The lovely silhouettes that TEETH and I made;

They have not been buffed!

Indeed, as this picture illustrates, other sorts of graffiti have been buffed regularly (In this case, perhaps someone added a word or thought bubble above the head of our male lover? I wonder, what was on his mind?) but our silhouettes remain. Whosoever is the guardian of this vacant property has decided to allow and protect the “Ghost House” ghosts. All other colonists have been dealt with in the usual, harsh manner.

It’s always very gratifying when this sort of thing happens.

Making a GOOD work that can also pass the litmus test of a community and a caretaker- that’s tricky. It’s one of the hardest tests a street artist can pass.

Congrats to us, TEETH!

Here is the last one- a woman returning home, her grocery bags in hand, while a Ficus stands watch in her window.

I was lucky to get such nice photos of the whole thing. Amazingly, there weren’t any cars parked in front of the building like there usually are.

Just when I began to take photos of the work, an older gentleman spotted me with my camera. He approached me with a pole trimmer resting on his shoulder- the kind used for trimming tree branches. It was evidence of his involvement with his yard and suggested a commitment to the aesthetic wellbeing of his community in general. It gave him a “get the hell of my lawn” sort of look. He seemed ready to accuse me of being responsible for the recent “defacement” of the empty building on his block. It didn’t help that his pole trimmer looked vaguely threatening- reminiscent of a Guandao, or perhaps, closer to a Fauchard.

My instinct was to move along before he could become accusatory or confrontational but I reminded myself that I was just there as a photographer. I had tons of plausible deniability and nothing more to link me to the work other than the fact I was taking pictures of it. But I needn’t have worried- he just wanted to talk! About the work, the building and the unseasonably warm weather!

As it turned out, he wasn’t the crotchety sort of fellow that demands people stay off his lawn, but the wonderful sort of indiscriminately social fellow (perhaps a retiree?) who’s simply looking for a pleasant conversation after a bit of yard work in the brisk weather.

It was a great encounter. I was tempted to surreptitiously turn my camera on to video mode and capture audio of it- but, if I had, there would have been no guarantee that my crappy camera (an Olympus, don’t ever buy Olympus) would have had the battery life to also take the rest of the stills I needed for BD. I could have came back the next day, but there was also no guarantee that the work would still be up. Experience has taught me to get the documentation I need as soon as I can. (Sometimes I hate having to slavishly document my work). Thinking about it now, I suppose there are also privacy and consent issues, but at the time, I was just thinking, – “hey, this is so awesome. I want a record of this.”

He began talking to me by saying something like; “Wonderful, isn’t it?!” He then began explaining how the work appeared recently, how the work was likely made (it almost looked like “they” used stencils, but he doubted it) and what he thought of the work (he loved it!) He was talking like a proud co-owner of a new artwork, not an upset neighborhood watchdog.

As we were chatting another man, middle-aged, came by pushing a baby carriage. He caught us talking about the work and asked the older man if he knew who was behind it! The older man confessed he didn’t but he admired their workmanship. The two agreed that the piece was remarkable. I’m paraphrasing, but they said things like “a thoughtful piece of graffiti, not like most of the ugly stuff you see.”

This was so great to hear. As a street artist, you don’t get to hear a lot of person-to-person feedback. I do get feedback online, and don’t get me wrong, I love the feedback I get through BD (Please keep it coming!) but on Blade Diary, I’m largely preaching to the choir. If you’re reading this, you probably already like street art, and there’s a good chance you’re living in the States! (Hello my American Comrades!) BD’s primary traffic isn’t from Toronto, or even from Canada, let alone from the communities where I put my work up- so to have such glowing feedback from two people who don’t look at street art online, who aren’t fans of graffiti- don’t even like graffiti- and live in and care about the community where the work is installed- is all very rewarding. I wish TEETH were there with me to enjoy it with me.

After the man with the baby continued on, the older fellow filled me in on the whole story of the empty building. The part where TEETH and I installed our work is the original building, before the additions were made. The building was largely filled with old-world immigrants, many of whom had lived in the building since its construction. The back area has a very large green space, now bare, but was once lively and colorful. It was a special place- maintained as a garden by the residents and treated as a public park by the community. At the back of this space is a row of old barns, originally stables.

The building and lot was purchased by a developer, planning to make a façade out of the original building, and using the full lot, create a condo with some 800 units. They weren’t counting on such an organized and outspoken community, however, which blocked the initial proposal with complaints that such a tall building would block all the sunlight, and throw surrounding homes into almost constant shadow.

