Pavement artists

Oct 20 2008 by Richard Down, Liverpool Daily Post

ART hit the streets this weekend, turning Liverpool?s Victorian alleys into a mini Montmartre. The James William Carling Pavement Art competition saw artists spending hours hunched over paving slabs outside Fact, in Ropewalk Square, Bold Street.

Great sheets of paper were gummed to the walkways with yards of tape, and slowly masterpieces emerged that reworked the great canvasses on display in Liverpool?s museums.

The artists were an assorted mixture of professionals, students and amateurs from across Merseyside.

Each one was marked out from the passing hordes not just by their paint- smattered clothing and lurid fingertips, but by competition badges marked ?Screever?, an Old English term for pavement artist.

Organiser Philip Battle, of Urbancanvas, said: ?It beat all our expectations. The square is normally a drab cut through from Bold Street, but it took on a life of its own and became a mini Montmatre ? the Parisian art quarter.

?The Ropewalks area and Bold Street have opened up to cafes in recent times, and visitors to the city want to see this sort of thing going on in what is old Victorian Liverpool.?

Phil Redmond, judge on the day, said this was the sort of event that he hoped would be a legacy of the Culture Year.

He said that, while events such as La Machine were stunning examples of what could be achieved in Liverpool, they took huge amounts of organisation.

Street art events and competitions could be put together very quickly and with spectacular results, he added.

Hundreds stopped by to admire the work as the screevers vied for one of three competitions; the Peoples Prize, the Little Chalker?s Children?s prize and The James William Carling Award. more