Street Art Homage – Grocott's Mail

By Arno Cornelissen

Early on Sunday morning, I received a voice note from Mook Lion: “Yeah, Arno, we’re painting the walls of the construction site by the Library for the Blind today. Pull in.”

Mook Lion (local street artist and professional muralist) and Jeannine-Madeleine Fischer (an anthropologist from Germany) – busy with her post-doc research on aesthetic forms of protest. Photo: Arno Cornelissen

On our own time and dime (actually, on Mook’s dime), we link up on High Street – Mookie and Bagels are already sorting out the colours. Mook had scraped up the leftovers from previous missions, laying and waiting for an occasion like this.

Juanito Romario Featherstone (aka Bagels) maps out how to slam a portrait on the corrugated iron of the temporary construction site. Photo: Arno Cornelissen

Construction has been ongoing for months at the South African Library for the Blind in Makhanda, Eastern Cape. To honour the construction workers, Mookie came up with the idea of painting some people helping with construction.

Bagels and Mookie begin sketching on their canvas in front of the Library of the Blind. Photo: Arno Cornelissen

The plan is for the street art project to run and build up toward International Workers’ Day on the 1st of May, celebrating the efforts of the true backbone of society.