'True North'
Northern Monk, Leeds UK
A section about the project taken from an interview with Leeds List.
All Pics Bokehgo
- Tell us about Patrons Project mural.
The Patrons Project Mural was a large scale collaboration between Tankpetrol, a talented muralist/street artist also from Manchester, ourselves, Northern Monk and CEG (property developers)
-Where did the idea come from
We titled our wall 'True North' with the idea of embracing/celebrating/documenting the heritage of the area - a common interest that we share with Northern Monk. The area used to be the heart of Leeds industrial heritage, full of flax mills, the canal system etc so together with tank we decided it made sense to do something related to that. Its slowly being stripped from the city through regeneration and it seems a shame to watch many aspects be forgotten. On a personal note both myself and Hayley have Grandparents with a history of mill working, most notably Hayley's Grandad worked as a spinner for many years in Rochdale. We came across an amazing photograph of him whilst hanging out at her sisters house and immediately knew it needed painting. With him being a Lancashire Lad we knew it really should adorn a wall on the dark side of the hills, it was arranged to be painted in Manchester at Cities of Hope but the wall permissions fell through at the last min. Seems he was destined for Yorkshire!
- Do you have any information about Hayley’s grandfather you could share?
Jimmy Boy is 94 years old, still living in the village of Norden, Rochdale which he has done all his life. He never missed a days work, a long and labour filled tale that starts way back when he was only 10 years old working as a spinner in a mill. He went on to work in the furnace rooms of a mill shovelling coal all hours of the day in a hellish environment. He was also somewhat of a pioneer, setting up a hardware store where he would sell mops that he made in the cellars of the building - he roped in the whole family to boost production and before you knew it the mops were being shipped to Ireland and all over the country! At age 18 Hayley ran a cafe in the same unit, if she needed a new mop for the cafe she would pop down into the cellar and knock one up using her Grandad's old equipment!
- How did it come about?
The second dream for us came true early on, the opp for a craft beer sponsor! Northern monk have been doing some of the most interesting things with craft beer in the UK, really pushing boundaries whilst retaining a solid identity for making reliably good beer! They are perticularly creative when it comes to collaborations, be it with bands (opeth), other breweries across the globe, fell runners, illustrators, blogs, photographers and of course street art. We had done a series of short run can art as part of their patrons project. Emails were slung around about doing a potential wall, it was on the cards then off the cards as the wall was going to be demolished earlier this year... The area that Northern Monk Brewery is located is under heavy regeneration stages, meaning there are a lot of disused buildings, edge of city car parks (basically urban deserts lol) and a few hidden gems tucked away. Russ at Northern Monk had his eye on a large wall facing the viaducts where all the major trains pass on the way into Leeds. Its been crying out for some art for years so he approached CEG the property developers in the area with a little proposal we put together and the job was a gooden! It was the perfect opportunity for our talented artist friend and fellow beer enthusiast Tankpetrol to collaborate on the mural. He had previously done a bit of stuff with NMBCo who were keen to work with him, everything seemed to work perfectly.
