Ulla Taylor is a Screever 2018
August 7, 2018
Ulla Taylor is a Screever an artist who draws pictures on sidewalks, as with colored chalks, earning a living from the donations of spectators and passersby.
I have absolutely no idea when I first met Ulla, as with most of my street performer friends first meetings are always a bit of a blur. It could have been when I was selling tequila at Glastonbury Music Festival in 2001 or at the Auckland Buskers Festival who knows! Anyway Ulla is a friend of mine and I had the recent pleasure of spending a week with her as we converted our living room into a makeshift artist studio and Ulla produced a stunning piece of artwork (in record time) for the new frontage.
I’ve worked with Ulla many times over the years, from Adelaide Street Theatre Festival where she created this amazing life size version of Doctor Who and the Tardis falling into a massive hole in Rundle Mall to painting 3-D cucumbers for Hendrick’s Gin. Ulla creates contemporary public murals with a 3-D twist, you watch them grow and evolve over the course of the festival, throngs of people take a million photographs and then on completion the murals gradually start to fade away.
As I watched her paint the two little bluebirds of happiness on the Parlour frontage I made the mistake of telling her she is really talented, Ulla quietly replied, “I don’t like it when people say that, it ignores the immense amount of hard work and training that has gone into my career over the last 30 years.” For anyone that knows Ulla, she is really the most loveliest person you could meet, so I corrected myself and made sure I wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. However, I did think to myself that even after 30 years of hard work my birds of happiness may not look as happy.
Ulla also creates fine paintings and trompe l’oeil murals for permanent collections, and conducts art workshops for children and youth. You can find loads of her amazing artworks here.
This is my first attempt at a Blog, I wanted to write about all the amazing artists I have had the pleasure of meeting over the many years of travel as a street performer. I do not have a natural talent for writing but I am sure with hardwork and practise my writing will improve.