It was my first time in London. I'd spent a few days in galleries and museums, a few nights out with friends. It was already Saturday night and my flight back to Barcelona was Tuesday morning. I finally had a wall and paint thanks to Lee at Global Street Art, and just finished mocking everything up in the computer. That gave me Sunday to get the stencils printed and cut, and Monday to paint the piece. It would be a very full two days, but definitely doable. Little did I know it would be less painful to walk on broken legs than get something printed on a Sunday in London.
Everything started wonderfully... my London host (Simon) called the closest print shop. They answered the phone and said they were open until 5. So I take the bus (which is always fun to figure out), and when I get there... there is no print shop at the address. Nothing. No store at all. I figure I'm an idiot somehow and just read the address wrong. So I start asking strangers for help and find out I'm in the right spot... just 4 years too late. Maybe after a decade the updates will make it to Google maps.
So I look up the next closest branch, and walk because I can't figure out how to get there very easily by bus. After an hour or so I'm hungry and sweaty and get to the print shop. It's closed.
Since I only have data in England, I borrow a stranger's phone and call again. They answer again. However, this time they give me one key bit of information: they're the only branch open on Sunday and all of the calls to the closed branches route to them. Long story even longer... by the time I get back to Simon's studio with everything printed, it's 5pm. I'm exhausted. I just cut a stencil for the outline of the piece and finish at 4 in the morning.
The good news is the struggle of it forced me to figure out more efficient ways to do the stencils and the painting. It occurred to me that I didn't need multiple stencils to fill in each color of the piece. I could just do the outline, fill it in by hand, and then put the outline over it again at the end (and clean up the edges). I've done a lot of pieces since with this same technique. "Hanging Around" definitely holds a special place in my heart for what I learned from it, and how much of a pain in the ass it was to make happen :)
