(High) Street Art
Plus Reform shop possibly goes to pot, we review Bollywood Box, our weekly events guide, news in brief, and more
You may not know local self-taught artist Sam Collins, but if you’ve been to Rochester, you’re almost certainly familiar with his work thanks to his giant photo-realistic murals of Billy Childish and Charles Dickens. We’ve been talking to him about making a living with this sort of art and the line between street art and graffiti. Further down, we have news of the Reform shop in Strood possibly going to pot, Steven reviews Bollywood Box, there’s our weekly events guide, news in brief, and more.
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(High) Street Art
by Steven Keevil
During our interview with Billy Childish, the famous mural of the legendary artist and musician’s face on Rochester High Street came up. But who is the man behind some of the most prominent artworks in our towns?
Sam Collins was born in Chatham, though he now lives in Rochester. He didn’t do art at school, going to the Howard School, where he feels he did poorly. He found it rough, in his words, “full of football and misogyny.” After school, he went to MidKent College, where he still didn’t study art, focusing on the performing arts and music, which was his first passion.
Entering the workforce, first in care homes, before doing a variety of minimum wage jobs, Sam describes himself as “highly depressed” and “numb” at the time. He reflects that he had always enjoyed drawing and doodling but hadn’t properly started painting and never really saw it as something he was going to do. He hesitates to say he had a breakdown, struggling to find the words to describe how he felt in his mid-20s, but he knew he couldn’t carry on working 14-hour shifts. Watching the documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop, “I fell in love with Banksy”. It was a big step for Sam and where his love of street art began.
Despite his background in music (some of his bands did find some success), Sam has never been a street performer, finding the idea of playing music in the street daunting. He found getting into street art to be healthy, if only by “just helping me be outside”. He describes this shift as something that saved him in a lot of ways. Now, he is an artist full time, though that comes with the inevitable challenges. “I'll have a brilliant six months, and then there'll be a terrible six months.”
Street art is the passion, but the exposure has brought him private work, painting canvases and even the occasional bedroom mural. The very first public piece he did was the Charles Dickens mural at the Star Hill end of Rochester High Street.
Being a fan of the music of Billy Childish, Sam also started looking into his art and being inspired by that as well. Ten years ago, he painted the mural of Childish by Eastgate House. This was in his early stages of doing bigger pieces of photo-realism at that size. Getting permission to paint straight on the wall in Rochester, a conservation area, proved challenging, which Sam says he understands. He remained adamant that he wanted to do something in his local town, though, rather than go to a more art-friendly city like London. It was his late father who suggested he paint on plywood boards, which could then be stuck on the wall. “To this day, it’s my favourite piece and did wonders for my portfolio”, he muses.
Sam’s art does raise inevitable questions about where the line between street art and graffiti is. “I think it is all in the eye of the beholder. Some people consider all street art as vandalism. Personally, I was a bit older as I got into it, so I felt compelled to ask permission,” he says. Sam thinks graffiti can be street art, but it’s all in the person viewing and what they see in it, with even the most basic of graffiti sometimes holding skill: “Some of the street tags I see, even those done by kids, are so well put together and positioned.” Sam references Orez, whose work he loved. Whilst it could look simple and rough, the placement of the pieces and the areas he was choosing were almost an art in themselves.
Sam acknowledges that sometimes there is work with no thought in it, which then encourages others to stick rubbish on the wall, but at the same time, “What I might see as rubbish is not necessarily what everyone else does.” Sam has a remarkable photo-realistic style for somebody who didn’t study art. Admitting that his style was originally “all over the place”, he trained himself with various YouTube videos and an apprenticeship with Marvellous Murals, where he learnt about the logistical side, like scaffolding and ladders. It was at this time that he realised that he preferred portraits to landscapes, and from there, he studied artists, even reaching out asking for tips and guidance and finding a generous community in return.
One area that proved more of a trial by fire was a political piece: “I did a Jeremy Corbyn piece for Islington, and he came and unveiled it himself”. The number of people who saw it was amazing, but it proved divisive and led to hate too. “It was a learning curve with regard to political stuff, and did I want to be doing that?” Sam is okay with people not liking his art but less confident when it comes to them not liking the subject matter. “I much prefer to sit on the fence,” something he feels is more important given he is not working under an alias.
