Now this is a story all about how Lou’s life got flipped, turned upside down and I’d like to take a minute, just sit right there. I’ll tell you how she became the ghost with white hair. It all began one morning when she was running a little late for work and decided to eat a bit of leftover takeaway for breakfast. This turned out to be a very bad decision. Within 3 hours she was dead. It’s unclear why she has been forced to haunt her old workplace for all eternity but she does it with dignity and grace. That is until she remembers the takeaway and goes into screaming banshee mode. It can certainly put you off your breakfast. That’s for sure. You may wonder why I’m telling you this. All I can say for sure is that questions are often more intriguing than answers.
As Chas n Dave sang in their 1983 song ‘London Girls’:
Give me a London girl every time,
I’ve gotta find one I’ve made up my mind
This particular specimen of London female appears to be from somewhere near Kennington and despite the fact she’s green, has grey hair and a red nose you can see she’s got music in her eyes. What more could a man want?
I came across this little beauty during a little tidy up. She was tucked down the side of a portfolio and was actually created a short while ago and we somehow managed to neglect her – until now! It’s on a section of a 1980’s South London bus timetable and was created using the magic of stencils and screen printing. It’s an eminently frameable 15 x 20 cm in size and is now on eBay. It’s even got our id-iom stamp of approval screen printed on the back so you can relax safe in the knowledge it’s an authentic id-iom product.
Size: 15 x 20cm
Materials: spraypaint, stencils and screen print on 80’s bus timetable. With screen printed id-iom stamp on the back.
Available – now on eBay
Despite appearances to the contrary this woman is actually a shimmering wraith. She may appear substantial but that is only a trick of the light. See her from another angle however and you realise that you can see straight through her spectral form. There are many differing stories attached to this apparently friendly ghost but they all agree on a few basic facts; she can sometimes be found shimmering on the ramparts of Castle Rushen, she’s female, and her appearance is an omen of forthcoming events (although opinion is divided on whether her appearance foretells good or bad events to come). Well, there you have it. We’ve done the paranormal footwork so you don’t have to…
Cheers
id-iom
Title: The Wraith
Materials: Spraypaint, charcoal, acrylics and paint pen
Size: A2
As I live in Brixton I was particularly happy to come across a bus timetable from the 80’s for the Brixton area which I used for the background for this piece.
The ethereal looking lady with music in her eyes just seemed to fit perfectly over the night bus timetable like some half forgotten memory recalled on the bus home. Much like many of my nights out really…
We were recently commissioned to do a big canvas to celebrate someone’s clubbing history. An interesting commission and no doubt about it. Our in-depth quizzing of them revealed that they felt they were getting a little long in the tooth for the kind of shenanigans they used to regularly engage in when they were younger and wanted a little something to commemorate the fact that all those weekends spent wasted weren’t in fact wasted weekends.
Considering what we were trying to convey there were plenty of false starts and aborted designs and I feared this one would languish in development hell until we could come up with something suitable. After percolating in my brain for long enough a quote from comedian Marcus Brigstocke came to mind that would lay the foundations for the design: “If Pac-Man had affected us as kids, we’d all be running around in dark rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive electronic music.” We were finally off and running.
We then had to come up with some way of celebrating the specific clubs that our commissioner used to frequent. We’ve used QR codesbefore and with the proliferation of smartphones we thought they’d be perfect for our needs. The codes link to classic mixes from the clubs involved and I had to go to a great deal of trouble to find a cassette to digitise from his earliest clubbing days way back in 92. Go ahead and test them (although you may have to click on the pics to bring up versions that are big enough to read). Eagle eyed readers will notice the small Mitsubishi logo concealed in the centre of the QR codes. How delightfully subversive…
Sometimes it’s difficult to come up with some sparkling and relevant words when what you’ve got is a big disembodied white androgynous head on a fetching pink wall – but i’ll give it a shot.
I’m not sure if you already know this but the only time that you can actually see a big disembodied white androgynous head when it’s not painted on a wall is when you have a ghost in your house. Which would be frightening. And you wouldn’t really want that so we’ve given you the next best thing. At least this one looks friendly.
This room is now pretty much completed and the only remaining job we’ve really got left is to try to get a decent panoramic shot. Which is easier than it sounds when you are lumbered with my photography skills. Hopefully we’ll get there…
The Lady on the Door. I think it sounds like a Victorian ghost story which is probably quite fitting considering the pedigree of the house it’s in and the more sketchy style we’ve gone for with this piece. I could spin a sad tale of a misguided young lady who suffers the indignity of unrequited love and then in a spurned fury turns to the dark side of the Force in order to ensure the object of her affections ends up loving her. Then, in some contrived plot twist the whole thing would backfire on her and she would be forced to wander the site of her misdeeds as a disembodied wraith for the rest of eternity. Sadly though, that isn’t the truth (as far as i’m aware) but just gave me a fun excuse for a post and as Nick Ross used to say on Crimewatch ‘don’t have nightmares, do sleep well’.
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