Welcome to the Advent Calendar, day 16. Little moments of artistic beauty around Harehills.
I decided on this article a few months ago because I noticed something that struck me, as it was lovely, and because I must have passed it dozens upon dozens of times and never noticed it.
I have since learned a bit of a history of about these road signs, courtesy of Karen Parnaby-Harris.
Karen is an amazing force for good in Harehills, having spent years driving and supporting projects in the area with a focus on arts and plant life, I know her best from her work with Back to Front. She’s also a big supporter of the Harehills Good News Advent Calendar and was probably, singlehandedly responsible for half the views we got last year.
So, as it turned out, Karen was the person to ask as she was heavily involved in the creation of these road signs. I will paraphrase what she told me:
Around 15 years ago, Karen and Jane Ball, who lived on the Darfields, were both working in other areas as community artists, but were both sick of nothing lovely happening in Harehills at the time.
Action being better than, inaction, they set about putting a bid into the Arts Council and got funding to spend a year working with local people to co-design and make the road signs.
Karen and Jane worked with a number of local organisations on the design of these signs, including:
- Harehills Primary School
- Harehills Sure Start
- Thackray Kids Science Group
- Harehills Place Youth Group
- St Aidan’s Youth Group
- The Pakistani Centre Youth Group
Along side open sessions held at Ashton Play Area and St Aidan’s Church. They also worked with the Hibiscus Carribbean Elders Group and Compton Nursery which has it’s own mosaic in the lobby.
The project took a tremendous amount of effort to get permissions from the council, and to arrange having them put in place. Karen had to ake an entire alphabet of plaster moulds to make the lettering in ceramic uniform, so it could meet the council’s legibility criteria.
There was also a series of 3 panels on Ashton Park, but sadly they were stolen, which was a very sad outcome for something so creative, local in the area.
Most of the signs have actually lasted really well, though some of the lower down ones have been damaged.
Karen Parnaby-Harris, December 22
So yeah, I’ve lived in Harehills for just short of a decade, and because I wasn’t looking up, I’ve missed these amazing little bits of colour, of local art – so you can bet I’m going to go looking for the rest of them.
So thank you to Karen and Jane, and everyone that got involved, for bringing something delightful to our community.
Which colourful street signs have you seen?
Harehills ❤️ Love 
Leave a comment