The Billy Childish piece in Rochester wasn’t created to be political, but it became so outside of his control. Someone added Brexit is Childish in bold red text over the mural after it was installed. “I loved that, I wish that I had thought of it,” noting that the words add instead of subtract from the piece. Whilst he had permission for the mural, he worried that the political statement would lead to complaints and its removal, but thankfully, it didn’t.
Since then, Sam has received work from the Museum of London for an exhibition called The Beasts of London. That work had to be done quickly, and in a panic, Sam used a lot of stencils, drawing the work out on big pieces of paper and then creating layers. “You can do all the work in a studio. It’s fiddly as hell, and I hate it,” he laughs. He prefers the gridding method, drawing the grid of the design and creating it one square at a time.
Asked about the new murals going up in Luton, Sam describes them as “stunningly beautiful”. He had hoped to be able to do one of them himself, but early conversations didn’t lead to a commission. “I particularly love the portrait of Asquith, the colours are stunning.” He commends Arches Local for getting notable artists to come and work here, noting that in the past, Medway has treated street art as a nuisance and getting permissions has been difficult. That attitude appears to be changing, and the work Arches Local is doing is adding to that culture change. “Art is by the people, and it's better than big walls of adverts.”
Sam used to have a studio in his Mum’s garden, but now his front room is divided instead. “There is the half where my wife sits all nice and tidy, and then my half is like a bomb site.” Generally, he prefers to be out in public, painting straight onto the wall. The aim is to get to the point where he no longer needs a studio, just working on the streets in various towns.
Street art is transient by nature, and Sam is okay with that. “All street art dies. Work is produced fully expecting it to be destroyed. Street art is meant to be of the moment.”
You can learn more about Sam Collins on his website. He is also on Instagram and Facebook.
In brief
📝 Medway Council is consulting on a new Community Infrastructure Framework for the Hoo Peninsula. This framework will help understand where investment is needed in terms of community, leisure, and cultural spaces and will ultimately feed into the emerging Local Plan, which is definitely coming very soon. Medway Council Cabinet member Cllr Tris Osborne eagerly encouraged residents of Cuxton to take part despite being a good eight miles from the Hoo Peninsula.
🌳 It’s a consultation bonanza this week, as Medway Council are also seeking views on proposals to improve Cozenton Park in Rainham using external funding. Current suggestions include creating a community tree nursery and new allotments on the former nursery site, improving the entrances, and expanding the play area.
🏥 New technology at Medway Hospital is helping beds be turned around faster. The system, which involves wristbands that track when the patient has been discharged from their bed, has reduced the time a bed is left empty from four to two hours.
🟢 The Green Party has selected Kim Winterbottom as their candidate for Chatham and Aylesford in the coming General Election. She is currently a councillor for East Peckham on Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council. Despite the Greens' lackadaisical approach to selections, she was still in place before Labour or the Conservatives found anyone.
🍜 Wagamama at Chatham Maritime opens this Monday. We are very excited.
If you enjoy Local Authority, please share it with your friends, family, associates, and even your enemies. We have no meaningful marketing budget, so rely on word of mouth from our readers to find new readers. You can even get some sweet, sweet rewards for sending new readers our way. Details here.
Reform shop possibly goes to pot
With Reform riding higher in the polls than ever before, their budding campaign has been using a shop for advertising in Strood. Earlier this week, the site found itself bluntly raided, with multiple witnesses reporting that several weed plants were being removed from inside and loaded into a van, setting the local Facebook group alight.
An activist from the party was eager to enter the chat to highlight that “Reform only advertises on the window space and has nothing to do with the shop or offices.” This is fair enough, as Reform doesn’t hold any responsibility for what goes on behind its signs, but confusion seemed to abound over the incident.
When talking to us, Rochester and Strood parliamentary candidate Daniel Dabin took a rather more conspiratorial tone: "No raid or police presence at the shop that I am aware. Maybe ask your source if it happened, if they were involved, and which party they represent.” It would appear that there’s no kind of joint communications operation within the Medway branch of Reform, leaving them with the risk that their election campaign will go to pot.
