Browse content similar to 24/07/2014. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
Line | From | To | |
---|---|---|---|
John Dolan Used to be homeless, a heroin addict and a criminal who | :00:00. | :00:13. | |
spent half his life in jail when he was first sentenced at the age of | :00:14. | :00:17. | |
18. He had no job, lost touch with his family and was begging on the | :00:18. | :00:21. | |
street in central London. Then more or less by accident, he got a dog, a | :00:22. | :00:26. | |
Staffordshire bull terrier called George. He realised if he was going | :00:27. | :00:29. | |
to look after him he had to find a way to stay out of prison. His book | :00:30. | :00:34. | |
'John George' tells the story of what happens next. John discovered | :00:35. | :00:39. | |
the passion he had as a child for drawing, he started sketching on | :00:40. | :00:43. | |
high streets, pictures of George arrogant the buildings around him | :00:44. | :00:49. | |
which use old review pounds. An art dealer spotted him and that is how | :00:50. | :00:56. | |
John Dolan with a little help from his dog, became an artist. | :00:57. | :01:10. | |
John Dolan, this book is partly your autobiography, your life went | :01:11. | :01:17. | |
completely off the rails from a teenager onwards. Why? When my | :01:18. | :01:23. | |
grandparents told me they were not my parents, they were... I thought | :01:24. | :01:28. | |
they were my mum and dad and they told me they were not, that they | :01:29. | :01:31. | |
were my grandparents, that is when I off the rails. The women who thought | :01:32. | :01:35. | |
with your sister was your mother? Yes. It really affected you? Yes, it | :01:36. | :01:43. | |
still does. You took to preventing. Truancy, gas sniffing, sniffing | :01:44. | :01:52. | |
solvents, soft drugs and later on in life, hard drugs. You were in | :01:53. | :01:57. | |
Feltham Young offenders Institute from 18. 18, 19. A few years ago you | :01:58. | :02:05. | |
turned your life around. The person instrumental in that was George. You | :02:06. | :02:11. | |
got George by accident. What difference did having George make? | :02:12. | :02:15. | |
Why did getting him mean you had to get a grip? Because he was another | :02:16. | :02:24. | |
entity, a creature, something to look after, a responsibility I had. | :02:25. | :02:29. | |
I know he is only a dog, but they take on a stronger meaning than that | :02:30. | :02:33. | |
as you get to know them. That is what it all boiled down to. You | :02:34. | :02:39. | |
found a way of earning some money, in order to stay out of prison, by | :02:40. | :02:46. | |
going back to something you had done as a child, sketching. You sat in | :02:47. | :02:49. | |
Shoreditch high Street with George, sketching buildings and George | :02:50. | :02:52. | |
himself. There is a picture of George sitting there, incredibly | :02:53. | :02:57. | |
patient. You had a little sign you put next to him, which said, take my | :02:58. | :03:05. | |
picture by all means, but put a few coins in my hat or I might bite you. | :03:06. | :03:12. | |
You sold these sketches. You are doing that in all kinds of weather. | :03:13. | :03:19. | |
Yes, in all weather. What sort of reaction did you get? About one in | :03:20. | :03:25. | |
every 100 people would tell me where to go, but the majority of people | :03:26. | :03:30. | |
would wish me good luck and told me to keep on drawing. Always saying | :03:31. | :03:36. | |
how much talent I had. This was a skill you had as a child. A | :03:37. | :03:41. | |
naturally gifted talent, I could always draw, it was passed down from | :03:42. | :03:46. | |
my grandfather to me. The thing was, I had never used it or tried to use | :03:47. | :03:50. | |
it. I only tried to use it once when I was a lad, involved in... I was | :03:51. | :04:01. | |
asked to draw a picture for an advertising company in Smithfield. I | :04:02. | :04:04. | |
did not quite deliver the goods. That was the only time I had really | :04:05. | :04:11. | |
used my art. This is a photograph of you and George and a man called | :04:12. | :04:25. | |
Stick. He is a graffiti artist who draws stick men. That picture was a | :04:26. | :04:30. | |
tribute to him. He helped me in the beginning. We have a picture of one | :04:31. | :04:37. | |
of Stick's drawings. You can see why he is called Stick. How did you meet | :04:38. | :04:53. | |
him? Through my agent. He introduced me to him. When I met Stick I met | :04:54. | :05:00. | |
another artist. We were in a cafe which is no longer there. Me, Stick | :05:01. | :05:11. | |
and Thiery, drawing up plans. I did not even know these two guys that | :05:12. | :05:15. | |
