Listen to a Londoner: Wendy McCooey

Listen to a Londoner is a weekly interview with a Londoner – someone who lives in this city, born here or elsewhere. If you want to be interviewed, email littlelondonobservationist@hotmail.co.uk. Always looking for new volunteers! 

Wendy McCooey, 34 

Wendy is a southern Tennessee girl with a sales and marketing background who loves to travel, cook, craft, take pictures, blog, (currently job shopping) and do just about anything if it’s fun. She’s is now seeing what Notting Hill and the rest of London (if not the world) has to offer. 

LLO: Give us the basics first: How long have you lived in London , where are you from originally and what brought you to this brilliant city?
WM: We moved here October 2009 from Nashville, TN (yes, I have a southern accent, but my husband does not) due to a job transfer with my husband’s company. 

LLO: What’s the best part about living in your postcode?
WM: I live in the W11 which is Notting Hill (yes, the inspiration for a lil’ rom-com you may have heard of) and love it here.  The energy and the layout of the area is perfect. It’s city living at its finest, but somehow it still manages to keep some neighborhood “small town” charm to it. Maybe it’s due to all the cool independent movie theatres, the Portobello Market, or maybe the adorable strip of Westbourne Grove/Ledbury area. Whatever it is, it’s home to me now and I smile just thinking about it 

LLO: Favourite place to find a taste of home?
WM: If I’m craving pancakes, I hightail it to Balan’s on Kensington High Street for their American Pancakes. I’m a breakfast girl, so these cravings come more often than they need to.  If it’s not pancakes, it’s buffalo wing sauce and the closest thing to ours at home is the voodoo sauce at Henry J Beans in Chelsea. It’s delicious and I get it with their yummy chicken crunchies. 

LLO: Tell us about a memorable “expat in London ” experience.
WM: Well… although my husband moved around a lot as a kid, I did not. I had always pretty much lived in the Nashville area until we packed up and moved to London. I was ready for a change, and so I said, “Yes, let’s do it”.  So I quit my job of 7+ years, told my family and friends, packed our stuff, shipped it off, got on a plane and never cried really. UNTIL we landed and later arrived at our new home  – “our flat”. Once that door shut, something happened. I cried, hysterically. My husband could not bring up anything related to back home or I would cry.  There were a lot of ups and downs for me for many many months. Not for him though; he adjusted just fine.  It took me three or four months before I could call London home and truly be 100% happy with my decision. However, now I couldn’t imagine moving back to Nashville any time soon. I guess the most important thing that happened to change how I felt was making new friends here. I have a great group of new friends and I would really miss them if I were to leave.  Oh yeah, and the nonstop traveling around Europe doesn’t hurt either. 

LLO: If I had one day in London , where would you tell me to eat and drink?
WM: I would tell you to eat at either Osteria Basilico in Notting Hill for the tastiest tortellini that you will ever eat or The Ebury on Pimlico Road for their gnocchi.  As for drinks, the bar at Just St. James near Green Park/The Ritz. Order anything to drink, you’ll like it. Or if you want more low-key with loads of charm, head on over to Churchill Arms (Kensington) for a tasty pint of their organic Honey Dew. 

LLO: Favourite places for a Saturday night out in the capital?
WM: For a Saturday night, if you are wanting to do something special I would say  dinner and go see WICKED (I’ve seen it 4 times and can’t wait til the 5th) or just walk around Oxford/Regent St and people watch for a while and then crawl into a pub and drink until your heart’s content. 

LLO: What’s the strangest or most amusing thing you’ve seen since moving to this city?
WM: The most amusing thing was a lady on the tube, probably late 40’s. She was fair-skinned, dark hair, bright red dress and nails, sitting in front of me. Just as I noticed that her toenails were so long that they were growing down in front of her toes (like cupping them), she hopped up in this almost empty car and grabbed the “hold on” bar and starting swinging on it. She grabbed hold, lifted her feet up and just started swinging. Then she put her feet down and swung her hips to the left while still holding on, stretching herself and then changed to the right and did the same thing. This rotation went on for a good 15 minutes.  Being a girl from the South, I wasn’t sure if I needed to laugh or be scared. 

LLO: Best London discovery?
WM: Kensington Roof Gardens! It’s amazing and believe it or not, Virgin owns it. (Where this picture of me was actually taken). 

