atlanta + amsterdam: art

atlanta, left:

a favorite mural of mine by 3ttman in the summerhill neighborhood, courtesy of living walls, a non-profit organization that seeks to change perspectives about public space in communities via street art. thanks to living walls, there are murals everywhere here in the city of atlanta, everywhere. 'tis a thing of beauty.

amsterdam, right:

a favorite street art piece of joyce's on a historical building at the prinsengracht. painted by the london brothers back in 2009, it's been the subject of much controversy, city council wanted it removed but failed. sorry, city council. apparently, the people of amsterdam want their public art just as much as the people of atlanta want theirs.

(more from my co-collaborator over in amsterdam, joyce, aka on a hazy morning//more about our twelve-week project here)

the good and the alive

I stumbled onto a graffiti writer in an alleyway once. in that meaty, bright-colored san francisco other world they call the mission. I was careful not to disturb him but I wanted to watch. I wanted to shake all those paint cans, every last one. I wanted to ask questions, wanted to take a hundred photographs but I didn't. I barely managed the polaroid.

I think about that moment a lot. I look at the polaroid and remember everything. the smell of the paint, the sound of the aerosol, the quiet of the alleyway. it's important to me.

there are hard things in my life right now. there are great things too but I need to write about the hard things. I'm just not ready yet. seven years into this space and I'm still defining what it is to me, what it isn't. what I share, what I don't. what I'm saying is that it's easier to share polaroids of ice cream signs and graffiti writers right now. and birthday lists. am working on an epic birthday list because it makes me feel good and alive. and right now, I need the good and the alive.

well if you're going to do it

hense

six years ago, I wrote about a piece of graffiti on the walls of a car wash on dekalb avenue in atlanta. it was something I looked for everyday as I drove back and forth. the color inspired me, cracked a little something open in me. everyday, I'd race by that car wash and everyday that piece was there, singing my song. and then one day it wasn't. such is the nature of graffiti and street art, nothing is permanent, everything is fluid. work gets painted over all the time (comes with the territory) but still. I've never really forgotten it, for whatever reason. the graffiti writer behind that piece, hense, is an artist I've been following since the early nineties. billboards, overpasses, buildings, train cars, he was up all over the city. his work is as much atlanta to me as dekalb avenue and the majestic diner, as the civic yard and marta trains and MLK.

so of course we took a little drive down dekalb avenue while we were home for christmas and dang it if we didn't stumble onto spectacular new work by hense. I wrote a little bit about it today over at poppytalk, hop on over if you like. a shot in the arm, fresh new work, color for days, all these things. it's like driving by that car wash all over again.

freshness

first, drive the streets. go looking.


you will find them.


hidden like easter eggs, all over the city.


color that pops and locks.


layers that peel, layers that tell.


new work, new school.


old work, old school.

man, I miss atlanta.

you will not even need your passport

MWM via ekosystem

color from around the world, friends. a riot of color for your thursday afternoon.

well, you are

what happened in cincinnati (besides a little collaborating with my brother on a music video shoot for the band seabird) is that I had more fun with stencils, stickers, paint chips and spray paint than is perhaps humanly possible. the street artist inside me had a little coming out party, she surely did.

it does, it really really does

street art makes me happy.

whaddup knitta

first piece of guerilla knitting spotted recently downtown. probably not from an original crew but still. very exciting and completely rad. rogue knittas of the world, I love you. if I could knit, this is totally what I'd be doing.

on an unrelated (though totally relevant) note, there's this. I think it should be on billboards. I think it deserves to be said over and over and over. and I think it probably needs to be said loudly. preferably very loud.

today is the someday

I never talk about politics here. ever. but writing about anything else today would be like ignoring the enormous pink elephant (or donkey) in the room. never has an election felt so electric. never have I felt so excited to vote, never have I felt so nervous about the impending results. in case you're wondering: obama obama obama. but let me tell you, I hate how politics divides our country, our friends, our families. I hate how politics makes people say and do stupid, hurtful things. and if you are someone close to me who is reading this and you don't agree then please, let's talk. because I will drop some science. but lovingly, so lovingly. I will be open to any science you might have to drop too. I have done my research. and I have done the hoping. I will continue to do the hoping and the praying, no matter where we find ourselves tomorrow morning. I am a big fan of hope.

also, the world is watching.

this concludes the political portion of my blog. forever and ever, amen.

wednesday, wednesday

yes, still with all the san francisco business. I am one step away from inviting everyone I know over to my house for a slide show. not that I'm proud of that but my intentions are solid. really, they are.

so, two weeks ago on a wednesday and why the mission neighborhood is sort of beating out chinatown as my favorite:


laundry that sings


climbing flowers that seem to glow plus tasty breakfasts with super rad pals named lisa


shoes that are cute plus lunches at sweet mexican places places with extremely lovely people like mati and kelly rae


murals


good lord, the murals


and the street art




good lord, the street art


really, color at every corner


ridiculous, maybe even ridonculous


and the thrift stores


I mean, really

just look at what ten dollars brought home

plus, there's fruit


which I realize is pretty much everywhere and not exactly unique to the area

but mission fruit is probably special

because I don't know

it just is.