The developers came back with a proposal for a tiered roofline, allowing for more sunlight. Again, it was blocked by the community- and then- the economy collapsed; leaving the project with an uncertain future. Before this all happened, however, notice was served to the last remaining tenants, who were living in the unit with today’s update painted on it- the lady with her groceries. By the time the last hold-outs left, all the other floor level windows and doors had been boarded up, and they were living alone in the old, original part of the building.

Together, we lamented the seemingly inevitable loss of character, the gentrification of our city and the ugliness and shoddy construction of newer buildings- which aren’t made to last. He had a nephew (I think? Maybe it was a son, or son-in-law) who was currently working on pulling the leaky pipes out of a condo downtown, a condo that had only just been built a few years prior. He told me that “old buildings age, new buildings just get old.” We agreed, that while this building had seen better days, (the gentleman explained that the shifting and cracking was largely due to being built atop the buried Garrison creek) this building was still more charming than, say, the so-called, auto-parodying “Bohemian Embassy”, under construction in the heart of trendy and artsy Queen St. West.

I told him I should get going, and he agreed, saying “the weather’s lovely if you keep moving!” and we went on our ways.

I like how these stencils bring a sense of life back to the building.

Dude is making something in the kitchen- maybe having some coffee.

Hey,

I really don’t know what to make of this.

Whats the deal?

But- I really want to believe. Ron English is great. This idea is great. Come to my city Mr. English, please.

Young Lovers.

Hey, I’ve been really loving Senses Lost.

Check it out!

Also, check out this TV commercial.

Here’s the first large window.

A woman reading!

Speaking of which.. I think it’s time for the first-ever Posterchild Book Review!

The Adventures of Darius and Downey (And other true tales of Street Art as told to Ed Zipco)

I was very excited for this book. VERBS (Darius) and Downey are two artists whose work I respect a great deal. They came up around the same time as I did, and then (Like now) I marvel in awe at the scale and audacity of the work that they were doing. I was able to stop myself from ordering this book online, but once it was in my hands, it completely seduced me.

The Adventures of Darius and Downey has a lovely pulp-inspired cover which features the artists public-worker costumes; their reflective vests and hard hats. And you know how I feel about costumes and all that. I had to pick it up. A quick flip through the pages assured me of a rich content- It was full of colour pictures of their great work, but moreover, it also had pages and pages of text. This book promised to do more than show me the work, it was going to tell me the story of the work- and the story of the artists who made it. This is the key element missing from most image-heavy street art books. I suppose we street artists are used to letting the work live or die alone, and that’s fine, but I won’t buy a book full of images I can see, or have already seen online. I might later, when I need cool picture books to cover the many coffee tables of my mansion- but not now. This book was different, it going to give me more insight than I could find online. And it was tactile and sexy too. The Adventures of Darius and Downey comes in hard cover ONLY and has a good heft and feel, with a smooth dust jacket.

Like I said above, I was excited for this book. So much so that I spent the 40 bucks that I didn’t have on it. I was able to justify the splurge to myself as “research” or as “inspiration”, but I got a call from Mr. Visa yesterday- He wanted his missed minimum payment of 53 dollars, and I’m not sure I made the right call anymore.

The book was quite disappointing.

The main problem with this book is that it was written by Ed Zipco. Ed is a college buddy of Darius and Downey’s- as is revealed in the book, they all met while at Pratt, in NYC.

Ed took the job of immortalizing his buddies adventures very seriously. He writes less like he’s been charged with relaying their story, and more like he’s putting down the creation myth of a new religion, whispered in his ear by angels.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that it’s an easy thing to write, and I don’t think that street art is an easy thing to write about, but Zipco’s breathless style makes it hard to sympathize with the difficulty of his task. The first challenge is finding a way to involve both graff-heads and non graff-heads alike, without pages of history or exposition. Then you have to find a way to describe the experience of street art without being boring, which is tricky, because so much of the practical side of it is so similar- “We went to a spot, it was sketchy, it was cold, we got scared, someone almost got hurt, the plan got fucked up, but we pulled it off- mostly.” Sure, I’ll read through all that every time, but I live for this stuff, and even I found it ponderous and repetitive in The Adventures of Darius and Downey . I can’t see a non-head making headway through this book.

See, Zipco writes like he’s in high school. His writing is the sort of thing you wrote in High School, look back at later- and feel that deep, physical embarrassment in your gut at. You know the feeling. The one that makes you palm your face and groan “uhhhhhh….” Like the feeling you get when you remember the first time you got drunk and peed your pants.

I think this particular passage epitomizes what I’m getting at here:

“Leon’s life was going well enough and so like most things hitting their stride, it was due for a strong hiccup. With graduation coming fast, there were major changes on the horizon, no matter how hard he would fight the tide. But bigger, unseen clouds were gathering.


