The spread of graffiti

It's interesting to see where graffiti pops up. As you meander around town you see the same people's tags in many different spots. Most of the time these are just scrawls of '602' or 'SPL', or some other bit of randomness that makes sense only to the person doing the spraying, but lately I have been seeing some love around town.

 

First it was this in the hills behind Dexter elementary school:

 

 

And now this artist has cropped up in the Granite Creek, behind Granite street:

 

I'll be keeping my eyes peeled for more.

Pic of the day

Another shot of the old Chevy pickup in an alley:

A black and white lunch

Today I had a mission in mind when I went on my lunch hour walk. I wanted to take shots that would be interesting in black and white. Not something that I am generally thinking about when taking my photos.

 

Overall it was a successful venture, with some decent graffiti shots:

 

A snap of the brick showing through on the side of the St. Michael Hotel:

 

An older man working up on the roof of one of the Whiskey Row buildings. Laying down some tar by the looks of it:

 

And I even managed to squeak out a black and white HDR out back of the Palace Bar building, showing off the upstairs seating area:

 

Of course, it was not a total success. I did grab a pic of an odd tree. Its leaves are turning from green straight to white. Not something I have seen before:

 

And this graffiti under Gurley Street was too colorful for me to put it in BW:

Roll with it

Walking around on my lunch Monday I happened upon something that I found really entertaining.

 

Apparently the city left some bits of metal, used to strengthen a foundation for a gas-station, hanging out of the concrete. These bits of metal happened to be hanging out into the alley way.

 

So somebody decided to make use of them as hangers for art:

 

This totally made my day. :)

Graffiti goodness

It's no secret that I love graffiti. So imagine my surprise when I realized that I had completely forgotten to look up pictures after the Cans Festival (which was hosted by famous graffiti artist Banksy).

 

Well I'm making up for lost time now. :) With images like these, how can you go wrong?:

 

 

 

 

Here are a few great areas on flickr that really show off the art:

Romanywg's set

Another romanywg set

Greenworrd100's set

The Cans Festival group

Cans Festival 08 group

 

As well as a good news article found here.

A different kind of graffiti.

Thanks to a tip from a fellow Flickr user, I managed to get some pics of a few posters that have been pasted up in the creekways of Prescott. I'm sure it won't be long until they are covered under a few layers of paint like the rest of the graffiti in the city.

 

This one was found by the old railroad bridge near the intersection of Sheldon and Montezuma st:

 

Underneath the Gurley street bridge over Granite Creek:

 

And the final one under the Goodwin street bridge over Granite Creek:

 

As an added bonus, I finally snapped a pic of this Obey poster by the Old Firehouse Plaza. It has been there for a few months, which somewhat surprises me..:

 

These are a fun divulgence from the standard paint type of graffiti. I especially enjoy them because they allow the artist to spend however long they want designing, so you generally get a more interesting image than somebody who spraypaints their name on a wall. :) Now I will be keeping my eyes peeled for more of these around town.

Graffiti / Street Art

graf·fi·ti /grəˈfiti/ [gruh-fee-tee] –noun

2. (used with a plural verb) markings, as initials, slogans, or drawings, written, spray-painted, or sketched on a sidewalk, wall of a building or public restroom, or the like: These graffiti are evidence of the neighborhood's decline.

 

Graffiti is one of those things that either you love or you hate. Here in Little Town Arizona it isn't something that you see often. Most of the time when you do see it, it isn't pretty. Some kid stops with one color of paint for 10 seconds in an alley to write "(Insert Name) sucks c*ck." Within a week it is painted over and forgotten. Rarely is there any 'art' aspect to the spray paint.