(also swaying my vote: places where mopping is an accepted daily practice)

limitless

spring break for ava so we're pretending we're on vacation. absolutely thrilled to have a break from the daily grind. wishing we could just get in the car and drive somewhere, anywhere. trying to see something new in portland everyday this week. updates to come.

am loving the braille graffiti project. a thousand times over, I am loving it.

around town

trying to catch them all before they disappear.



(more of matt haffner here, and 'atlanta celebrates photography' here)

thursday love

the things that save me when I am having to spend dreadful amounts of time in my car: music (duh), random conversations with ava and ezra, npr popculture podcasts and public art.

I love public art. I love it when it catches me completely off guard, when it makes me want to drive around the block again or get out of the car-- just to take a second look. I love it even when I don't like it, even when it's bad because it's something different to look at, something to think about. for a quick moment, I am completely unaware of the sea of stale goldfish crackers beneath my feet, the odd smell of the car's upholstery. I am not thinking about the joker behind me who will not stop honking his horn or the crap on the radio. in that moment, I am not late for anything. there's no whining coming at me from the back, no mysterious stickiness in my cupholder, no traffic, no fingers urgently tapping the steering wheel. me and public art, we are so good together.

(more on the above exhibit here and here... and more TILT here and here)

nothing can be stolen from us we choose

well, I almost missed it. I was too busy making lists and then more lists of lists of things to do and blah blah blah.

me and the ez, we've been walking a lot lately. so much so that we've started to explore unchartered territory. we live in a beautiful old neighborhood but we're both a little tired of it and so stroller boy and I have been hitting up the other side of the tracks. and switching up the scenery like that was just what we needed. we walk alongside the tracks and watch the trains pass. the sounds are deafening but ezra loves a good choo choo and I enjoy the occasional graffiti piece that races by. there are hidden gardens and dandelions to look for and honeysuckle is crazy fragrant right now. deep inhalations of honeysuckle make me feel tender and nostalgic. it's a scent that always makes me think of when I first moved to atlanta, of summers spent dancing in north carolina. a strange sort of melancholy washes over me and I feel a little bit like unravelling, like I want to cry and laugh at the same time. this happens in the seven seconds it takes to breathe in and breathe out and then I'm over it. we seem to pass a lot of wild honeysuckle bushes and so it's like I'm riding my own personal emotional roller coaster.

if I time it just right, the boy succumbs to sleep. this is when I look for a place to park the stroller, somewhere I can read or write or just have a minute to myself, for pete's sake. this usually only lasts for about five minutes or so because the ez is lulled into dreamland by movement. stop the walking, wake the boy. and if the boy wakes from a nap he was enjoying, there will be crying and whining and body-stiffening and nashing of teeth so I take what I can get and MOVE MOVE MOVE at the first sign of restlessness. my brother has always said that if you were an alien visiting our world, you'd think the babies were the kings and queens of the land. you know, since we push them around in plush, jacked-up cadillac strollers and cater to their every need. this makes me laugh.

on friday, we found the perfect park bench. and since ezra was fast asleep, I got out the notebook of lists and got down to business. five minutes flew by and ezra began to whimper. just as I was about to shift into turbo mother mode, I spotted a tiny piece of paper with typed words taped to the pole. and it's not really a big deal but the words stopped me and all that was going on in my head and around me and on the street. the words, they seemed to shine. I have been at the farmers market and felt that unmistakable sense of calm. I wondered who wrote this, how long it had been taped there and if there were more. I wanted the author to know that it changed the course of my day, that I couldn't stop thinking about it, that I felt an electricity run through my mind and body and out through my fingertips. ideas had my head spinning. what would I type on a small piece of paper? where would I tape it? would it affect anyone? I'd been doing a lot of thinking about guerilla art, especially since michelle's visit to atlanta. I had been thinking about all the projects I'd planned for the year (so inspired by 52 projects) and couldn't remember the last time I made something/did something just for the sake of doing it.

to whomever took the time to write those words out and tape them to the black pole next to the park benches near the train tracks: thank you.

swimming in it

I hereby deem this The Week Of The Photograph.

