Graffiti On Steroids

This takes graffiti to a whole new level from blublu.



Great idea and lots of work.  Here's BluBlu's blogblog.

Suppose . . .

that you were riding your bike enjoying the weather and saw a young man laying down his bike at the entrance to the tunnel ahead of you.  Suppose he pulled a can a spray paint out of his back pack just as you rode up.  Suppose he looked at you at that moment.

What would you do?  What would you say?

Would you treat this like seeing some rarely seen critter and stop and watch?

Would you not even notice and zip on by?

Would you pull out your cell phone and call 911?

Such were my thoughts as I went through a tunnel and noticed all the graffiti that normally I didn't see because coming from the light into the dark with sunglasses on makes it hard to see.

I'm partial to graffiti, though I can see multiple sides to the issue. 

Movies like" Exit Through The Gift Shop" give one the sense of why people tag walls. 

And of course Banksy takes graffiti up to the top ranks of political art.  His work is artistically first rate, his content is trenchant, and the placement of his work meaningful.  This Anchorage tunnel graffiti is, well, not great art.

If this were showing up on your house or your fence, you'd be unhappy.  At least this is on public walls and in a tunnel where only people going through the tunnel see it.  And if you're speeding by on a bike on a sunny day, the sudden change in light would make it likely your pupils wouldn't adjust in time to even see it.

What is the lure for these budding artists?  The term 'tags' suggests the messages dogs leave on fire hydrants and trees.  How many REFs are scattered around Anchorage?

I did get to talk to several graffiti artists - and these guys had serious artistic skill - at the library's innovation lab graffiti exhibit.  Here you can see  their work and pictures of the artists MENO, ewok, Bisco, and Will.

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Some property owners have come to appreciate graffiti and given permission for artists to paint on their walls - as in this example of a Banksy in LA which the gas station owner took with him after he sold the gas station.    But that post also highlights a very young man who was killed by police for painting walls.

This one shows a bit more promise.  There isn't a lot of time to get your work up, unless you come late at night.








So, supposing you came across the creator of one of these Zero Percent for the Arts additions to public works with spray can in hand?

Catching The Power Of Art In Action In Venice And Selfie Wall

I passed to people painting the power box for the traffic signal at Lincoln and Rose, so I rode back to ask about what they were doing.

 

Blair Abney is in the green hat and Ian Soto is working on the other side.  They told me it's part of a program to let artists paint various traffic signals. And he went through his paper work and showed me this letter.  It didn't have the name of the group, but it did show permission to paint the boxes at various intersections, including Lincoln and Rose.  Blair can be found as Peachie Paws on Deviant Art and Ian as Mongoose Jack. ([Blair sent me the link.]  I'm leaving the link off until I'm sure because there are different Mongoose names at Deviant Art, and nothing exactly Mongoose Jack.)

The wording does seem a bit odd - the head of the Department of Transportation "approves [a] request" from a city council member, as though the city council didn't have the ultimate power over the city's department of transportation.  Rather than 'approving' it seems he should be "happy to carrying out the council member's request", or, if necessary, pointing out the regulation that is in the way.  I know nothing about Selwyn Hollins*, but it seems a pompous way to respond. 

I did google traffic signal box painting and got to The Power Of Art's website.  I also found their business plan which included their mission statement:

"The Power of Art’s mission is to enable artists, organizations, and everyday people to paint murals on traffic signal boxes and in crosswalks on more than 4,000 street corners in Los Angeles. The vision of Power of Art is to unite and inspire Los Angeles’s artists, organizations, and everyday people by giving them the opportunity to leave their creative mark on history through artistically transforming their communities. "

The art on the box above isn't quite my style - a little to Disneyish.  I like this sort of stuff to be a little edgier, but a lot of people like this as well.  And it's better than a plain box. 

A mile later, when I got to the beach, I passed this selfie wall which gives people a place to take selfies with a bit of a smirk.

According to @The MostFamousArtist at #selfiewall, this was completed March 12.  



*When I write something like "I know nothing about . . ." I, of course, then have to see what I can find.  Here's a very brief bio.

MENO, ewok, Bisco, and Will - Graffiti Artists At Innovation Lab

I've been posting now and then about graffiti and graffiti artists.  The film Exit Through The Gift Shop gave me some sense of graffiti artists and I've paid more attention to what I see on the streets.  I get curious about who the people are, why they are using public

spaces to put up their messages. 

