In Response to The Guardian Article on Redchurch street

In word or two in response to The Guardian Article on Redchurch Street

Redchurch Street reborn as designer shopping draw on London's grittier side
East End destination for brands craving rebel cool has turbulent history – including Tracey Emin and Sarah Lucas – 

That turbulent history has included many artists since Tracey Emin and Sarah Lucas. Artists who have invested in an area once run down and now in the throes of full throttle gentrification. When I first arrived here almost thirteen years ago Redchurch St had two mosques, a veneer shop, a meatpacker, a leather factory, belt & bag makers and several corner shops strewn with betel nuts and veg I didn’t recognize. There were street girls and teenage prostitutes with mottled legs accompanied pimps who saw me safely to my door and of course there was the original Owl and Pussycat. Oh and also there were a couple of galleries plus a few artists in various lofts, basements and disused shops.
Of course now there is no room for any of that nonsense, we have all or are all being moved on. Where do we all go to in the face of the relentless march of the muddled middle who have nowhere to go but bankruptcy in every sense,
Yes you’ve guessed it I am one of the dispossessed, the dirty, the gritty and the great unwashed. What happens to those who create the dream of the bohemian lifestyle? I’ll tell you what happens, we are chucked out on our miserable bloody backsides, with no ceremony, no thought and no word of acknowledgment for all our hard work and low wages. We come into areas where rents are cheap and deposits are low and we leave with only a backward glance as we are shoved out of the door.

This illustrates perfectly the place of the artist in society when there is no recognition for their service to their local community. The Outside World (my artist led studio/gallery space), may not have been a top flight in commercial terms, but it gave many artists, musicians, designers, film makers, tramps, tinkers and charitable cases of all ages and backgrounds a platform on which to show the world what they had or what they needed to say. These small ‘Artisanal’ galleries were melting pots of ideas, ideals, youth, arrogance drunkenness and inspiration. These very people, those that created the illusion that the fancy emporiums and their well heeled customers are being forced out as rents increase and landlords demand their properties returned. I opened The Outside World in Redchurch St in 1996 and now in a flash, poof it’s gone, like the prostitutes and the leather men, the butchers and the woodworkers and its very heart, that which made it desirable. I am very uncertain about my future and where I will go to, artists like the rest of the population grow old, follow the dreams that others are not brave enough to, only to watch it thrown away on posh tat.
Redchurch Street was good to me I will be sad to see it go