would then be brought to England. The tea would be unloaded at Exmouth then transported by coach and horses to London where it was much sought after. This was the trade which launched what is known as the Opium Wars between Britain and China.

There's no record of it but surely if you've been ferrying opium across the oceans to trade for some tea from China, wouldn't you be inclined to bring a few sacks of opium back to England with you as well as the tea? It's a given. There wouldn't have been any need to have even smuggled it as opium was perfectly legal then. So what was happening to that opium once it was unloaded at Exmouth dock of old? Where was it going? Who was having it? London would be an obvious destination but wouldn't a quantity also have remained within the local town? Which, of course, presents us with a scenario:

Jethro, the local docker, gets his hands on a sack of pure opium and takes it down to his mates at the local tavern. "Yer!" he says "Put down thy zider and 'ave a blast o' this. S'better than any snuff, I can tell 'ee. Mix it with thy baccy, it's gurt lush." 

It doesn't take very long before they're all regular users. "Prapper job," they all agree "An' no mistake."

So was opium usage rife in Exmouth at one point? And if so, for the years in which the locals were all smoking opium before the East India Company ceased trading in it, did any work get done? Did it add to the general ingrained and natural mellowness of the locals? "Field needs ploughing, cowz need milkin'. Bugger it, do it 'morrow."

What dreams did unfold during that period? What visions were grasped?

So you see, the casual observer might at first glance think the pub sign outside The Clipper is just of some old boat but it is in fact a clue, a nod and a wink to Exmouth's very secret history.

And another thing:

Almost all the bands that play in Exmouth and the surrounding area are what might be called 'pub bands', as in bands that play the local pub circuit covering songs by other more famous bands. It's surprising then, that none have had the idea to call themselves 'The Beer Garden', or simply 'Beer Garden'. The free advertising on offer to a band of that name is staggering. At The Clipper for example, emblazoned on the pub sign: 'Beer Garden At Rear'.

So, is 'Beer Garden' not the perfect name for a pub band? And just to confuse things, might it be an idea if another pub band called themselves simply 'At Rear', and they played joint gigs with Beer Garden?

Prapper job, an' no mistake

John Serpico

Street Art Exmouth Style (Part 3)

STREET ART EXMOUTH STYLE -
THE PHOENIX

Yet another example of street art Exmouth style, this time up on the Exeter Road hung up outside reputable drinking den The Phoenix.

It's not been an easy life for this particular establishment as some years ago there was a fire there that was almost the ruin of the place. But just as the name suggests, it managed to pull itself together and then rise from the ashes like a... phoenix.

The pub sign, then, is an obvious choice. It's a very clear painting and as phoenixes go it's a good depiction of one. There's no mistaking it for an Exmouth seagull, for example. I do feel, however, that they're missing a trick here.

Does anybody remember Pat Phoenix, the actress who played Elsie Tanner in Coronation Street? She was the street's 'siren', always luring middle-aged men into her bed and was the bette noir of Ena Sharples? Always had a cigarette between her fingers and always in the Rovers Return? As a television character she was a British institution, absolutely associated with pubs and gossip and general working class life. Do you see where I'm going with this? Her last name was Phoenix...

If nothing else, re-branding The Phoenix with a new pub sign - a portrait of British television icon Pat Phoenix - would be a tourist attraction and pull in a few more customers. It certainly wouldn't lose any. It would put the pub on the map as it would be a news item that journalists everywhere would happily report on. It could bring in coach-loads of old Coronation Street fans journeying down from the North to pay homage. A shrine could be set up in a corner to her, or at least a bit of information about her for those too young to know. The Powder Monkey has information on its walls about Nancy Perriam, so The Phoenix could have the same about Pat Phoenix. Does it matter that there's no obvious Exmouth connection there? Does there have to be? There could be a beer named after her - "A pint of Pat Phoenix and a packet of crisps, please". It sounds perfect.

It's a no-brainer.

Legend. Icon. Institution.

Street Art Exmouth Style (Part 2)

STREET ART EXMOUTH STYLE - THE BEACH

Another example of art on public view in Exmouth, this time the sign hanging outside The Beach pub. Let's be frank, however, and admit that it's not a very imaginative painting.

You can see where it's coming from: Exmouth has a beach, the pub's name is The Beach so let's have a painting of - a beach! Which is all well and good but it's a bit empty, isn't it? A bit desolate. A bit void of any imagination.

Personally, I like my art to be a bit more vivid. A bit more colourful in both it's physical appearance and it's metaphysical relationship to the viewer. If there's going to be a painting of a beach then I want it to be a bit more expressive. I want it to explode in excelsis deo. I want my beach and my Exmouth to be depicted as a psychedelic wonderland:

I even want the sea itself to be depicted as liquid ecstasy. As one of the greatest natural wonders of the world because let's face it, that's exactly what it is. I want the sea at Exmouth to be depicted as the source of everything. Don't know about you but I want it to be like Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris. I want to be able to look into it as you would a fire and see things you might never have imagined. I want it to be a lake of dreams. A sea of rains. A gulf of dews. An ocean of fecundity:

Street Art Exmouth Style (Part 1)

STREET ART EXMOUTH STYLE - 
THE POWDER MONKEY

Does anyone take any notice of the art hung out on the streets of Exmouth? I'm talking about the pub signs. Do people actually recognize that they are indeed works of art? Genuine paintings hanging there for all to view; painted by starving, anonymous artists in their garrets?

The Powder Monkey pub sign is an example.

It may just be a Wetherspoons pub (and there's nothing wrong with that) but the meaning of The Powder Monkey's name is interesting. The boy in the painting is a 'powder monkey', the name given to children who worked on battleships in days of old ferrying gunpowder from the ship's hold to the cannons. It wasn't exactly a job with many long-term prospects as life expectancy was thought to be limited, particularly at times of battle. Exmouth's most famous powder monkey was actually, however, a woman called Nancy Perriam who served in the navy at the time of Nelson. Legend has it that she miraculously survived numerous battles at sea and lived to the tender age of 98 years. A blue plaque has been mounted outside her old home in Exmouth.

The Powder Monkey is a haven for artists of every hue (as are many pubs in Exmouth - there's a joke in there somewhere) and apparently even Morrissey has been spotted in there ordering drinks.