When I went to the Innovation Lab to meet its director Darla Hane, she told me that graffiti artists were coming.  While I was there they began showing up carrying work.


Arielo Taylor (Bisco)  and ewok were the first two to bring stuff in - their own and others.

Arielo (Bisco) Taylor's spider and wolf

ewok's work

There was some talk about what graffiti actually is.  Is it still graffiti if it's done on wood or canvas and hung on a wall  instead of spray painted on?  What about stencils?  Stickers?  Tags? 


This isn't the first time these artists have had their work displayed indoors like this, but they thought this was probably the biggest collection of graffiti art in Anchorage.

MENO's work

I recognized the name MENO immediately.  I'd seen it around town.  And there was a MENO piece at an Out North event, and I asked if he were around.  But he wasn't.

MENO showed up later at the Innovation Lab. 

And he was ok with me taking a picture.  He doesn't work on public walls since he was arrested and paid a fine of over five thousand dollars.  His signature is very distinct and easy to read.












One of the other artists there was Will.  The eye was inked on paper and then Will cut out all the white areas.  I've seen very good Chinese paper cut art, but this was something else altogether. [Note, font for "Will's Eyes" from fontmeme.]

Here are some of his works there (in addition to the eye).  I immediately assumed the picture in the lower left was a self-portrait and Will confirmed that.


It's clear to me that these guys aren't just guys with spray cans.  They have a real sense of art.  I'd encourage Anchorage folks to drop by the innovation lab at Loussac - 4th floor where audio/visual used to be - while this stuff is up.  And it's for sale.

And try to find Darla and see how you can use or be of use to the lab. 

Maker Space - Fab Labs - Darla Introduces The Innovation Lab At Loussac

I'd heard of Maker Space, but hadn't been to one.  The closest, conceptually, I think, was at Off The Chain and Bikerowave, do it yourself bike repair shops with all the tools you need, most of the parts, and someone telling you how to use them.  But those are aimed pretty much making an existing technology work.

Maker Space, as I understand it, aims at creating things that don't exist yet.  It brings together creative people in a lab space with tools and equipment to make what you can imagine with folks willing to help.  Fab labs I'd never heard of, but Darla, on the video, explains they are MIT related.

Darla's an Americorps volunteer in Anchorage for three months so far, whose job it is to create a maker-like-space at Loussac's old audio/visual room on the fourth floor.








Is this a Maker Space?  Not exactly.  It can't handle some of the tools you'd find in other maker spaces - like blow torches.  And it's not a fab lab.   So what is the Innovation Lab then?

After talking to Darla, I'd say it's an idea that is evolving and that she wants as many folks as possible to help make this a space that will help connect people and ideas that go beyond the mundane.  Given all one can find online, I'd say this space has to take advantage of what you can't do online - have people getting together in person.  It's a great space - the old audio visual room of the library.  And Darla's got a 3-D printer on order.

In the back, there are different projects like this TEDx sign for the Anchorage TEDx day in the Marston Theater at Loussac on March 30.  [29 - noon to 7pm]  [I didn't notice that the Anchorage TEDx page is for 2013.]









When I was there, some local graffiti artists were bringing in work that will be on display in the lab for the next month or two.  I'll do another post on that. 

If you have ideas on how to use the lab, give Darla a call.  The basic requirement is that what you do is open to the public.  And, I assume, priority goes to people promoting the exchange of innovative ideas.

When you're at Loussac, go up to the fourth floor and check out the space.  And say hi to whoever is there and talk to them about how they use the space and what they would like it to be.

Think of this as a piece of social community art that we are all going to create. 

Markings - LA

Here are some pictures of pictures and words from LA.






























The red arrow in the picture above points down to this picture on the right.  I'm not sure how this non-commercial painting of four folks at the beach got put up in among the bill boards.









Here's looking at the structure holding up the bill boards.

And on the back side there was this fake owl protecting the limes. 

This caught my eye.  I've been paying more attention to graffiti.  It's more than just some kid with a spray can.  And when I looked up MESH BKC-TNG  I found it was a lot more. 

Mesh at The Left Handed Vandal

Mesh BKC at Street Art SF

This graffiti like mural is on the wall of a car repair place and stands at an intersection of two an alleys.  The panel below turns the corner is around the corner to the right of the top panel. 

