Is there any street art in your neighbourhood?

Bretrick

Well-known Member
I was out walking this morning and came across these three wall paintings

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Which brings up the old argument about graffiti: Is it art or is it vandalism?

You have to ask the question, did the artist have permission to do the painting on the building/fence/boxcar/water tank? If yes, then it's art. If no, then it's vandalism. It's simple as that.

What if Michelangelo hadn't been actually hired to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel? I can see the scene where his mother is yelling at him: "Michel, you rotten kid, if I'm-a have to come down to the police station ONE MORE TIME to bail you out after you've-a slapped paint on somebody's ceiling, I'm-a gonna kill you! You wanna paint, you go get-a job painting someone's WALLS!"
 

Which brings up the old argument about graffiti: Is it art or is it vandalism?


Some years ago, I had a wreck on my bicycle and a young lady offered to give me a ride home. I learned her name, and she said she often saw me riding my bicycle. I thought I'd see here again to again thank her for being a good Samaritan, but several months passed with no contact.

I made a sign, stating, "Thanks Dana" with a small attached bicycle wheel and posted on a utility pole by an intersection. Sometime later, she stopped me on the road while again riding my bicycle and said she had seen the sign.

I got an idea to post artwork on the utility pole, usually recognizing the seasons, holidays, and whatnot. Several motorists would stop as I was changing signs to let me know how much they enjoyed my artwork.

I wondered if it was legal to post signs on a utility pole and asked a neighbor/friend who is a State Trooper. He said, "It's technically not legal, since the poles are private property, but the utility companies usually do nothing about a 'lost cat or dog' sign".

I continued regularly posting my signs when I noted one day on the way to work the utility company was replacing the pole. "There goes my artwork", I thought. But when I came home from work, I saw that the utility company had placed my artwork on the new pole!

I took their action as an inferred consent and continue to post permanent and seasonal signs.

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Both our city and our neighborhood have TONS of public art! It's wonderful!
Our neighborhood is called the Laurel. There are at least 6 other murals that haven't been photographed, too:

x3.jpgx4 MoreBears.jpg

x5.jpg

x6.jpg

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This is a link to our Neighborhood District's Association webpage. It has some more mural photos, and also a step-by-step video of the young men who produced the last mural posted above, of notable civil rights figures. I can barely paint with a paintbrush; it's amazing to watch these guys paint with spray cans!
Laurel District Association.org: Public Art
 
Pt 2 of my above post #7: And here is some of our city's murals. 99Dragon was started on a whim by a medical student who was a part-time artist. He got high school kids interested in painting murals, with the goal of 99 dragon murals in Oakland's Chinatown. They never got to #99, but did some gorgeous work, and inspired many more murals, especially on freeway underpasses along city streets. Many of those formerly blank concrete walls now sport beautiful murals painted by local residents who pitched in to beautify their neighborhoods.

These are some of the Oakland Chinatown murals:

x1-LR BlueDragonMural.jpg

x2 LR Goddess&Dragon.jpg

x3a LR Girl&Birds.jpg

x4 LR RedDragon.jpg

x5 Monkey&Tiger.jpg

And the list goes on....this is far from complete, but it has thumbnails of some of the many remarkable murals that have popped up since 2014. Link is free, it's part of the Oakland CA tourist website, which has a LocalWiki link to the murals documented so far. These are small photos with description, so shouldn't stress your Net connection too badly:
Oakland CA mural listing (photos)
 

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