LLO: If someone came to you saying they wanted to explore London for a day, but wanted to go off the beaten path, where would you send them?
WM: I would send them to Postman’s Park to start, then off to Camden or Brick Lane and just tell them to walk around. Those areas have so much charm and energy, not to mention all the food you could want at your fingertips. Every few feet you see something new and cool to check out. At night, take a Jack the Ripper walking tour and to finish the evening a pint at Churchill Arms on Kensington Church Street. 

LLO: Favourite place around here for a culture fix?
WM: If we’re talking museum, it’s gotta be the British Museum. I feel like I’m the luckiest girl in the world when I walk in their gorgeous lobby, take a left and cruise on by the Rosetta stone on my way to the Parthenon area. I’ve visited numerous times and it never gets old. The Lindow man in there is also pretty badass. 

If we are talking Theatre, Jersey Boys is amazing, but WICKED is out of this world terrific in every way possible. I can honestly say that I will probably go see it as many times as I can, it’s just amazing. Although I’m a big Dirty Dancing fan, the Dirty Dancing that I saw here was Horrible, to the point that at intermission I wanted to ask for my money back and leave.  I have tickets to see Les Mis in September, so I’m really excited about that! 

You can also never go wrong with the exhibits at V&A. I’m currently dying to go see the Grace Kelly exhibit there. 

Thanks Wendy! 

For more Listen to a Londoner posts, click here. 

London Art Spot: Hartwig Braun

With the observant eye of a professional architect, Hartwig Braun knows when he can break the rules – and he does so often with a mesmerising outcome. Somehow managing to maintain a pretty high level of accuracy, he twists up aerial views of a city and plays with perspective to create something akin to a caricature. With itty-bitty details in place, Hartwig chooses some of the most important features of an area to highlight and, after many drafts, presents to the world a playful rendition of a cityscape. His images – drawn freehand – come out with a “fish-eye” effect. Collaborating with Isaac Lilos who introduced me to Hartwig’s work in their Greenwich Market shop, Arty Globe, last weekend, Hartwig has been able to build a successful business out of his passion for illustration.

On the side, he loves cooking exotic meals, engaging in heated debate and learning languages – he speaks four fluently, probably a result of having lived in so many different cities.

For this week’s London Art Spot, Hartwig shares loads of fun images, tells us about the intricate process of creating his artwork and how Isaac pushed him over the last six years to where he is now.   

London Eye

LLO: How long have you lived in London and how does this city influence your creativity?
HB: I am still relatively new to London, I only moved here in November 2008 after spending about four years up north in Nottingham and Lincolnshire. I’ve always been a big city person. Before coming to the UK, I lived in Berlin for 10 ten years, two years in Amsterdam and for a while in Paris. So London is the place to be in the UK for me. I really love living here and I definitely unpacked my suitcase.

My fascination for the vibrant metropolis is also reflected in my work. I love the hustle and the bustle, the dynamics and the great energy of this city, the cosmopolitan mix, which can really give you the feel of a global community. I want to capture the wealth of architectural diversity, the juxtaposition of old and new and the abundance of different impressions, which change at every corner. I am a passionate “flâneur” love strolling around town, discover and absorb all the little amazing detail London has to offer.

London

LLO: Describe your artistic style.
HB: I call my images illustrations with an emphasis on cityscapes and architecture. I wouldn’t call them maps as some people do, as they are not a depiction of reality but always my own interpretation of the existing city (you wouldn’t use them for finding your way in town).  In my illustrations I want to give a feel for the pace of the city so the drawing sets it in motion – the horizon curves, streets bend and the buildings swell. I love playing with the rules of perspective, deliberately breaking them and creating my own rules.

Besides all the quirk, I want to be quite accurate and include buildings or detail that define a specific location and make it recognizable. I also want to catch the very essence of a building. As for a caricature of a person you need to analyze a building and define the key features, which make it recognizable and make “the spirit” of it.  Then you know where you have the freedom to exaggerate and to play with the perspective 

Berlin, Winter

LLO: Your cityscapes are very detailed, intricate and intriguingly accurate in an obscure sort of way – a result of your background in Architecture?
HB: Well, I guess so. Probably it is the architect inside me who, whenever I take the soft, thick felt pen I use for the first impulsive doodles of curves, lines and blobs, says: “Ok, those streets cross each other in such an angle and over there needs to be this particular building which is very characteristic. I’ve always had an attention to detail and when I start something I like I really dive into it and so the artwork becomes more and more intricate

British Museum

LLO: Tell us about the process that goes into creating an image from idea to finished product.
HB: First I try to get as many good aerial photographs as possible. They are always the best source of information. Then I do a little layout sketch to define the best angle for the most dynamic view, I decide about the area I want to show and try to arrange the given elements of the city (rivers, bridges, streets, landmarks and other key buildings, green spaces) together with the curved horizon as a dynamic and balanced composition. As a next step I project a simplified street map onto my “globe” to define the horizontal distortion of the street layout (e.g. straight lines as the Mall become smooth curves).