Monetizing Outlaw Art And Killing The Artists

Consider the graffiti artist who puts something up in the dead of night on some wall.

A year later, it's auctioned off for $1.1 million.

Irony twisted in irony.  Banksy's graffiti is both clever and well executed.  More succinctly, it's often brilliant.

If he were doing these in a studio on canvas, they would be good.  But the power of these drawings is greatly multiplied by the fact that they are (mostly) done secretly, without permission, in public places, and their placement is part of the comment they make about the world.  Some examples:

• A pole vaulter painted on a wall high above a chain-link face next to the wall.  
• A rat painted into the barred red circle on a no-stopping sign.  
• "Sorry, the life style you ordered is currently out of stock" on a billboard painted on the side of a building.  
• A suited man with a briefcase and a sandwich board over his chest reading "0% interest - in people."  Is this a bank wall I wonder?  
• A hand coming out of a painted barred window reaching down to pick the lock on a painted doorknob on the side of a Bail Bond shop.  

You get the idea.  But the art work itself speaks much more strongly than my descriptions.  You can see all these and many more on Banksy's website. 


This all came up because of a recent LA Times story about a  Banksy drawn on a gas station wall that was cut out of the wall and is going up for auction. The flower girl is faced with a plant that has a surveillance camera where the flower should be.  (For the record, the article says that in this case the owner of the wall gave permission.)

So, a huge part of the appeal of these pieces is the social/political comment at a location that amplifies the point. 

So what does it mean when the owner of a painted wall cuts out the work and sells it for hundreds of thousands of dollars or more?  What does this tell us about how the market works, about fairness, profit, free speech, decency?   Is there an obligation to share some of the profit with the artist?  Often the artist is not known.  In fact has been forced to hide his identity.  Is there an obligation to share the work and/or the profit with the community?  Not under our current private property laws.  The artist is technically a and outlaw, a vandal who has defaced someone else's property and could be charged and tried.  The property owner who may be the object of the artists political humor, turns around and profits from the 'crime' against him. 

This becomes all the more poignant when we consider the graffiti artist who was recently killed by police who tasered him.

[Israel] Hernández, 18, was an artist and photographer who had some of his work exhibited locally. On the morning of Aug. 6, he was spray-painting his graffiti tag “Reefa” on an abandoned McDonald’s when the Miami Beach cops began to chase him. After being cornered a couple blocks away Officer Jorge Mercado shot Hernández with a Taser in the chest. He was pronounced dead at the hospital shortly thereafter.  [from the Militant]

My heart breaks for Hernández' family and friends at this illustration of how police thinking causes so much tragedy.  I don't mean to belittle this by not going into it more fully.  This is worthy of further posts.  Perhaps the fallout will lead to better police training and recognition of kids' needs to express themselves and finding ways to help them do that legally.  

I'm still trying to untwist my brain over all this.

Graffiti, it seems to me, basically comes from an imbalance in society.  Those who feel they have no legitimate means of control over their lives, make their mark by defacing other people's (public or private) property.   It's anger at their own lack of power and at those who have more power. Their spray paint is a visual tantrum.   For others it's putting their brand out to the world.  They may not have $1 million to get a stadium or building named after them, but they do have spray paint.  Others are using spray paint and stencils to present their art or to make a statement about the world. 

Artists like Banksy,  Jean-Michel Basquait, and Kevin [Keith] Haring, whose graffiti has moved from the streets to museums and private collections, illustrate the ironies of capitalism.  One can argue that at first they simply had no legitimate venues, and like street musicians, gave their art away for free until they gained access to legitimate venues.  But a big part of the appeal of graffiti art, unlike street music, comes from the fact that they are making political statements elegantly but illegally.  It's outlaw art, as the police response to Hernández reminds us.

Should graffiti artists share in the profits when their work is auctioned off to the wealthy? 

There are moves to give artists a share in the market appreciation of their work.  From a 2011 NY Times article

"When the taxi baron Robert Scull sold part of his art collection in a 1973 auction that helped inaugurate today’s money-soused contemporary-art market, several artists watched the proceedings from a standing-room-only section in the back. There, Robert Rauschenberg saw his 1958 painting “Thaw,” originally sold to Scull for $900, bring down the gavel at $85,000. At the end of the Sotheby Parke Bernet sale in New York, Rauschenberg shoved Scull and yelled that he didn’t work so hard “just for you to make that profit.”

