Sometimes there’s nothing I like more than a good trawl through Wikipedia in search of something inspiring (and in our world inspiration can come from just about anywhere). There I was reading through an entry on the possibly fictional ‘hobo graffiti’ from late 1800’s USA when I came across Leon Ray Livingston.
Leon Ray Livingston who was a hobo who travelled under the name ‘A-No.1’ and was often referred to as ‘The Rambler’. He has been lauded by historians as the King of the Hoboes. He even wrote 12 books on the subject. Once I’d checked out his A-No.1 moniker/tag on the front of his books I knew a picture was in the offing.
What we’re left with is this playing card style ‘King of the Tracks’ design featuring his own tag which looks just like something from 1980’s New York and a ‘Rambler’ ambigram over the middle. It’s just a shame the only photo of him I could find to work with was small and grainy or I would have attempted a bit more detail. Right, back to some proper work…
With a load of wall space in Camden about to get redeveloped we thought it only fair to get up there and get something up before it all gets knocked down. A quick call to The Real Art of Street Art and, bingo!, wall space arranged.
Given the trackside location and it’s imminent destruction we thought we’d go with ‘The wrong side of the tracks’ and a fairly spangly looking character whose arms are flailing all over the gaff. As we were finishing up some of the builders who were working at the bottom of the road took great delight in informing us that it would all be gone this week. Ah well, c’est la vie. It was never going to last forever…
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