Glasgow's Mural Arches. Clydeside Expressway. Student Flats.

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It was a lovely autumn afternoon a few weeks ago in November so myself, my friend Anne, and her dog took a trip down to Partick to see Glasgow's newest collection of murals.

The walk itself was beautiful, fairly warm, and sunny with hardly any wind. A view here of the Clydeside Expressway with the tall Skypark building in the (middle) distance.

 Student flats here at Partick. West Village.

Yorkhill Hospital- now largely replaced by the new  and massive Queen Elizabeth University Hospital on the opposite bank of the River Clyde in Govan.

The mural wall, painted on a series of existing railway arches beside the expressway has been up for a few months now. The reason it is situated here is probably due to the fact that in the street behind this wall of railway arches resides the SW3 arts and events venue/studios/warehouse/modern art gallery in an otherwise gloomy semi industrial period lane of old garage units and small businesses. It seems a rather strange location until you realise that not many places within the city have large empty units sitting side by side, and blank walls like this one, freely available, somewhere tourists can visit safely, yet exposed enough to constant scrutiny by passing traffic that any vandalism will have more chance of being noticed. The adjacent Yardworks in Eastvale Place has an additional series of  murals but the gates to that are only open for certain events, as far as I know... or by appointment.

Painted by invited artists both local and from other countries it is a nice addition to the district as it's within walking distance of already famous tourist attractions in Partick down by the River Clyde- like The Tall Ship Glenlee and The Riverside Museum.

Both seen here.

From my own personal stand point however, as you will see in the photo 4th above, you only have a very limited view of the murals arranged here, hemmed in by the railings and expressway so it feels and is like standing six to eight feet away from a giant canvas. Hard to take photographs of and equally hard sometimes to make out what each mural is about. Especially if it has a complex subject to reveal. After a wander down it to see them I cut through to the street behind.

Here, with the width of the street to get some distance from the murals you could appreciate them better as this back street has another range of different artists to view. Belt Buckle here.

Octopus as bagpipes.

and my three personal favourites. Cat meets bird...

Gannet- love the pastel hues here.

and one to Clydeside's industrial working past. So far so simple.

Then it gets more complex. Looks like a whale in noodle soup, along with a cheeky little Fly Agaric mushroom, known for its highly toxic hallucinogenic effects. A member of the poisonous and deadly Amanita family. Take your pick as to any message involved. Chinese medicine killing endangered species perhaps?... or Japanese whaling?... not too sure myself.

Someone in a boat. Railway arches still so I had to get some distance from it to make this clear. No idea what it was when standing right beside it as I couldn't get far enough away from it to make out the overall picture until I'd crossed the expressway and viewed it from here. 

Murals along the back street. SW3 project.

I'll just call this one 'The Trip.'     or the 'creative process.'

I'd already worked out beforehand that the only way I would manage to get decent photos of many of the archway murals would be to cross to the other side of the Expressway ... so that's what I did via the metal pedestrian bridge.

I was now too far away to see them properly with cars whizzing past at high speed.

Something of a compromise then from the ideal viewing distance but as close as I could get on this side. I think good large gable end murals, if done well, still create the biggest impact when you see them but this is a colourful addition to Glasgow's ever growing collection of public artworks.

To illustrate this point here's another recent one- mother and baby on a full gable end beside the High Street. Another cracking gable end mural, a companion to this one, can be found just around the corner from here, to the left, 50 paces up on the High Street.

A Glasgow tourist bus beside the SEC (Scottish Event Campus- formally Exhibition Centre) and Crowne Plaza Hotel.

A view across the River Clyde to Govan and the old Govan Ferry landing slip on Water Row. I've seen old photos of this ferry in its 1900s heyday when it transported people between the numerous shipyards and factories that lined both banks of the river to when it ended eventually in the 1960s. I also have dim childhood memories... early 1960s era... of the much larger, taller, vehicle and horse ferry at Finnieston when Glasgow was a soot blackened, very busy but much darker city- full of smoking chimneys, black dirty buildings, a river full of ships but hardly any colour in the streets or in everyday clothing....

Thousands of men in flat caps wearing identical dark work jackets and black trousers plus a few brave women poured into factories and shipyards just like these, turning the streets around the river a deeper black with their mass arrivals or departures, usually to the sound of a loud whistle. Only the office girls, employed in some of these places, might be permitted  to wear some modest colour by the time the 1960s arrived. Coming from the green leafy outskirts of Pollok I still remember how black and grime covered everything looked within these inner city heartlands, especially along the riverbanks here. Not much in the way of autumn trees, waste ground or clean river quality back then either. A completely different world. In the 1960s all the industrial UK rivers were lifeless and polluted yet in the surrounding countryside birds, butterflies, bees, and most mammals were still thriving. The planet also seemed limitless then- both in size and natural resources. Now the situation is reversed... but at least the rivers are cleaner, with fish and otters swimming in them again, after a 100 year absence.

Only the buildings, the remaining factories, the unchanged river banks and the older generations remember those earlier times now.