well at the time. It was a month down the road I realised they were | :05:16. | :05:19. | |
and I was in awe of them. The village underground wall? A place | :05:20. | :05:29. | |
just off of Shoreditch. Chris has the rights to it and let street | :05:30. | :05:34. | |
artists do their thing on it. There is another book out this month by a | :05:35. | :05:40. | |
photographer called Joe Eckstein, London street art and graffiti, it | :05:41. | :05:44. | |
is called. It contains quite a lot of photographs of the people that | :05:45. | :05:57. | |
you met and collaborated with. `` Epstein. There is one artist that | :05:58. | :06:01. | |
seems to have done a whole street. Yes, a lady graffiti artist. I have | :06:02. | :06:09. | |
collaborated with her. There is another guy whose speciality is | :06:10. | :06:14. | |
doing stuff right up high on buildings, almost inaccessible. You | :06:15. | :06:19. | |
collaborated with him as well? Yes. Another one in the book I liked, I'm | :06:20. | :06:24. | |
not sure this is one you collaborated with. I met him the | :06:25. | :06:29. | |
other day and asked him if we could do something together. I called him | :06:30. | :06:33. | |
doing something on an alleyway. Until I read the books, I dismissed | :06:34. | :06:38. | |
graffiti art. Then you start to look at it closely and it really is | :06:39. | :06:42. | |
extraordinary, a lot of it, the quality of standard. Yes. I like the | :06:43. | :06:48. | |
idea London is an urban gallery. Some parts of it is like an urban | :06:49. | :06:57. | |
gallery there the masses. Richard had this idea of getting you to | :06:58. | :06:59. | |
collaborate with some of these people on a series of pictures. You | :07:00. | :07:08. | |
drew a huge sketch of London, Shoreditch and some of these | :07:09. | :07:10. | |
graffiti artists were encouraged to add their bit. This is one by | :07:11. | :07:17. | |
Thiery. He used to do that on the Berlin Wall, when it was up and | :07:18. | :07:24. | |
operational. It was his middle finger to the German police. That is | :07:25. | :07:29. | |
him doing his thing on my picture. A special space. Wherever Uganda, that | :07:30. | :07:37. | |
is the village underground wall, with the underground trains above | :07:38. | :07:41. | |
it. Buries another one, a collaboration you did with stick. `` | :07:42. | :07:48. | |
there is another one. And another one with an artist called Rowdy. He | :07:49. | :08:02. | |
was the first one to do it. Every time they came through the door, | :08:03. | :08:06. | |
because they were coming through the door on a weekly basis, coming from | :08:07. | :08:10. | |
all over the world, every time they were coming back to us we were | :08:11. | :08:15. | |
wondering if they would give more and more. This was the first guy to | :08:16. | :08:19. | |
go absolutely mad and go all out. It is incredible. It was suggested you | :08:20. | :08:25. | |
had an exhibition, your agent got you to do lots of pictures of | :08:26. | :08:29. | |
George. There is a picture of you at the opening of this exhibition in | :08:30. | :08:35. | |
Shoreditch last November. You can see looking at those collaborations | :08:36. | :08:38. | |
with other artists. Did you mind other people taking over your work? | :08:39. | :08:43. | |
Not at all, it was their way of paying tribute to me. They recognise | :08:44. | :08:49. | |
the fact I have been doing what I was doing. I thoroughly enjoyed it, | :08:50. | :08:53. | |
and I would do it again. We are doing it again in Los Angeles. This | :08:54. | :08:59. | |
was extraordinary, a very successful exhibition. You are now an | :09:00. | :09:02. | |
established artist. There is talk of flying U2 Los Angeles, you are doing | :09:03. | :09:07. | |
all sorts of other projects, one with Battersea dogs home. When you | :09:08. | :09:08. | |
look at the way your life has with Battersea dogs home. When you | :09:09. | :09:16. | |
look at developed, would you reflect on? I am amazed, I really am. I was | :09:17. | :09:23. | |
in a revolving door with my life, with the crime and homelessness. I | :09:24. | :09:26. | |
never thought I would able to be able to change my life the way I | :09:27. | :09:30. | |
did. If I can do it, there are people out there now who are doing | :09:31. | :09:35. | |
prison sentences, who lived the same life I lived. If I can change my | :09:36. | :09:41. | |
life, they can as well. John Dolan and George the dog, thank you very | :09:42. | :09:43. | |
much indeed. Hallo, the heat developed widely | :09:44. | :09:54. | |
today, very | :09:55. | :09:55. |