An Overrrrduueee update.

I’m late, late, late for a very important Garbage dayte.

Just a tag ontop one of those shoddy new garbage bins.

Legal Disclaimer: The presence of a name and/or names tagged does not necessarily signify said tagger(s) approval of the the object tagged. Views expressed and made manifest by the object are those of the architects, and may not reflect the opinions of this blog.

This spot keeps getting crossed out. I keep coming back.

The last person to do it used silver marker, and also added the word “GAY”.

I have theories as to why tagging culture can be so homophobic, I’ve talked before about it on account of how I’m often called a fag by some of the writers in Toronto…

But whatever, I’ve decided to roll with it. The central inverted triangle of my signature postronimos has been made pink! If you don’t recognize the significance of this, allow me to explain: Nazi Germany put accused sexual deviants, including suspected rapists, pedophiles, zoophiles, and homosexuals into their concentration camps, and marked them with a badge of an inverted pink triangle. According to Wikipedia: “The inverted pink triangle, originally intended as a badge of shame, has become an international symbol of gay pride and the gay rights movement, and is second in popularity only to the rainbow flag.”

I did it with my favorite marker.

I wanna do more. I’m gonna do more.

Go ahead, call me a homo! I’ll be a Fagger Tagger! Happily! With pride!

-Gay Pride!

WOW, I feel gross.

Food poisoning, I think..

I might be a little slow on the updates for a bit.

It’s a Tag Tuesday!

Can you see it?

How’d I get so high?

A: a series of well-executed jumps

Whenever it’s a Tag Tuesday I like to write a little something extra; for all of y’all who care not for tags. I’m not sure what to write today… I think I’ll write some thoughts about being BROKE and WAY TOO BUSY and NEEDING SOMETHING before getting started on building something! I will do this in a SHORT LIST FORM.

Ahem,

	As an artist, there are things in this world that will prevent you from achieving what it is you ideally want to achieve. These are real obstacles, and they can usually (In my experience) be described as a deficiency in some regard.
	The deficiencies that you feel the most will depend on the quirks and circumstances of your birth and life till now juxtaposed with whatever your goals happen to be.
	But whatever resource it is that you feel you are poor in, whether it is time, money, information, network, location, materials, space, transportation, training, assistance, access, skill, strength, whatever, anything- waiting for that resource or resources to come into abundance is a great way to waste time and become embittered. It can also become a crutch and an excuse.
	Futhermore, want is not the desolate plain you imagine it to be, impossible to produce in, void of productivity. In fact, Want is just the opposite. Want forces creative solutions. Want is not a state to be abandoned, it is a fertile ground to be developed.
	And finally, the aesthetics of want will eventually become coveted by those who have all the resources that you wish you had. Think about that. And get started.

Whoops!!!

Whether in art, or in life, it is important to permit yourself to make mistakes.

No Mistakes = No Risk

Mistakes suck, and risk will ruin your nerves- but;

No Chance of Mistakes = No Chance of Awesome

I think that a life lived completely free of a few huge mistakes to groan at, face-palm, and go fetal over, is probably a life scarcely worth living. (And probably impossible anyway…)

Though Maybe I’m just saying all that because I want to feel better about my screw-ups and bad choices!

EITHER WAY, I RECOMMEND ALLOWING YOURSELF TO BE IN POSITIONS WHERE YOU MIGHT MAKE MISTAKES.

…but don’t come running back to me when it all blows up!

It’s a Tag Tuesday!

I’ve been thinking about Birdhouses lately. Alot.

Along with Whirligigs and Mailboxes they are a part of that holy-trinity of public folk-art; which was a fascinating part of my rural childhood, and continues to fascinate me.

I want to make more. In fact, I think I want to go “All Park”.

(Not including those tiny-town Parkettes)

…hhhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Doolil and his boy “Phibbbister” have crossed me out and called me toy!

Also, in related news;

The Pots have called the Kettle black.

“Oho!” said the pot to the kettle;
“You are dirty and ugly and black!
Sure no one would think you were metal,
Except when you’re given a crack.”

“Not so! not so!” kettle said to the pot;
“‘Tis your own dirty image you see;
For I am so clean -without blemish or blot-
That your blackness is mirrored in me”

Tag Tuesday!

Hey, this video is inspiring. All the colours and energy. It’s seems to me almost like these kids have ran into the dirty, dangerous, traffic-laden underpass with bubblegum, and starting blowing bubbles, way too large, till they popped against the walls!