 

Personally, I am one of the people that enjoys graffiti (when there is more to it than the above), so whenever I find it in 'Everybody's Hometown' I try to capture it. Sometimes it is something fairly basic like a stencil of a flower on the wall:

 

And once in a blue moon you will see OLD graffiti around town. Like this face that has been around since I was a little kid:

 

 

Every now and then somebody just decides to make something prettier:

 

Sometimes people go to great lengths to put their mark on the world, like on the backside of Watson Lake Dam:

 

The only place in town that I know of, which shows off its graffiti is a house on south montezuma street, which is now going to be blocked from view by a house going up in front of it:

 

I've only ever known one person who actually 'did' graffiti, and that was my sister Nikki the artist. She explained to me where it was, and took pictures, but I never went looking for it. A little different from your average graffiti, she did it with acrylic paint in the drainage system of Prescott. She did a flower:

 

And a butterfly coming out of it's cocoon:

 

Now, years later I stumbled upon where her painting was during a lunch time walk! The entrance is the type of tunnel that seriously makes you question your decision-making-paradigm. It's dark, there is an unknown liquid underfoot, and it is exactly the type of place you would expect to find crazy homeless people ready to kill for a nickel. Yep, this seems like something my sister would do.

 

Of course one of the first things I find is some homeless person's belongings!! At least they are out killing somebody else for a nickel and not me! After I got over the fear of being in a small, subterranean, enclosed space I began snapping pictures. Wow was there a lot to see. The space where Nikki's art used to be has been covered over many times:

 

There was a supporting pillar covered in tags. And yeah, on the left there? Homeless person stuff! Don't believe me? Check out the large version!:

 

Somebody got creative and put an octopus around a drain pipe:

 

And my favorite picture, "Prescott Rocks":

 

And the only thing you see from the street level is this innocuous grating:

 

After seeing all this good picture-worthy goodness, I am now on a mission to find more of these little hidey-holes of paint. Hopefully the homeless folks don't find me before I can take some more pictures.

 

So what are your thoughts on Graffiti? Pointless vandalism, valid street art, or somewhere in between?

11 photos from the walk are in the alley walking PHOTOSET

An alley walk.

Another day, another walk through some alleyways in Prescott:

 

A HUGE antenna. I'm betting this guy is getting ALL the channels:

 

A random shed that is protected by not only video, AND alarm, but ALSO a 9mm!:

 

 

Somebody had a wild night, and didn't clean up after themselves:

 

And of course you always have those brokedown vehicles:

 

Alley PHOTOSET

More Alley Transportaion

Another walk through the (now muddy) alleyways of Prescott.

 

This guy has bikes. A lot of freakin bikes! The thumbnail looks pretty crappy, so click on it to see the full-size pic.

 

Working our way from Newest to oldest, here is a 3rd generation (1959-1964) Cadillac Deville. It was behind a privacy fence, hence the odd angle of the picture:

 

The next car was considerably harder to figure out. It appears to be a 1957 Turnpike Cruiser 4-door sedan. Most of these models were setup with quad headlights, so I guess I found a bit of a rarity:

 

And last, but certainly not least, is the oldest of the vehicles seen in the alleys today, a Chevy Advanced Design pickup truck. This guy was made somewhere between 1947 and 1953:

 

Now I just have to try to get all the mud off of my shoes. Darn melting snow makes the alleys boggy to walk through. :)

A few more alley photos

A quick post.

 

Hmm... something is missing here:

 

I've no idea how, but this hunk of wood (oak?) was stuck in some telephone wire, dangling above the street. Talk about weird:

 

Another Toyota FJ-55 Landcruiser. I'm a softy for this model, because of the ugly styling. Numbers are dwindling though as rust claims more and more of them (check out the other one that I saw in Jerome):

PHOTOSET

Alley walk and cars.

A short alley walk this time, but I was struck by the interesting vehicles that you can see around our little town.

 

First you have an old beat-up truck, with top-exit exhaust, and what was once a flatbed by the looks of it. A workhorse for sure:

 

Next up we have a two British cars. First a Triumph Spitfire MkIV (if i'm not mistaken), from the early 1970s. Not the sportiest of the Spitfire generations, but one that survived the decades fairly well:

 

Then we have an MG Midget MkIII, which had a sweet 65hp which was only slightly less powerful than it's Mini Cooper brother.

 

As you might see in the background in the last photo, this person also has a very oddly-painted C1 Chevy Corvette:

Also note the (I believe..) 60's era Chevy Impala in the forground. This man like his old cars:

 

Alley Walking Photoset