Having done this I walk around the area and take lots of pictures on street level and watch out for the special little detail.

The next step is a rough 3-d version of the first sketch. Buildings become cubes or blobs to define the right size, proportions, angles and degree of distortion. Then I need to transform those cubes into individual buildings by tracing over my own sketches again, again and again. Each time I do more fine tuning, add more detail or correct things if necessary until I am completely happy with the result. At the end of this lengthy process I need to bring all the different parts and pieces together on one big contiguous line drawing, which I scan. Most of the times I need to put the scans in parts together again before I can eventually start the digital colouring process 

Greenwich

LLO: How many drafts do you typically sketch before you are happy with a result?
HB: It really varies. Some buildings are easier to do and may be finished after 3 or 4 steps. On the other hand, very technical constructions as the London Eye or baroque churches as St Paul’s Cathedral can be really hard to do with all their fiddly little detail. I need to find the right balance between giving a realistic image of the construction and not overloading the drawing with too many lines, which could would be rather a mess. So I easily end up drawing and fine tuning certain buildings 20 or 30 times until I am completely happy with the result.

LLO: What are you working on right now?
HB: I just finished an illustration of Canary Wharf, which hopefully will be on the cover of a magazine soon. The next project is finalizing the designs for a range of greeting cards comprising London and some other cities for a well known UK card publisher.

London Retro

LLO: When did you meet Isaac Lilos and how did the two of you come up with the idea to collaborate in a business venture?
HB: I met Isaac over six years ago in Paris and we hit it off straight away. It was thanks to Isaac that I moved to the UK from Berlin several months later. About two years later Isaac spotted a little postcard design of Amsterdam I drew some years before when I was living there, which I sent to my family and friends for Christmas. He started pestering me to do something bigger and bolder with my style and to draw a bigger panoramic view of London as he felt that together with his entrepreneurial skills it could be developed into an exciting venture. I did not really believe him in the beginning!

I was working as an architect and my spare time was fairly limited – I could just not see the opportunities he saw at the time I guess. After six months of pestering I had to get him off my back so I promised I would make a start and see what happened and that’s how, nine months later, the first panoramic image of London was born.

To be honest I was quite amazed myself when I finished the image as I had no idea I could create something as complex and intricate. It took me a few more years to develop the portfolio of images I currently have and it took us some time to find the best way to build a successful commercial venture around the artwork but it has definitely been a very rewarding process and journey since. 

New York

LLO: Your work has been sole at Arty Globe in Greenwich Market for about one year now. How has the business grown in this time and where do you see it going in the next few years?
HB: The business has grown substantially in the past year especially as more and more local people who discover us keep coming back and bring their friends and family with them. Isaac and I are constantly busy developing new merchandise to keep our collection fresh and diversified. Having our own shop and talking directly to customers also enabled us to refine the range and designs over the time.

It is really great to see that over 50% of our customers are locals and Londoners who seem to really appreciate my style and take on the city. They also tell us that our merchandise makes great gift ideas to send or take on visits to family and  friends.

We feel that the time is right now for our products to be sold in other shops around London. To achieve that we will be taking a stand at “Top Drawer” (the trade show) in September where we would hopefully be able to show our full range and launch the wholesale side of our business. We also have some very exciting opportunities to do more bespoke work for some of London’s most famous establishments – something we will be pursuing in the coming year or two…

Regent Street

LLO: You’ve had commissions from, among others, the London Eye, the British Museum and for Hamley’s 250^th anniversary this year. Do you have a dream client or a list of others you’d love to involve in your work?
HB: Being seen on Transport for London Posters on Tube stations or drawing the Olympic sites for London 2012 would be really great. I can see a great affinity to my work since it is very much about London scenes and architecture and being an eye catcher and getting people’s attention. Of course it would also be nice to have such great exposure.

Transport for London Competition

LLO: Who are your other favourite London-based artists?
HB: I admire Wolfgang Tillmans’ photographic work. He manages to turn those little every day scenes and objects into true art, and makes you look at things differently. Lately he started experimenting with abstraction and photography, two things you wouldn’t think can go together.

