Crystal Palace Food Market

I've mentioned the sense of community and campaigning spirit of Crystal Palace inhabitants before, and last weekend saw the fruition (literally) of one such campaign. The first of what is intended to be a weekly market was held at the bottom of Haynes Lane, and in case you missed it, it was a huge success. Food markets have come and gone in SE19, but this one seems likely to succeed, down to all the commitment and groundwork done by several key participants. The roots of the market stem from an organisation called Crystal Palace Transition Town, which started over a few drinks at The Grape and Grain, if I remember rightly. The Transition Town movement is both local and global. The idea is that local communities work together towards a more sustainable future in a world of "climate change, depleting resources and economic insecurity". Started a few years ago in Kinsale, Ireland, it has since spread to the UK and across the world. Perhaps the best known example in this country is Totnes in Devon which even has its own currency, the Totnes Pound. Back in SE19, the local campaign has been busy with a variety of projects, including the 'Palace Pint', a scheme where anyone in the area can grow hops which when harvested will all go to creating a local ale, and Patchwork Farm, which collects surplus produce from anyone growing food locally in gardens and allotments.  "Food feet not Food Miles" is their mantra. And now, the new food market is a culmination of efforts by members of Transition Town, lead by Karen Jones, with the help of Rachel de Thample and Joe Duggan among others.
As I write, the second weekly market will be getting under way, so why not head over to Haynes Lane. I can recommend the welsh cakes and Bermondsey made Caerphilly cheese from Mootown.

Rachel de Thample & Karen Jones

Karen & The Carrot, aka Joe Duggan

Crystal Palace Food Market every saturday on Haynes Lane

Angelique Hartigan, Artist

It must be spring at last, there are bluebells as far as the eye can see. The bluebells in question are actually painted on canvas. Drips of intense blue, beneath a haze of silver birch,  in the signature style of artist, Angelique Hartigan.

And the drips aren't confined to the canvas. Angelique's boots, clothing, and the studio floor, are all works of art in their own right.

While chatting, we discovered that we were both studying at Brighton Polytechnic around the same time in the late 80s, but while I was doing a BA in interior design, Angelique was on a much more hands-on course, known as WMCP (Wood, Metal, Ceramics & Plastic). As the course progressed however, she realised that the process of making something where you know from the start what the end result will be, began to lose its appeal. As she discovered, painting allowed a lot more freedom, as you are never quite sure how it will look in the end. But painting had to wait. After studying, when the cold light of reality intruded, Angelique started a career in web design for a city bank. By 2006, it was finally time to take the plunge, and so she quit the day job and picked up her brushes. The web design turned out to be a big influence on her work, particularly the manipulation of images in Photoshop, and the concept of working in 'layers'. So the years of being desk bound in an office, at least found expression in her new work.  
By this stage, Angelique was already a resident of Crystal Palace, and so she found a studio space in the Triangle. Despite having lived as far afield as Plymouth and Milan, it was finally in SE19, that she truly felt at home. And much of her work features local subject matters. Her love of trees and buildings finds plenty of local inspiration, from the parks and woods to the Victorian streets. It's a surprise to learn that the gentle sun dappled scenes she paints are created to the hectic accompaniment of very loud dance music. As she says "My paintings aren't calm productions but energetic like the music I listen to".

Unmistakably, Church Road SE19

And Angelique has done much locally to bring art to a wider audience, founding The Bigger Picture Gallery, which finds temporary sites in empty shops, in which to display the work of local artists. It's next appearance will be as part of the annual Crystal Palace Overground Festival, this summer. Elsewhere her work will be on show at the Affordable Art Fair in Bristol this weekend, or nearer to home, at the Portico Gallery in West Norwood on the first sunday of each month, and at the Dulwich Open House event in May.

Work in progress

Oxford's dreaming spires

Angelique wearing her art

Angelique Hartigan

Simon Carter

Most of us have endured a nickname at some point in our life, probably during childhood. I say 'endured' because they're not usually very flattering, having often been designed in the playground to torment or ridicule. Mine invariably consisted of some sort of crude variation of my surname. More commonly we've probably all known a Plain Jane, Ginge, Four Eyes, or most cruel of all, Pizza Face. Memorable adult nicknames, are often appended to notorious characters such as Jack the Ripper, Doctor Death, or Typhoid Mary, but more rarely to celebrate positive traits; exceptions being 'Capability' Brown and the Prince of Pop. So Simon Carter is quite fortunate to go by the moniker, King of Cufflinks.

But it could have all been so different, if Simon had continued along his original path studying immunology at Chelsea College. Mr Antibody perhaps? The location of his studies however, was to steer him in an unexpected direction. It was the early eighties, and the Kings Road was awash with New Romantics parading in their finery. Simon had a 1930s vintage motorcyclist brooch, ( brooches were big in men's fashion at the time) which he decided to have copied by a factory in Cornwall, and then proceeded to try his hand at making some money selling to boutiques along the Kings Road. Unfortunately no one was interested, until,  just when he'd almost given up, society jewellers, Cobra & Bellamy, bought the lot. Immunology quickly lost its allure at this point, and a successful new men's accessories business was born. Equally the fashion for brooches didn't last long, and Simon became better known for his modern take on a man's wardrobe staple; the cufflink. While the business was initially a wholesale one, the first shop opened in the mid 90s in Quadrant Arcade off Regent Street. Today, Simon Carter products are sold in 35 countries, with shops in London, Toronto, and... er... Ilkley, amongst others.

On the face of it, a store in Crystal Palace might have seemed as unlikely as Ilkley for a brand with an international reputation, but Simon has lived just down the road in Thornton Heath for 20 years, and so knew and loved the area. He rightly had a hunch that there would be enough like minded locals to make the business work. It has so far outstripped all his business projections. Opening the shop here has also fulfilled the somewhat "random" nature of the business, as Simon puts it, meaning that there was no grand plan to it. After all, he has travelled in the opposite direction of received wisdom, which sees fashion designers developing a line of accessories on the back of a successful clothing business. So, although the cufflinks came first, and made his name, the colourful shirts are now the biggest part of the business.

When he first opened on the Triangle, he says he was touched by the genuine interest and encouragement shown by all who have walked through the door, even those who felt it was probably too pricy or not for them. From the merchandise to the look of the shop, there have inevitably been comparisons with Paul Smith, for which Simon is extremely flattered. Though the influence is there, the shop has its own character. There's an individuality of style and independence of spirit, which Simon says, mirror the characteristics of SE19ers. Fitting out the shop didn't cost a fortune either. Old military portraits and several other items were picked up from auction houses, such as Roseberys in West Norwood, and the bowling club boards from South Norwood were heading for a skip. And overlooking it all above the cosy wood burner (how many clothing shops have one of those?), is Crystal the porcelain cat.  The comparatively small and oddly shaped shop might have put off many retailers, and as Crystal Place develops, this might, Simon believes, play in the area's favour. As he says, the Triangle is reaching a bit of a crossroads, with more and more interesting places opening, and the fear is locally that the big chains will start to take notice and move in, snapping up empty retail units, sending rents beyond the means of local traders. However most of the available units in the area are probably too small to be of interest to the big players. I hope he's right.

Despite how small the shop is, it feels deceptively spacious, with room to move around from one display area to another. Here are just a few items that caught my eye.

Going back to the subject of nicknames, could this be the mysterious Prince Gervaise of Aurelia, I wonder?

A charming little chap made from recycled ties!

Simon Carter

After a couple of hours in the shop, I couldn't leave empty handed, and so yearning for spring like the rest of you, I bought this colourful little number!

Simon Carter

71 Westow Street

020 8768 1457