Adventures in doodleland
Plus James O'Malley has an abundance agenda, we review Macknade, upcoming Kent events, news in brief, and more
Many artists claim they live and breathe their work, but Sam Cox takes that a step further. Under his Mr Doodle moniker, he has turned his entire house near Tenterden, inside and out, into a bold representation of his work. We’ve been finding out more about his work. Further down, we’ve spoken to Kent writer and journalist James O’Malley about his new podcast and have been to Macknade in Faversham for lunch. Beyond that, we’ve got our pick of upcoming events in Kent, news in brief, and more.
Editor’s note: Our regular news briefings are published in the middle of the week. This is our first weekend briefing edition focusing more on arts and culture across the county. We won’t be putting out one of these every week (at least for now), with our weekend slot alternating between these and our regular interview features.
Adventures in doodleland
Sam Cox, aka Mr Doodle is a successful Kent-based artist who has decorated his home in a unique style. Unconventionally, we submitted our questions and received a response via a series of voice notes.
I ask if this is a Banksy-esque attempt to hide his true self, but surprisingly, rather than a distorted voice, I hear a clear, happy response. “It's the way that I find easier to answer interviews. It's quicker than typing it all out, which would hide my identity more.” Sam isn’t trying to hide like Banksy, though he points out, “I love Banksy and his work.” To be fair, Sam with his bright ginger hair and loud doodle suit would be an extreme case of hiding in plain sight.
Sam gained the nickname Mr Doodle around university, where he had doodled around campus in toilet cubicles and the studio. One day he drew on his clothes and “my tutor saw me. He took a photo of me and put it onto Instagram. The caption read, ‘Sam Cox, the doodle man, about to start his day's work in doodling.’” Sam initially had the monicker The Doodle Man, before changing it in March 2017. “That's where it came from in the real sense, but…” Mr Doodle is a character who fell from Doodleland and landed in Sam Cox's head, took him over in a sense and has an ambition to doodle the entire world.
Graffiti spaghetti is a term that Sam uses to describe Mr Doodle’s work, which is influenced by graffiti and street art aesthetics. The work spoke to him as a teenager, attracting his eye as an aspiring artist at the time. “I wanted my work to have a similar feeling but still feel like my own thing.” Sam would mimic lines or shapes you might find in flat graffiti, old school New York subway artwork and the work of Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol. He was inspired by characters he saw painted on trains and books that he would read, as well as the work of Angel ‘LA II’ Ortiz. “Artists in that world helped me develop what I do visually. I call what I do graffiti spaghetti because lots of the drawings overlap and intertwine and folds in the same way that spaghetti does”.
Sam lives in a mansion near Tenterden with his wife, son and dog. Sam insists they are happy in their home that is covered in Mr Doodle's work. The walls, the floor, the ceiling and the furniture. The Guardian described it as like ‘stepping inside a migraine’, “People think that it isn't really a liveable space, but we actually really like it”. Sam enjoys showing visitors around the place. “It's been a dream project of mine since I was a little kid, and I'm just really happy to be living in it.” Sam clearly has a supportive wife, wearing doodle designed clothing. She even has her own project in the garden. “It also features parts of my work, but it's a very different concept to the house and that's really her outlet.” Sam encourages his son to doodle on the walls as well. He points out there is a lot of fun to be had in a house like that. “It's nice to see him grow up happy in a doodle environment.” Sam ponders what his son’s views on doodling and art in general will be when he grows up, but says he thinks “the doodles and the house encourage him.” Sam himself finds the house a constant source of inspiration for future projects.
The house became an obsessional thought in Sam’s head since he was a teenager, when his graphics teacher, Morgan Davies, opened his mind to taking those doodles onto bits of furniture, bits of my parents' furniture, onto walls and floors. He drew over his entire room, everything you could kind of think of, and then inside items like the chest of drawers. “I really loved going to sleep and waking up in that doodle space.” That, as Sam puts it, “naturally led to the thought of, ‘I'd love to do a house like this one day.’” Naturally. At 15, it seems like a far-fetched dream to doodle a house. “It could have been a flat,” he concedes. When the opportunity arose, made possible through selling artwork and “things going well,” he bought a house that was completely white on the outside. “It's a great canvas.”
