Not dead yet

Whoa sorry, my bad blog readers. My academic, social, love, family life all went a little haywire for a bit there but about a year latter I return to talk about the place I love and all of the paint, stickers, wheatpaste, and whatever else poster all over it. I have a mess of mail and a large slush pile of photos to post. That said back to updating.

Great little editorial out of The Herald Dispatch about a "victory for the community"

"Two graffiti vandals, who were charged in April with defacing a traffic control box in downtown Huntington, will begin their punishment Monday, spending 30 days in jail under a work-release agreement that allows them to maintain their employment. That will be followed by five months probation, during which they must complete 100 hours of graffiti removal."

You got caught breaking the law so you pay the price. The problem here is both a legal, business, artist issue. Not everyone putting art up is Picasso or Banksy but graffiti is part of the narrative of a place. Admittedly this is not the narrative the lawmakers and business owners wish to tell. The artists only have control over where they put their art and subject matter, they lack control over the ability to produce art. The drive to create is inborn and can not be stopped. In the case of these two gentlemen the place was an electric box. Not a store window, nor a street sign, but a traffic control box. The City of Huntington owns the traffic control box and the artists are citizens of the city and I argue have as much claim to the ownership of the exterior of the box as the city. Designate public space for art and the graffiti will self-regulate in the unoffensive, thought provoking, harmless spaces. Cooperation not conviction is the key step in solving the problem.




k

Just enough space at the bottom.

False is a Charleston tagger. This was taken downtown.

Here is a little one on the edge of a newspaper box. Look at the parallel sides on with his letter sizes.
some random stickers with those pleasant borders on a window.



The full text reads: "If trees could scream - would we still cut them down? unless they were screaming all the time and for no apparent reason. In which case we would kill the whinny trees"

If this is true, where is the advertisement?
"It's a goddamn beret." Kind of looks like a pancake to me.

Here is one of those eggs I was talking about! Someone has since tagged over it. What a shame.

Here is a better shot of this sticker and the gun sticker on the bottom that I posted last time.

A crazy bird thing on the curb.

right next to this. I don't know what on Earth it says but I like the arrow at the bottom.

Kanawha County

False! Accusation? Joe Wilson? Alas he is not our senator. If Byrd had a tag he would stencil a bird at hunch height.
Live every week like its shark week,


being who you are is its own punishment.

fractals. black and white maddness.

okay so this one was a bit weird to take but there is a gun on the one space. <-

Stickers in the golden city

Here was this door in charleston with a bunch fo stickers and a few quick tags on the top left. The robot thing was a god idea.

Elegant and simple. I wonder if they had to jump to get the back of this sign. I like how they did the back of the sign which doesn't make the message on the sign secondary.

Way up high but hard to take a photo of. Direct mail. They get mad when you take them from the post office and never mail anything but there is nothing they can do.

I don't know if it is a rat or a frog but I like it.

Owls. Who doesn't love a good owl? Good and unexpected use of color.

Charlestondays

I wish I got here before the rip. OhNo does consistently good work. But I think the fried egg is a nice response.



and I just love this thing here. Good work comes out of Charleston.
Paebak has been getting around. I have reports of him throwing stuff up as far away as Louisville. Curious indeed.