The uproar that followed in part inspired the California Resale Royalties Act, requiring anyone reselling a piece of fine art who lives in the state, or who sells the art there for $1,000 or more, to pay the artist 5 percent of the resale price."

So, perhaps, if Banksy's Flower Girl sells for $300,000, there would be $15,000 in it for him.  But this is a reminder that there is little that is 'natural' in the market.  It's all about who had the power to get laws written and whom the laws favor or dismiss.  

I've also posted about the film, Exit Through the Gift Shop, which features Banksy and is a good way to get a sense of some of the graffiti artists and their motivation.  And about his painting - Taking a Break. 

Campbell Creek Path Under Seward Highway, Yellow Pond Lilies, Moose in Cow Parsnips and an All Around Beautiful Day

 I can't remember so much warm (into the 70s) weather over a summer.  We've had good spells, but nothing like most of June and a good start in July.  So when B suggested a bike ride today to the Coastal trail, I readily agreed.


I wanted to see how the bike trail they're building under the Seward Highway is doing.  It's blocked off for now, but here's what they've got so far.

It seems the basic trail pad is done, now they just have to pave it.

Though they've taken a perfectly charming path through the bushes and made it as much like freeway as you can do for a bike path.

This could be done by the end of the summer as the project manager told me last year.

You can already ride UNDER Dowling Road.  Though this big black thing adds nothing for me.  Again, superhighway bike trails.   Yet we don't have money for school lunches. I know, the money comes from separate budget allocations from the feds, but still.  [UPDATE 9/10/13:  I learned these are to keep snow plows on the road above from dumping snow on people on the trail.  See this updated post.]

 

Ducks at Taku Lake

The lily pond is in Pamela Joy Lowry Memorial Park - at the north end of Arlene from Dimond High.  A little gem of a neighborhood park. 

The National Park Service  gives some background on the Yellow Pond Lily (Nuphar polysepalum) 

. . . Another interesting metabolic adaptation found in Nuphar is anaerobic respiration, which is respiration without oxygen. This process allows the plant to respire using no oxygen in the process, which is a very useful adaptation in the oxygen-poor environment found in standing water such as ponds and lakes. Anaerobic respiration is a complex chemical process that results in the production of ethanol (the same alcohol that you find in mixed drinks) within the plants cells. Ethanol is a poisonous substance in the plant and must be excreted away quickly in order to avoid harm to tissues. One way this toxin is removed is by evaporating the alcohol back up through the balloon-like aerenchyma cells to the surface of the water. One common name for a closely related yellow pond lily in Europe is "brandy-bottle" because of the strong smell of alcohol coming from its flowers (which are at the end of long, tube-like stems filled with aerenchyma tissue). This plant forms large tubers that sprout new clusters of leaves in the spring when ponds and lakes thaw after the long winter. These tubers are storage organs for the sugars that the plant produces each summer – they can be eaten after roasting or boiling, and are quite tasty!

 We passed this bench inside Kincaid Park.  A nice way to remember a young man who liked the guitar.

This is for Jeremy who likes all things electrical.  I liked the quality and message of the graffiti.  We're not sure what this was for, though there was a long trench out toward the inlet on the other side of the trail, and B speculated it might have something to do with the windmills out on Fire Island.

 

There was a bunch of spruce grouse chicks and then I saw the hen between the trees.

Nothing special here, I just like birch trees.

I continue to be amazed at how well moose can hide in plain sight. These are huge animals, yet they can merge in with the scenery.  I would have gone right past this one without seeing it if B hadn't called it to my attention.  Even though its hind quarters were practically sticking out onto the bike trail.

 

Would you know there was a moose in there amongst the cow parsnip?  Still can't see it?

Here's a closer look.

 The cow parsnip must have been really good, because he didn't seem to mind all the bikes zooming by with a few feet of his behind.  

Political Graffiti

We walked past this sign Wednesday night.  It seems someone felt Clary's connection to the Anchorage Baptist Temple deserved some recognition on his signs.

And when I checked the spelling of 'graffiti' I found this do-it-yourself graffiti creator site.  This just popped out of my finger tips.  It just seemed right to play with their "Kodiak' style.  [UPDATE March 8, 2014:  I went back to the diy site today and I can't find the page where I created the image below.  Now it looks like you have to buy it all.  Graffiti artists need to make a living too.  But you can go to fontmeme where you can generate your own graffiti in different fonts and colors.]