Sam insists that it wasn't a throwaway concept. “I planned it all, each room, how it will be doodled, the animation that went alongside it.” Sam is sat in his living room whilst recording his voice note replies, and reflecting on the doodles throughout the room. They took two years to finish and he reflects on “how much joy that project brought me to do. I just really wanted to show the world how much I love to do this.” Sam has a happy compulsion to share his love of doodling and show people “it's okay to be different.” Sam understands that people might not want to live in the house, or understand the ideas behind it, “but I think it's cool that we can do things as humans sometimes that aren't always normal.”
Fortunately for Sam and family, they have “extremely kind and friendly neighbours.” Sam put’s this down to the fact that whilst the house might be loud, they are not a noisy family. “We don’t have parties here.” They try to be friendly to the people around them, which is reciprocated. “We got really lucky with where we live, that the people around us are happy to be supportive of what I want to do.” The house is not secluded but is surrounded by greenery, so “it's not as loud from the street as you might imagine. It's almost as quiet as it possibly could be, this doodle house.”
In the summer of 2023 Sam was approached by the Kent and East Sussex Railway about the possibility of a mural within a train station. Sam thought that it would be great if the piece were on a train itself. “With it being a railway, it just makes sense in our minds.” Sam pushed that idea to the railway over the period of about a year before they were given authorisation. “It's not something that happens often at the railway. We decided to have the train wrapped”. One side of the carriage was black, and one side was white. The plan was for Mr Doodle to doodle over the white side and Dr Scribble to scribble over the black side. I ask who Dr Scribble is. “Dr Scribble is Mr Doodle's arch nemesis,” Sam explains. Say no more.
Kent and East Sussex Railway embraced the work, and the Heritage Railway Association highly commended the carriage. “Whilst it was a controversial thing at first, it ended up being really well received. And my son likes trains, he enjoyed the day too, so it was great.”
What advice would Sam have for a young person doodling in a notebook? In short, “Have fun.” But if you want a longer answer, “Find what you love, what do you love about doodling?” Sam expands on this this advising not to think about what you are doodling, but do you love doodling? Are you enjoying the process? What makes you want to doodle? “It took me years to think less when I draw and not worry about what I'm drawing.” Sam says it takes to build confidence, to let the work come out. Even if it isn’t very good at first, “If you like the process, just keep at it, don't worry too much about what others think.”
In brief
🔭 A seafront telescope which is almost 100 years old has become the latest artefact to go on display at the free to enter Walpole Bay Hotel museum in Cliftonville.
🌼 Two Kent gardens have been shortlisted in the Historic Houses Garden of the Year Awards. Hole Park Gardens in Cranbrook and Penshurst Place and Gardens in Tonbridge will now face a public vote to decide the winner.
🚶 Great British Life magazine have been for a bluebell walk around Challock.
James O’Malley has an abundance agenda
Kent-based writer and journalist James O’Malley has a new podcast called The Abundance Agenda, with his longtime friend Martin Robbins. We caught up with James, a friend of this organ, via Zoom, to talk about what it’s all about.
For James the focus of the Abundance Agenda is the premise that they have been “radicalised by the malaise that Britain has found itself in over the past several years.” James and Martin draw together several strands of thinking, but broadly the podcast is about the “rejection of a scarcity mindset.”
James takes a moment to gather his thoughts. It turns out that this is the first time he has had to verbalise the intentions of the podcast. “We have the solutions, the ability and the talent to build a better country, and a better world.” What James believes is lacking is the political will to do it. When you consider the issues facing the country after years of underfunding and stagnation, he seems to have a point. It is very closely aligned with the YIMBY movement, ‘Yes In My Backyard’, “the idea that the best way to tackle the housing crisis is if you have more houses, that lowers the cost of housing for everyone.”
