Kirsteen McNish and Darren Smith tell us about Walthamstow’s treasures, and its most recent launch - the Vine Collective.

Walthamstow has a strong thread of creativity that weaves through it as surely and truly as the Lee River. Most famously, it’s the home of artist, social activist and friend of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood William Morris. It’s artistic heritage seems to bloom brighter every year - a fact well-illustrated by this month’s two-week run of the E17 Art Trail, which includes a massive 157 venues, 61 open houses and over 4,000 local contributors throwing opening their doors and doing their thing.

This E17 Art Trail theme is “Storytelling”, which we thought provided the perfect context to launch our event and test the water with Vine Collective.

The idea of the Vine Collective is to create an eclectic night hosting established and new writers, live musicians and poets showcasing their work, both from local artists and further afield. We really want to create a regular night that works as a platform that reaches out to artists who want to share their work. We don’t want it to be formulaic or restrict it to one particular genre. We want it to be free-wheeling, engaging and offering the audience a rich mix of inspiring performance, at the same time inspiring new artists to become part of what we do. We hope it grows in this way and becomes a place well known for artists to try out new ideas - whatever the genre.

We decided our home should be the Blackhorse Road area, which has recently seen a number of great venues establish themselves including most recently community arts space Gnome House, and the setting for our first Vine Collective event, the striking industrial building of Blackhorse Workshop, much loved by many a local resident and home to a growing number of talented creators and makers. The workshop offers a monthly Saturday market and has a great in-house café - Wood Street Coffee - as well as offering affordable studios spaces and workshops. 

Image: Blackhorse Workshop/ Wood Street Cafe

Along the same strip you will find Pulse Studios (who are working with us on our launch event), Blackhorse Studios, Krypton Komics and Blackhorse Lane Studios, all in spitting distance of each other, so we are in good company.

On June 12th, we are very lucky to have the brilliant Faber New Poet Will Burns hosting the evening and reading his own work. He will be appearing alongside several well-known Walthamstow residents including the charming, extraordinary stand-up performer and poet Rob Auton.

Image: Rob Auton

We also have a live acoustic set from duo The Cats Knickers, and DJ sets peppered throughout the evening from Leo Smee, front man of experimental outfit (and Jarvis Cocker favourites) Chrome Hoof. We also are very lucky to have author, broadcaster and flaneur Michael Smith of Giro Playboy/Unreal City fame perform (Faber).

Image: Michael Smith

Image: Gareth Rees

Gareth Rees (Influx Press) is also making a special appearance, he’s the author of Marshland: Dreams & Nightmares on the Edge of London and the spoken word album A Dream Life Of Hackney Marshes. Rees revels in the magic and mystery of Walthamstow and Hackney Marshlands, bringing it to life wonderfully through his writing:

“For me, what’s magical about Hackney and Walthamstow marshes, and all the bits in between, is how little they’ve changed and how slow the development is. Look at pictures from the 60s, 70s and 80s and the marshes look the same”… “Here fragments of London culture and history get sucked into a swirl of ancient pastures, bomb craters, football matches, raves, factories, sewerage systems and Victorian rubble. Hassidic Jews, Muslims, weed smokers, euro-ravers, City boys, dog walkers, old cockney geezers, middle class film-makers, schoolkids, prostitutes, boaters, labourers – they all wander the marshes together. If the city is the stage spectacle, the marshes is the backstage area where you see the brooms, broken chairs and paint pots. It’s where the actors take off their make-up. Characters who hated each other on stage sit together and share a dirty joke.”

We are huge fans of nights like Bookslam and Caught By The River, who we think rock, so we wanted to try and establish something similar on our doorstep, a night with as much punch as them, which also supports local businesses who feature in the Blackhorse Workshop Market.

There are so many other spots to check out in Morris’s old stomping ground here in E17: special exhibitions and late openings at the William Morris Gallery; Bygga Bo café - just a short walk away for its cinnamon buns and reading room; The Chequers and The Bell pubs; The Wild Card Brewery - for sunny weekends musing and boozing; Eat 17 restaurant; Ye Olde Rose and Crown for comedy and Forest Poets; independent repertory cinema Stow Film Lounge; Debbie Bliss for beautiful writing journals and books; and East of Eden for some of what we think are the best yoga and pilates classes in East London. Did we mention the neon heaven of Gods Own Junkyard? There are of course, a great many more spots - too many to mention here. echo

We also recommend you check out Walthamstow based writer Stuart Evers, and Young Poet Laureate Aisling Fahey too, and the occasional happening from electronic musicians and DJ community, Electronic 17. This year’s Walthamstow Garden Party has Ghostpoet and Femi Kuti. Just saying.

So, like most of East London residents, we feel lucky here. We hope you can join us for a little bit of the huge amount of what’s on offer.

The Vine Collective
Friday 12th June 2015, 8-11.30
Tickets and info: billetto.co.uk/vine-collective-e17-art-trail

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You can read more from Darren's vinous blog here: thefinestwinesavailabletohumanity.com