Le Pont D'Art

Le pont d'art and 'The Art Bridge' is a proposal. It proposes that Bell's Bridge be given over to the public as an outdoor and informal art gallery. The bridge has fifteen rectangular pillars and a central column, and a canopy! As I have been stencilling it these past few months I have noticed that it needn't just be me painting the bridge. People are aware of the bridge as a place for foot traffic. On the bridge's wings there are flyers for all sorts of stuff, mostly regarding mental health issues and the like. To be sure, every time I go down there to stencil, I stay for the minimum time because what I am doing is technically illegal, so my proposal would dispose of this illegality just as other cities have done, in order to allow local residents and local community groups to show their work without fear of being arrested. So far, I know of no outdoor space where artists can show their work freely. In a city the size of Glasgow, this is not just wrong but a little embarrassing. This is coming from someone who as an EFL teacher has lived in some fourteen countries and as many cities and seen in almost every one of them some communal space where people can try out and display their creative side. I would propose that there be some kind of list drawn up of all who want to participate and then those names be put in a bag and all the names drawn. This would allocate a two week long residency to each artist who would haver all fifteen pillars and sixty sides to do their stuff on. Or, equally, you could section off parts of the bridge and work out a different program. A photographic album could be made of the bridge's various informal exhibitions, since all the exhibitions would be fairly temporary. It's just a thought, but I reckon a pretty good one. And you might actually be very surprised at what little unknown joe public can do. It would also get rid of the usual scrawls and unsightly daubs that routinely mark the bridge's pillars, and inspire other places perhaps to do the same. Naturally, there would be rules drawn up and anyone flouting those rules would be ejected (into the river).

If the people really and truly make Glasgow, as we are told over and over again, surely to goodness we should give them a chance to display their craft, and to exert their Being through the glorious medium of art. And what better place for a gallery quite frankly than on a pedestrian bridge straddling the great river Clyde.