Under our Medwayish banner, we’re delighted to collaborate with excellent Medway illustrator Matilda Flood on an exciting new range of items based on her ‘Ellen Chapman - Medway’s Lion Queen’ series of works. Ellen was a 19th-century lion tamer who performed to large audiences, including Queen Victoria. Matilda’s work highlights the aspects of Ellen’s life that took place in Chatham.
You can pledge your support for postcards, wrapping paper, and a tea towel based on Matilda’s beautiful illustrations. If you’re interested, please click here to find out more about the project and how to contribute.
Out to Lunch: Bollywood Box in Gillingham
In which Steven Keevil assesses the lunch options available in our towns. This week, he’s been down to Bollywood Box in Gillingham…
If you never went to Bollywood Buffet on Canterbury Street then you missed the opportunity to eat at one of the best Punjabi curry houses in Medway, if not all of Kent. Bollywood Buffet came to an end during covid, after which they pivoted to ‘Naanizza’, an Indian pizza on naan bread. As good as that sentence sounds, the food was better. The bad news is you missed out on that, too. This preamble is all to bring you to the good news, for they have pivoted again, this time to the Bollywood Box.
Still located on Canterbury Street, Bollywood is relatively small but hugely welcoming. Owner Rav may just be the most welcoming and enthusiastic person you will ever have offering you food. The Bollywood Box is a generously sized round bowl. You choose a base, main, and any extras. I went for the masala fries, which were crispy and full of flavour. For the main, I had butter chicken, alongside chilli mango chicken bites with salad and crispy onions. The chicken is generously portioned, and the curry sauce is thick and full of flavour. The chicken bites are big, well cooked, and strongly flavoured.
I liked the Bollywood Box so much that I ordered another online while writing this review just so I could live it all over again. This time, I also had some shredded tandoori chicken, which was once again delicious. Bollywood Box is open Wednesday through Saturday, and you really should check them out.
Events this week
🎸 Non-binary, queer feminist punk duo Pink Suits play at Poco Loco tonight (Fri 10 May). They will be supported by Folkestone’s Cool Hot Rockers and excellent local noisemakers Punching Swans. Tickets £5.
🛍️ Rochester City Artisan & Vintage Market is on tomorrow (Sat 11 May). Find stalls all along Rochester High Street selling unique products and gifts. Free.
🚂 Transports of Delight is a themed open-mic night at Rochester Social Club tomorrow night (Sat 11 May). This time, the theme is transport, so come along with your best songs about planes, trains, cars, boats, rockets, and more. Free.
🎛️ Some Kinda Cultcha returns to Poco Loco tomorrow night (Sat 11 May). Club night featuring genre-shredding music from across the world, including African, Caribbean, Balkan, Asian, Latin, Arabian, and more. Tickets £3.
🧵 Intra Arts is hosting the latest Cut Of Her Cloth workshop on Sunday (12 May). The series celebrates Medway women through embroidery, and on this occasion, you are invited to stitch tributes to the life and achievements of Rugby Union player Rachael Burford. Free, but booking is essential.
😷 Pint of Science organises events where scientists and the public can chat in the pub, and on Monday (13 May), they’ll be holding ‘COVID-19… Is that still a thing?’ at the Command House in Chatham. Researchers from the University of Greenwich will chat about its relevance to public health, the advances being made, future vaccines, and treatments for long-COVID. Tickets £5.
🗣️ The next full Medway Council meeting is this Wednesday (15 May). It’s the annual meeting so doesn’t feature a full agenda, but does include committee formations for the coming year, delegated powers, the council plan, and the adoption of the Arches Neighbourhood Plan following the recent referendum. Free.
🍺 The second Pint of Science event of the week is on the subject of alcohol and will be held at the Copper Rivet Distillery on Wednesday (15 May). Join a lecturer from the University of Greenwich and a manager of Copper Rivet for discussions of mankind’s favourite drug and the process of making whisky. Tickets £5.
Footnotes
Music that soundtracked the creation of this edition: Loveless by My Bloody Valentine, Growing In Strange Places by Thank You, I’m Sorry, and Killjoy by Coach Party.