I also love the work of Hannah Dipper and Robin Farquhar the guys behind “people will always need plates”. They feature some of my favourite international style buildings from the 20s and 30s here in London on their beautiful line of ceramics. And I adore Emma Nissim’s wonderfully sophisticated and elegant textile designs with a very personal style.

Thanks Hartwig!

For more of Hartwig’s work, check his website: http://www.artyglobe.com/

Listen to a Londoner: Sue Hillman

Listen to a Londoner is a weekly interview post with people who live (or have lived for a while) in London. If you fit the bill and want to be interviewed, give me a shout at littlelondonobservationist@hotmail.co.uk. Always looking for new volunteers.

Sue Hillman, 52 

Sue runs her own travel company for visitors to London offering tailor made tours and has lived in London for over 30 years. Before that, she worked in HR at the BBC for 18 good years but felt the need to  try a different throw of the dice. She loves to travel and has notched up 50 countries so far but London is her favourite city in the world!

LLO: Having lived in London for 30 years, what dramatic or noticeable changes have you seen in that time?
SH: So much has changed, but I guess one of the biggest turnarounds has been the South Bank which was a not somewhere I used to go at all. Now there are loads of bars and restaurants, the Globe, the Tate Modern, City Hall, the restored warehouse buildings, the Millennium Bridge and, of course, the London Eye.

LLO: Tell us a bit about your website, It’s Your London.
SH: We design and organise tailor made tours of London for small groups. It’s a personal service and each visit is built around what my visitors want to do and see at the pace they want.  We take all the hard work out of visiting London and arrange the itinerary, the entry tickets and make sure we get to the right places at the right time, not wasting any time but not being rushed either. It’s great fun for all concerned.

LLO: What would you consider “your London”; where do you love spend a free day? 
SH: I love being around the Thames on a fine day as the views are so beautiful – especially good is a walk from Westminster Bridge through to Tower Bridge. I’m also a museum buff so any excuse to go into the British Museum and travel the world ancient and more modern in a few hours is always a treat. Being a linguist, the Rosetta Stone is a big draw for me. A free day would have to include trying out a new bar or restaurant – or both! I love to find out the new in London. It’s such a vibrant city, there’s always something.

LLO: What’s the most unique itinerary you’ve been asked to create for a customer?
SH: Some examples of what I’ve been asked for are: a tour of East End rag trade to see its history and Jewish roots, a photo opportunity in front of the Stock Exchange, to see a court in session at the Royal Courts of Justice, afternoon tea in Buckingham Palace (luckily not with the Queen!),  a tour just of up-and-coming fashion designers with the chance to meet and talk with them. There was also talk of a tour of iconic London gay men’s homes, but only those already dead! Often people don’t realise how big London is and want to pop Windsor into a full day tour of central London. They’ve not experienced our traffic….

LLO: If you were approached by a magazine photographer who wanted to find the most colourful and unusual parts of the city, what sort of itinerary would you create?
SH: Best for visuals are views along the Thames, the streets of coloured houses in Notting Hill (I’m biased, but it is lovely!), views from the top of the Park Lane Hilton and from the London Eye. Unusual shots are easy to find by just turning off a main road in most places. I like the streets around Borough Market towards the river and the mews streets of London where you can just imagine the horses and carriages pulling in. There is one in South Kensington where the horses were kept up on the the second storey and you can see the walkways they went up – again an amazing image.

LLO: What’s your favourite London “discovery”?
SH: Every time I find a new place/bar/restaurant I get excited. I’m very bad at picking favourites but most recent discovery were pigs in the middle of Holland Park in the swanky W11 postcode. Huge pigs living just next to where the open air opera is performed in the summer, who’d have thought that possible! 

LLO: What’s the best thing about living in your postcode?
SH: Portobello Road and the fun of wandering up and down any day of the week to see how it changes. There are so many great little shops, bars and restaurants, it’s never dull. The whole area is beautiful with its terraces of white stucco houses and garden squares forming green oases. One more thing – as it’s so central, my friends can get here easily to visit so I see them far more often than when I lived further out. Then there’s always the fun of celebrity spotting. I saw Kate Moss yesterday!