translation: I am swimming in a sea of junk that must be prepared for a yard sale (to beat all yard sales). I am facing a week fraught with responsibility-- the days will find me searching for valid reasons to hold onto things like a black faux leather biker jacket that my parents gave me for christmas in 1988 and every last piece of clothing ava ever wore as a baby. this won't leave much time for writing. and I'm way too addicted to this blog gig to take a break.

hence, The Week Of The Photograph.

we all want to believe

I'm a little blocked these days. in terms of words, that is.

self portrait tuesday #18

I don't know when it happened. I started collecting vintage brown suitcases and couldn't stop. the old ones are lined with coarse satin and smell musty, like old cologne. they are square in shape, sometimes with stripes and I imagine them once being stuffed full with things like stockings and garter belts, blouses and tins of crusty rouge. I imagine they were most at home on trains and buses and in the roomy trunks of old cars, though the ones I have managed to snatch up in past years aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

they have been stacked on either side of the bed and lovingly filled with my history. one suitcase holds all the souvenirs we brought home from our trip to italy (including a little handful of dirt I swiped while we were standing in a field of sunflowers in tuscany). when I open this particular case, it smells like italy to me-- sweet and earthy. another suitcase holds all the love letters, notes, cards and mix tapes I have ever received from ward. I turn several shades of red just thinking about those steamy steamy words waiting to be discovered and wonder if we can bear the consequences of holding onto them. I cringe (and am sick to my stomach) when I think of ava and ezra reading those letters someday. though I could never ever actually bring myself to throw any of them out. another suitcase holds scrapbooks I made growing up, and another holds every journal and diary I ever kept. and the cutest little piece of luggage (that you'll ever lay eyes on) holds all my favorite random special things: a red paper dragon from a chinese new years celebration in new york, a birthday crown made of shells, a swatch of fabric from a costume of an african dance I was in, pearlized chopsticks and coins I brought back from japan, an antique black shawl ward bought me while we were on our honeymoon in new orleans, my college diploma, my photo ID card from the american dance festival, the earrings I wore on our wedding day, my grandpa's black leather watch, the metal tap off the shoe from the first musical I ever performed in... and the list goes on and on and on. anytime I am in the mood to look back (or in this case, examine personal history) I consult the suitcases.

and the suitcases said, "here. look at this one. tell us you don't see a huge chunk of your history right here." oh, yes they did. and the suitcases never lie, people. why would they? what would they have to gain? really, I don't think they're capable. this photo that I found stuck between the pages of an unfinished scrapbook was taken at a time that could be seen as the beginning of Adult Me. I had just moved away from home for the first time (here to atlanta), had just started school, had just begun to work with moving in the spirit. I had my own apartment and was paying my own bills. that day, ward and I were goofing, just driving around downtown atlanta when we discovered a stunning wall of graffiti infamously known as the civic yard. thinking back, I can't believe I got out of the car and posed barefoot for the camera there, all that broken glass and god knows what else. I'm sure I wasn't thinking or maybe I didn't care. years and years later (nine, to be exact) I would become a piece of that wall (look here). and I wonder what I would've thought, had I been able to see the history of my years laid plainly before me. my life in atlanta, my life with someone that would go on to become the father of my two children and a graffiti writer that would paint me as a new mother (only a few steps away from where I was spinning that hot sunny monday afternoon in september of 1992).

the civic yard is no more. for so long, it was a legal wall where graffiti writers were able to paint without fear of being arrested. and then crappy uncool people came in and destoyed the goodness and that's that. it's a boring story as old and predictable as every hollywood movie ever. I'm okay with it, though. landscapes change, people change. if I need a nostalgia fix, I go to the suitcases. the suitcases are always there.

(more gorgeous, fascinating SPTs here and here)

everyday

remember that the most beautiful things in life are also the most useless. peacocks and lilies, for instance. -john rushkin

come on and sing it with me

there are graffiti pieces hidden all over the city. like easter eggs, just waiting to be found.

everyday, I find myself making the same drive down the long industrial stretch of dekalb avenue. I have become a loyal traveler of dekalb, much as I detest the grind of my daily route. this is because dekalb never disappoints. decaying old signs, impromptu gardens, bits of street art, marta trains that races alongside and up above. no shortage of visual gems. and my favorite-- the self serve car wash, whose humble concrete walls once held bursts of color (courtesy of hense, one of atlanta's most prolific graff writers). my heart sank when I discovered it had all been painted over. I looked for it each day as I zoomed by. I loved the idea that you could pull in, blast the dirt off your car and get an eyeful of color. all for a handful of quarters.

(I have a special place in my heart for graffiti writers. I am married to the one they call canon)