Spring in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, is a tense season. Pratt Institute’s graduating class, oblivious to the weather report, is suddenly thrust out into the real world and everything suddenly goes through a severe disconnect. The people you see day-to-day move, get on with their lives, disappear completely. Even the people you are closest to are compelled to do the same. It’s a point of departure, a transition only slightly less traumatic than birth itself.”

only slightly less traumatic than birth itself?!

Dude, you’re GRADUATING COLLEGE. Have a sing-along to this, have a cry, and then grow a pair.

blagrh.

The style of his writing makes me feel like Zipco’s not convinced that the subject matter is EPIC enough. It’s a shame, because the stories could be interesting, ARE interesting, but Zipco’s trying too hard the whole time to convince readers that he and his college buddies are just soooooooo cool- making even the most interesting stories in the book difficult to read.

It doesn’t help that Ed mentions himself in the book in third person:

“While in Spain, Leon and Quenell meet with another friend of theirs from Brooklyn, Ed Zipco.*”

and then dedicates a footnote to how friggin sweet he is.

“* Ed had recently come into some money by bankrupting a short film with his signing fee, and with the collapse of said film, had plenty of time on his hands to travel. Hearing about the Bull Run, and missing his friends Brad, Leon, and Quenell, Ed quickly sold all his worldly possessions and bought a plane ticket. Following a stop in Japan for a few weeks of whiskey and peyote, he made his way to Spain via Paris. After several days spent living in a public park, he eventually found his long-lost friends, and soon they were all happily in harm’s way.”

All this effort to impress diminishes the stories, rather than enhance them.

So was The Adventures of Darius and Downey totally not worth the money? Maybe not… the book includes a mention about how Shepard Fairey revealed the secret ingredient that prevents paste from freezing in cold weather to the two young artists- SALT. How have I never heard about this/figured this out before? If true, this little tip was more than worth the cover price for me. However, since I’ve just shared it with you, you may want to skip The Adventures of Darius and Downey – or maybe try and find it in your local library. (If you already love street art, it’s worth a read. I’m a bit harsh on the book, but it’s not gawdawful.)

Two dead astros out of Five!

]]> http://www.bladediary.com/silhouettes-and-shadows-2/feed/ 2 http://www.bladediary.com/silhouettes-and-shadows/ http://www.bladediary.com/silhouettes-and-shadows/#comments Mon, 02 Mar 2009 06:02:54 +0000 post http://www.bladediary.com/?p=1904

Time for another excellent collaboration with TEETH!!

Teeth found this great location, told me about it, and together we went to the site to scope it out and take measurements.

We then discussed the game plan. Teeth suggested that we make silhouetted images of day-to-day life and goings-on. I suggested we use a particular section of the building- one that had a pleasant vertical symmetry- it contained: one small window, one door, three large windows, and another door with another small window.

Working together, we planned, designed, and cut all of the stencils- and then we put them up!

It went pretty well- two hands are better than one.

Today, you get to see the last part we sprayed- the leftmost door and small window!

The rest will be revealed as the week progresses!

I think you’ll like them- especially the final, group shots. These stencils look OK close up and by themselves- but they’re really meant to work as a whole, at a distance!

Stay tuned!

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Last ones,

From this TAPLAP camera box.

This box was under scaffolding, which I picked to keep things dry-

But it also cast everyone into silhouette…

And I hated that at first. It was an unexpected mistake.

But check out the results with the composition on this one:

It’s almost like they knew that they would be thrown into shadow..

And I really love this one, the composition is great- with the girl behind the diagonal pole:

Street artist Swoon:


“We tend to do things that we think are positive. We’re not trying to be destructive or even edgy or anything. We’re just trying to do things that we think should happen. If it’s something we think should be happening then we’re going to do it. So here we are on a Sunday afternoon pasting up. People love it. People were walking by and like “ Oh that’s beautiful … It’s a thing about not sneaking around, not trying to make something illegal. Because you want to be open about your activities. You are just trying to create a discourse about what happens in the city. Whose walls these are? Who participates in these things…. …Urban Reclamation. I think that a large portion of street art these days boils down to taking charge of a little slice of the city. In the early days of Graff, it was about marking one’s territory in an attempt to own a little part of the otherwise glum city. Today, it seems that most artists want to use their art like an “adopt-a-wall”, just in the hopes of brightening someones day, or reminding us that the streets belong to the people, not the advertisers or businesses.”

Legend Banksy:


The thing I hate the most about advertising is that it attracts all the bright, creative and ambitious young people, leaving us mainly with the slow and self-obsessed to become our artists. Modern art is a disaster area. Never in the field of human history has so much been used by so many to say so little.