LLO: You’ve recently returned from a month in Southern Africa. Where in London can we find a bit of African culture?
SH: The British Museum has a huge number of African items and currently they have a major exhibition called Kingdom of Ife which has ‘exquisite examples of brass, copper, stone and terracotta sculpture from West Africa’, they tell us. Food is an important aspect of African culture and there is everything from the top end Moroccan restaurant Momo through to Lalibela, an Ethiopian restaurant where you can sit in traditional style to eat authentic cuisine, to the amazing Caribbean and African food stalls at the Notting Hill Carnival when the area enjoys a mad, mad weekend!  Then there are markets.  Try Brick Lane and Petticoat Lane and you never know what you’ll find. There’s Brixton market for African produce.

LLO: Favourite London pub or restaurant?
SH: So many to choose from! I’m very fond of many of the places round my area and for the warmest welcome, I’d have to say Aphrodite on Hereford Road.  The Electric Brasserie on Portobello is pretty cool any time of day and El Pirata de Tapas is a favourite with my mates who come to stay with me.  At the upper end, I like Momo as it feels like an evening in Morocco, Maze has wonderful small plates of intense flavour, the Ledbury has Michelin-star French cooking and L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon is a real treat. Stop me now or I’ll go on for the rest of the page!!

Thanks Sue!  

For more Listen to a Londoner posts, click here.

Listen to a Londoner: Chris Osburn

Listen to a Londoner. This is a weekly post where people who live (or have lived for a while) in London answer a few questions about the Big Smoke. If you fit the bill and want to be interviewed, give me a shout at littlelondonobservationist@hotmail.co.uk. Always looking for new volunteers…. 

Chris Osburn, 37

Chris is currently residing at the western front of the East End (otherwise known as Clerkenwell). He works and plays as a freelance writer and photographer. He has lived and travelled all over the world, but London is the first place where he ever truly felt at home.

Catch up with Chris and keep up with his London adventures any time over on his excellent blog: http://tikichris.wordpress.com/

LLO: How long have you lived in London?
CO: About six years. 

LLO: Where are you from originally if not London?
CO: I’m American. I grew up in a small town in Georgia but have lived all over the place as an adult.

LLO: Best thing about London?
CO: As a freelance photographer and writer, I’m often bopping about London taking pics for some site or publication. Roaming this mess of a conurbation for shots is without a doubt one of the most wonderful ways I know to spend my time. London is (or at least often can be) such a photogenic place. There’s just something about it. I mean, for the most part, it’s not incredibly beautiful … not like Paris or Barcelona anyway. Nor is London terribly stunning; you really can’t compare it to the vertical awe of Manhattan or the mind boggling expanse of, say, Shanghai. However, the story London tells through its streets, landmarks and faces (oh the faces in this town!) is as compelling as any I’ve ever experienced. The story is one of weathering crises with resolve and engaging the world on its own terms.

LLO: Worst thing about London?
CO: It’s gotta be the Tube, right?

LLO: North, south, east or west?
CO: EC1 baby!

LLO: Best restaurant?
CO: Hmm … really depends on my mood. But I love St John, Portal, Club Gascon, Acorn House, 32 Great Queen Street, the Eagle, Tsuru, Iberica, The Gay Hussar, Santoré, Bosphorus Kebabs, Daddy Donkey, Chilango, Wahaca, Cinnamon Kitchen, Moti Mahal (and I know I’m leaving out a gazillion others).

LLO: Best shop?
CO: Well, a new Waitrose just opened very near my flat. That’s kinda rockin’ my world in a good way these days.

LLO: Best place to escape the city?
CO: You mean while still staying here? Kyoto Garden at Holland Park.

LLO: Favourite film about London?
CO: I love Mike Leigh’s “Happy Go Lucky” – it’s a colourful, beautiful film about a kind and friendly Londoner. There’s not a single shot featuring even a drop of rain. It’s a pleasant (while still fairly accurate and gritty) portrayal of London with none of the overplayed Jack the Ripper doom and gloom of most London-based films.

LLO: Best museum or gallery?
CO: Tate Modern is possibly my favourite museum in the world with the British Museum in a close second place. As far as galleries go, I’m consistently impressed with the shows at Stolenspace, Elms Lesters Painting Rooms, Lazarides Rathbone, Diemar Noble and Alison Jacques Gallery.

LLO: Favourite market?
CO: Despite the crowds, I can’t stay away from Borough Market (and God I hope it survives all the planning and building going on there right now!).

LLO: Best time of year in London?
CO: October! Every October that I’ve spent in London has been great with generally nice weather and lots of interesting events.

LLO: Best London website?
CO: Londonist, Qype and lots and lots of blogs (check the sidebar links on my own blog).

Thanks Chris!

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