This is what tagging looks like to me. Candy and Danger and Fun.

You should watch it.

ALSO,

A little while ago I talked about the possibility that Ron English might be moving to Toronto to set up shop.

Turns out that was all a prank.

Hilarious?

“With the city of Toronto alarmed about the graffiti problem, it seemed timely to satirize the situation by claiming to establish a Graffiti Museum downtown to perpetuate this medium of free expression. The purpose was to promote the subsequent screenings of “Abel Raises Cain” and “Is There Sex After Death?” at the Bloor Cinema in December 2008.”

Man, how is this satire? At all? Even a little?

We live in a world where graffiti “museums” like the one suggested in the Ron English prank were being created during the height of the graffiti crackdown in NYC. This seeming contradiction isn’t satire and it’s nothing new. There is contradiction in the graffiti world. Lots of it. We live in a world where Banksys graffiti work is protected and maintained. So how is this “prank” anything but a totally believable claim, generated to create buzz for a movie screening, later exposed to be a lie?

Laaaammmmmmeeeee.

Wait, there is a prank in here…

I suppose the real prank is successfully getting Torontonians to actually believe that big names really want to move to their fair city. I’d like to see street artists I admire relocate here without it being a cruel joke.

Hey, I hear Banksy and Espo and Seen are moving here to set up a graffiti wonderland of awesomeamazingness.

Just saying.

It’s a Tag Tuesday!

It a Tunnel Top Tag Tuesday Today!

Terrific.

Hey, I did an interview with Senses Lost!

Check it out here!

Tag Tuesday!

Broken Window Theory.

haha! Bam.

It has come to my attention that many of you dislike tagging, and don’t like it when I put it on my site as an update- for several reasons. Several good reasons. They deserve an answer.

I had started to write a whole long screed about why I think graff is important, but I wasn’t happy with it, and I DON’T HAVE TIME FOR REAL EDITING. MY STARS AM I SO BUSY.

Instead, I’ve tried to distill it down to some bullet points-

Pew, Pew! Here we go!

	I will not be a “Street Art Apologist”, one of the many, many, many who will say: “I love street art, oh, do I ever!- but I don’t like graffiti. I really hate tagging, it’s awful.”
	I think this popular line of thinking is partially an attempt to legitimize street art, or ones appreciation of street art, by distancing or completely divorcing street art from its most anti-social elements. Street art is all engaged citizens beautifying the oft-neglected urban environment; Graffiti is all stupid kids and gang members and undesirables, no better than dogs pissing to mark territory.
	Offering up tagging as a sacrificial lamb to help street art gain mainstream acceptance is shortsighted, too easy, and, worst of all, incorrect. It ignores the elephant in the room, and the very foundations of street art, as well as the reality of the culture today. Maybe 95% of what goes on in most cities could be called graff; maybe 5% could be called street art. (Reverse this ratio for what’s popular on the internet.)
	Street art and Graffiti are different sides of the same coin. At their very core- they are the same thing.
	To completely villanize graffiti and offer up street art for sainthood is foolish. It is something like saying, I love Graphic Novels, but I hate all that moronic, childish super-hero crap. Again, it is ignoring the elephant in the room and the medium’s foundations and roots. As I mentioned before, I think the umbrella term for work that people like me do, that is; Illegal or Unpermitted Public Visual Artworks, should be “Graffiti”. I’m hoping “Street Art” will mature in a similar path as the “Graphic Novels” community and come to sufficiently embrace, accept, and understand their dirty, shameful roots.
	If you want to understand street art, you need to understand graff.
	The Street art = “acceptable, good” and graffiti = “unacceptable, bad” argument will eventually lead to a curatorial role being taken, probably by government, with somebody choosing what work is and isn’t allowable- what is “Street Art”. And when that reaches a peak, when “streetart proposals” are being reviewed and selected by municipal committees, then street art’s vibrancy and vitality is officially dead- At least as it stands now. It could become something new, something great, a system of public and publicly funded murals- something I’d like to see! – But it would be limited to expressing government-approved messages; inevitably watered down by the bureaucratic process.
	This seems to be moving faster in the UK than here, with some councils already voting to keep and maintain Banksys- but nothing else. When/If this cycle reaches its apex, I predict a return to graffiti roots as artists search for authenticity and the original elements that made graff, and then street art, so successful and appealing.
	…
	I like tagging.