united Life divided centered scattered love hate
defeated resilient failure success rebirth decay black white
rise fall messy colorful is tragedy triumph lost found joyful
sad order chaos beaten overcome acceptance rejection
inspired blocked full connected isolated art scribble play
work nonsensical meaningful life death of bold meek light shadow
determined apathetic alive asleep creative bored alone surrounded
free trapped trust deceit graffiti winter summer believe
* * *
– – –
c.b. 2012
I think looking at your photo, I just saw the reason why I like the simple country life… LOL
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LOL! I am baffled by graffiti, but I can’t deny the burst of color is something to behold. Still, I prefer trees above all else. 🙂
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Re: the picture, It does have color to it, don’t it?
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Although a lot of graffiti is merely crude destruction of property, some can be works of art. I love the way you wove your words, which so beautifully illustrate the essence of the photo. 🙂
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Normally, I can’t stand graffiti (my house has been tagged a couple of times – its so irritating), but in this instance I was intrigued. The skate park is a spot where graffiti is legal and therefore the place is painted solid. I suppose it helps to curb graffiti in places where they don’t want it along the South Bank. It seems to be working because I hardly saw any in that whole area, except in the skate park.
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My city has an inner-city art program to get kids off the street and giving them tools to focus their creative energy on legally accepted projects. The city also invites those would-be taggers to submit ideas for wall murals to be painted on the sides of buildings around the city and get paid for it. Actually, talking about this has inspired my next post, if you don’t mind me sharing yours. 🙂
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Sure. 🙂 You’ve got me intrigued and I can’t wait to read it.
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Taggers…so different (and less) from artists like Banksy. Taggers did liven up the NYC subway system for a while, though…the outside of the older cars were pretty cool….
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I have a lot of little taggers sitting in my classroom and to keep them from defacing the desks, I’ll give them a piece of paper and tell them to make something to add to my gallery (as long as there’s no gang representation), which I keep in one section of my classroom just for student art. They really do have some talent – if only they’d pursue it in a more positive way.
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Man you are smart!!! And a good teacher–for more than just the kids in your classroom! 😉
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I never expect europe to have the same problems with graffiti that we hjave here in the states. I don’t know why but I just don’t..
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I remember being surprised by it the first time I went, but I suppose urban human behavior is the same wherever you go. Rome and Prague are just covered in it.
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As well as Norway! I was surprised.
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It’s everywhere! Even China!
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I just see this as defacing public property. How can anyone think of this as art?
Now, if you asked for permission, and actually did something with symatry and meaning… maybe.
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I look at this particular location as something that probably saves the surrounding area from random defacement. It makes me wonder how much of the problem would be solved if neighborhoods provided a space for graffiti artists to ply their trade. I’ve never fully understood the need to spray paint public walls or private property, but obviously its a problem. Perhaps a need to vent, rant, or feel important . . . I don’t know.
I found the skate park to be fascinating from the standpoint of color, but I’m glad its confined to this one spot rather than all over the rest of the South Bank walkway. 😉
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I guess if you say “It’s okay here” it will keep it off the sides of people’s houses.
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Exactly. 🙂
I wish we had something like this in my neighborhood. I’m tired of waking up Sunday mornings to find every electric box and sign post on my street tagged. There’s got to be a better way!
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I like this! Love the opposites, the duality-destruction or art? Legal or illegal? Makes this yogi question why something has to be labeled; if there is a “good”, then there must be a “bad”. Why can’t things just be?
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Oooo, I like that concept. All I know is I was totally mesmerized by the color. It literally surrounds you and swallows you whole. And it’s always changing . . . perspective, new paint, and angle make it difference place each day. Kind of like how life changes almost constantly.
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I agree that life is that way, though sometimes I wish for plain old concrete.
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Yes, the graffiti is amazing – but I think your words with the hidden in plain sight message is even more amazing. Great combo with this photo.
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Thank you. The idea for this has been floating around in my head for a while and I finally got brave enough to just do it. 🙂
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What a poetic way of finding good in this type of expression. I don’t find graffiti very appealing but I am glad when those who do have a place to express themselves. I don’t see a lot of art that hangs in galleries appealing either and yet those people are accepted as being artists. It goes back to that old saying “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. It’s the ‘where’ not the ‘what’ that is destructive. Wonder if cave men scolded their children for writing on the walls.
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That old saying is spot on! I don’t condone defacing property, but I can see the creativity in street art. Its not my style by any means, but it does reflect what goes on inside of someone else. In a setting like this, where no one’s property is being violated, its easier to see that and even appreciate this mode of expression.
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I see graffiti – a wall as a palimpsest – and I wonder “Who decides?”
Here in Dundee our graffiti has a minimalist feel. there is a low wall near Riverside Drive which occasionally gets repainted, but the graffiti re-migrates, like seaweed washed up at the high tide mark. There is a series of nightmare faces with the paint running like drool or blood. There are obscure puns on the sub-culture of casual graffiti itself: “Potassium Exthoxide Rules C2H5OK”. There are fragments that leave me wondering: “who are torn apart”.
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I wonder the same thing – some of the images that show up on these walls are direct representations of how someone feels. I can’t imagine an existence with that much pain and sometimes I think spray paint is the only voice they have. I don’t like it on the side of my house, but I do wonder what drives them to do it.
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There is no room
it is a collide-o-scope
instantly dirty.
Its archaeology
takes careful lifting.
Each tag effaces
defaces
and once in a while
a guy with a hi-viz jacket
eye-protectors
a mask
and a hard-hat
sprays it all white.
Each pain is
skin-thin
it is a collide-o-scope
we push each
other aside.
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This is really wonderful and fits the image so well. Thank you so much for sharing. 🙂
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Very Cool.
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Thanks! I’m amazed at the responses to this one – I didn’t expect it to incite such strong opinions. 🙂 But I like it when something I post gets people talking!
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Wonderful! Thoroughly wonderful.
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Thank you! From a poet such as yourself, I am honored you enjoyed it. 🙂
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Opposites attract and Life is full of graffiti and noise and thoughts or things that inspire and the opposite, thoughts and things that distract. About the photo, there is beauty in the design and colors.
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I’m in awe of what this little enclave of graffiti has inspired – not only for me, but for others as well. 🙂 That’s the beauty of art in all its different forms.
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LOVE the poem! The artwork – and the combination of the two.
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Thanks! It was an experiment and I’m happy it turned out as well as it did. 🙂
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