Upfest began in 2008 with about 50 graffiti artists in Bristol. It has rapidly grown to become one of the largest and most popular festivals of street art in Europe. This year over 300 artists took part and the festival attracted about 50,000 visitors over 17 days. The community of south Bristol were heavily involved with workshops for local children and aspiring artists. First bus even got involved and allowed the artists to paint a double decker bus.

The festival was free to attend and locals and visitors could watch as the artists created more than seventy new pieces of street art. The organisers received some art council funding and also crowd funded themselves.

The Tobacco Factory coffee bar

This week for Natalie’s weekend coffee share I am inviting you to join us for a drink at the Tobacco Factory where it all began. Bedminster and Southville are working-class districts of Bristol which grew rapidly in the twentieth century thanks in part to the popularity of smoking. Soldiers returning from the Crimean war brought Turkish cigarettes back to Bristol. The habit rapidly took hold in Britain and at its height Imperial Tobacco employed about 13,000 people.

One of the former redbrick factories has been turned into a theatre and arts space. It also has a coffee bar with a solar powered coffee machine and its own five-acre farm to source local products. The upstairs theatre in the round is particularly suitable for staging Shakespeare plays.

I could tell you about the Shakespeare plays, Henry IV part I and II that we saw last week at the Bristol Hippodrome. They were supposed to star Sir Ian McKellen as Falstaff but unfortunately, he fell off the stage during the production in London, so his understudy took the role. I still enjoyed it and I hear Sir Ian is recovering well.

We could also talk about our general election last week which resulted in a labour landslide. Sir Keir Stammer is our new prime minister and he seems to have hit the ground running.

Upfest 2024

Instead, I am going to share a few new pieces of Bedminster Street art from Upfest 2024. I hope you enjoy seeing them as much as I did.

The Upfest headquarters is in North Street Bedminster. It houses a shop and gallery. You can buy prints and T shirts of some of the current street art as well as your own cans of spray paint. The facade above the shop was one of six adjoining shops transformed by a group of female artists in 2021. The six sisters project was inspired by San Francisco’s famous painted ladies.

Artists who took part this year, included Artez from Serbia and Audrey Kawasaki from Los Angeles. Trans artist and activist Mister Samo headlined the event.

I like that local artists are still attracted to display their work at Upfest.

Below Parsons is a well known local bakery has had a new look thanks to Inkie a well known local artist originally from Clifton in Bristol.

The Nursery, Bedminster

Thursday doors is a place on the web where door lovers from around the world come together to share pictures of doors and the stories behind them. I hope you enjoy my selection from the Nursery in Bedminster painted in May for Upfest 2024. The Chessels are a grid of late Victoria terraced two up two down houses built as a planned development in the 1890’s. The limewashed fronts make them ideal for street artists. The local estate agents describe it as a tranquil road but would you want to live in a street like this.

Please let me know your favourites in the comments. I like how similar terraced houses can look so different.

Oreste the racoon is by street artist Alessio Bolognesi.

The Bristol street art scene has certainly transformed since Banksy and his friends were encouraged to use spray paints by their local youth club leader who has a lot to answer for.

If you enjoy looking at doors and finding out the stories behind them it is well worth checking out Thursday doors. You might even be tempted to create your own post. If you would like to join us for a virtual coffee share checkout Natalie’s weekend coffee share.