From the Muni Election page:

ASSEMBLY - DISTRICT 4 -SEAT F Total Number of Precincts 25 Precincts Reporting 23 92.0% Times Counted 6178/35860 17.2% Total Votes 6055 CLARY, Andy 2506 41.39% TRAINI, Dick 3497 57.75% Write-in Votes 52 0.86%

Petoskey Project - Reading of New Play - Sydney Laurence - Tonight 7:30pm Free

So if you're still wondering what to do on this grey and chilly Saturday evening, let me offer some options.  

Long time friend and participant, Richard Benavides, recommends in the Petoskey Project.  I know nothing else about it, but I really like the poster.
It's free, as you can see, but you can donate to Alzheimer's Resources of Alaska.

[UPDATE:  Here's an audio YouTube interview with Ann Reddig and David Haynes about the Petoskey Project from KONR (106.1fm).  I just listened to enough to know it was about this play.  I prefer to be surprised.]

OR

Out North shows The Brits and their Telly - award winning British television commercials.  In past years this was a collection of quirky, mostly funny, and original ads.  Last year I was put off by the number of McDonald's and other international corporate ads in the collection.  But I decided to give it another try last night, which was better than last year.  But there were several packages of ads that looked like they were put together by an advertising firm that described the whole advertising campaign.  Perhaps if they had really described the campaign instead of making a slick short that was basically promoting their products I'd have been more interested.  I would say the whole evening for me was worth it just to see a very neat public service ad that was made up of  animated graffiti people walking along walls.  7pm tonight and again next Friday and Saturday.

Websites As Art And 3 Other Specialized Artish Blogs

 Can you sell a website as a piece of art?  See Newrafael below.  How about interactive websites?  Newrafael again and myoats allow you to participate in what's on the screen.  The other two are specialized blogs one focusing on tentatcles, the other on beauty and decay. 

From Tentacle Spectacle Dec. 29,2011

Tentacle Spectacle There's a new picture posted each day.  The subtitle is:

"If it involves tentacles in art or nature, it's here."

And each picture, sometimes three a day, has tentacles.














Myoats.com - this is a site where you can make your own geometric designs. Some of the 'favorites' are very representational and I'm not sure how they did them. A couple, you can see are mirror imaged. The one above I did after trying out a few times and watching the tutorial videos.  Go in and try some yourself.

These are screenshots of 5 dynamic, interactive pieces at newrafael

RR(newrafael)   This site sells digital art pieces and the medium is whole websites if I understand it right.  The pieces are in motion.  Here's a sampler of a few of about 40 pieces, and of course, the sampler has no motion or sound (I'm listening to lapping waves of one piece as I write this.) There's a discussion of digital art on the internet vs. more traditional media.  There's even a contract for purchasing an art object website - here is part of it:

Obligations Collector: The Collector shall:

• renew the domain, being part of the Artwork, always in time in order to have the Artwork accessible;
• as long as it is technically feasible, keep the website, being part of the Artwork, on-line and accessible to the public;
• always show the Artwork on the latest and most appropriate technologies;
• ask Artist through written consent if the Artwork is to be exhibited in commercial spaces, being any space other than public and art spaces;
• ask Artist through written consent if the Artwork is to be reproduced for purposes other than catalogues and art magazines, such as reproductions for advertisements, movies, photo’s, merchandising etc.; and
• not use the Artwork for the promotion of any services or products of any kind.

If you go to the artwork sites (this is really a collection of websites) be sure to look at all the links along the top of the page.  And play with your mouse.  Some are definitely interactive, others I wasn't sure about.


Beautiful/Decay  - This one is hard to pin down, but I'd say that beauty and decay can be found in most of the posts.  It's connected to a publication described on the website:

 Publication

From Beatiful/Decay

Beautiful/Decay began as a humble, black and white, DIY photocopied ‘zine while founder Amir H. Fallah was just 16. Over time, the publication grew into a full color, internationally distributed magazine. Today, Beautiful/Decay takes the form of a limited edition, hand numbered, advertising free art book series. Though Beautiful/Decay has grown into an internationally recognized design-driven lifestyle brand, the publication still carries that same youthful sense of rebellion and experimentation that influenced the very first issues.

The post that caught my attention was on the best of street art.   Perhaps street art, including graffiti, is one of the original 'occupy' movements.