News of a new creative force in our area: Wood Street Walls. The group is working to bring street artists and the local community together. In this guest post (our first – and we are always happy to receive more) Mark Clack, one of the group’s founders, shares his plans.

Wood Street Walls is a community art project aimed at providing local and established artists public spaces to show case their work and brighten up Wood Street and the surrounding area. We have recently finished our first piece – a mural – in the Ravenswood Industrial Estate next to God’s Own Junkyard, courtesy of Baxter & King and Metropolitan, with a fantastic response from the local community.

We now have 5 more pieces of public artwork planned for December and January and two commissions for local businesses. We hope that we will be accepted to put on a street art tour as part of the E17 Art Trail in June.

Our long term vision is to establish a new creative hub in Waltham Forest (our borough has only 78 studio spaces, compared to neighbouring Hackney which has 1150). We want to reinvigorate the Manual Instruction Centre on Brooke Road to provide affordable space for its resident artists, whilst in return providing schools and local residents free monthly art workshops (we are planning two pilot events in January/February).

We are currently looking to raise funds using civic crowdfunding platform spacehive. We would greatly appreciate your support in spreading the word or pledging as little one pound at www.woodstreetstudios.co.uk and helping make our dream a reality.

Visit www.woodstreetwalls.co.uk or contact mark@woodstreetwalls.co.uk for more information.