Another example James gives is tackling climate change, and the idea that do so we need to live more miserable lives. “It radicalised me because I care about climate change, but at the same time, a lot of the mainstream thinking on the policy solutions are we need to do less, we need to travel less, we need to consume less, and people need to live less luxuriously.” James highlights that in the West, maybe rich people can go on fewer foreign holidays, but if we are to tackle climate change, we need to recognise that poorer people are struggling. For James the solution is nuclear energy, which has the potential to reduce the cost of living, through reducing energy bills, whilst producing excess energy, “which we could do other clever things with.”
James is using the podcast to talk about these big ideas with Martin. They are both millennials, and things their parents took for granted are no longer accessible. “I said on the first episode of our podcast, the reason that housing radicalised me is because me and my partner Liz bought a house a few years ago in Kent. That was an expensive thing for us to do.” James and his partner are professional people, with reasonably well-paid jobs, “and if we're struggling to buy a house and save up the money for a deposit, then what does that mean for everyone else?”
The Abundance Agenda is trying to advocate for a mindset shift. It is building upon currents that seem to be developing within politics. “You can see these ideas emerging, I think it's coalescing into almost a new ideology or a new approach, cross-party as well,” with left wing writers like Aaron Bastani and those on the right like Tom Harwood, who are on board with abundance. “It feels like there's a time for something new.”
The plan is to keep this as a weekly podcast, and they have big ambitions and big plans for show. Future conversations on the podcast are planned around medical research, funding, and more. “I think about how you can approach things in a different way and get really good results.”
You can subscribe to the Abundance Agenda wherever you get your podcasts.
Out to Lunch: Macknade in Faversham
Macknade Food Hall is exceptional place to shop in Faversham, but we are not there to shop, we are there to lunch. Food shopping is a bonus. As you enter the centuries-old establishment, their decision to invest in new electric car power points should be a bold forward-thinking move. However, seeing a wall of Tesla logos as you drive in gives off a different vibe in the current world situation.
Entering through the Food Hall, you get to spy all of your future purchases as make you way to the café area, which is clearly popular. You eye a small table, and are poised should another table become available, either in the main area, or another down and to the side. Suddenly, you discover there is a whole other seating area available upstairs, which they open up. They probably haven’t done this just for you, but it still feels special nevertheless.
Whilst you have to order at the counter, they thankfully deliver the food up the stairs for you. I have ordered the Kentish Ploughman’s Platter, as the Ploughman’s platter of Kent is presumably only available on the west side of the Medway. Winterdale Shaw cheddar, gammon ham, celery, apple, pickled onions, slaw, Karly’s Kitchen chutney, and sourdough bread. All for a reasonable price point as platters go.
Karly certainly makes a great chutney, which goes well with the cheese and ham. Good sourdough bread, and whilst I am not usually a celery eater, I enjoy it as part of this ensemble lunch. As I write this review, I want more of their pickled onions. Macknade is a great place for lunch, to eat, to chat and for an expensive shopping spree afterwards.
Kent events
🎸 Sat 19 Apr - My Life Story + The Pastel Waves // The Britpop band come and play in Rainham. Oast Community Centre, Rainham. Tickets £22.50.
Until 20 Apr - Broadstairs Food Festival // Stalls offering all kinds of exciting food and drink options. Victoria Gardens, Broadstairs. Free.
🎸 Thu 24 Apr - King Creosote // Prolific Scottish DIY singer-songwriter. Forum, Tunbridge Wells. Tickets £30.
🎤 Sat 26 Apr - Live at the Marlowe // Simon Amstell headlines popular live comedy night. Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury. Tickets from £17.
🎹 1 - 5 May - Rainham Piano Festival // Internationally acclaimed jazz and classical pianists play Rainham, headed by Curtis Stigers. St Margaret’s Church, Rainham. Tickets from £15.
Footnotes
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