LUSH.
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LUSH. With a Crown
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LUSH. With Pacman Wearing a Crown and Eating a Ghost
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More Pacman, More Ghosts, More Crowns
Friday, April 19, 2013
Sunday, April 14, 2013
South Korean Graffiti Writers Stress the Art of Graffiti.
I find it interesting when this blog is viewed outside of the United
States. Eight views have been tracked from South Korea so far. This has
prompted me to do a little research on what I first called "South Korean
Graffiti Culture." Looking up the
graffiti culture of a place is an interesting way to find out a little bit
about it.
After a little research I realize that I usually consider graffiti to
be part of a counter culture—which might not be quite accurate when it comes to
South Korea. The paragraphs below link to
the articles about South Korean graffiti.
If any reader of this entry knows more than I have shown here I ask them to leave a comment.
In America, graffiti is more about culture; bombing, illegal work, and that gets you respect. Korea is different, it is only about the image created and not the culture.
For a while, nobody in Korea really cared about graffiti in public. But recently, the government has officially made it illegal to paint on public spaces, and more citizens have begun to complain about it. I am personally attracted in certain ways to the illegality of public graffiti, though I try to paint on places that are easy to reverse if they decide to get rid of it. But ultimately, I try hard to make my pieces very attractive so that no one wants to get rid of them! I think you can compare it to a child drawing something on a wall – he loves to express himself, and so nothing can stop him. I do think that the true idea of graffiti is when it is created in public places and perhaps in an illegal way. But it’s quite hard in Korea to limit yourself as a graffiti artist in this way. It costs a lot of money for one thing, and also there are not very many good public spaces to work with. So why not earn money from hired pieces instead of wasting money all the time on public pieces? That is my mentality. In fact, I think by trying too hard to restrict graffiti to public spaces it limits me as an artist. If I only painted in public spaces, than I would lose out on many opportunities. For example, I recently painted one of the only hotrod big rigs in Korea that belongs to a famous Korean rock band, and I’ve also done pieces in Korean music videos. So why not use my artistic skill as a source of income? Is it any different than Tupac hiring someone to do a piece for one of his own music videos? Sure, it sometimes forces me to give up certain elements of self-expression when I have to cater to a customer, but I’d rather give up certain artistic elements and still earn money doing what I love than choose another source of income and give up all my artistic opportunities. I think all art shares a similar nature regardless of its form. Music, dance, fine arts – all of these share a fundamental purpose of expressing something in their own style. Only the materials that make up these art forms are what make them different.
Look up the artist who made the above statement at http://bfmin.com/.
Educational stress, oil dependency, and nuclear power concerns are expressed in some Korean Graffiti.
If any reader of this entry knows more than I have shown here I ask them to leave a comment.
This blog has received more views from Germany since I put up an entry
on “German Graffiti Culture.” But no one
from abroad has ever left a comment. Not many people from the United States have left me comments either.
In America, graffiti is more about culture; bombing, illegal work, and that gets you respect. Korea is different, it is only about the image created and not the culture.
For a while, nobody in Korea really cared about graffiti in public. But recently, the government has officially made it illegal to paint on public spaces, and more citizens have begun to complain about it. I am personally attracted in certain ways to the illegality of public graffiti, though I try to paint on places that are easy to reverse if they decide to get rid of it. But ultimately, I try hard to make my pieces very attractive so that no one wants to get rid of them! I think you can compare it to a child drawing something on a wall – he loves to express himself, and so nothing can stop him. I do think that the true idea of graffiti is when it is created in public places and perhaps in an illegal way. But it’s quite hard in Korea to limit yourself as a graffiti artist in this way. It costs a lot of money for one thing, and also there are not very many good public spaces to work with. So why not earn money from hired pieces instead of wasting money all the time on public pieces? That is my mentality. In fact, I think by trying too hard to restrict graffiti to public spaces it limits me as an artist. If I only painted in public spaces, than I would lose out on many opportunities. For example, I recently painted one of the only hotrod big rigs in Korea that belongs to a famous Korean rock band, and I’ve also done pieces in Korean music videos. So why not use my artistic skill as a source of income? Is it any different than Tupac hiring someone to do a piece for one of his own music videos? Sure, it sometimes forces me to give up certain elements of self-expression when I have to cater to a customer, but I’d rather give up certain artistic elements and still earn money doing what I love than choose another source of income and give up all my artistic opportunities. I think all art shares a similar nature regardless of its form. Music, dance, fine arts – all of these share a fundamental purpose of expressing something in their own style. Only the materials that make up these art forms are what make them different.
Look up the artist who made the above statement at http://bfmin.com/.
Educational stress, oil dependency, and nuclear power concerns are expressed in some Korean Graffiti.
Thursday, April 11, 2013
German Graffiti Culture
This blog has been viewed fifteen times from Germany. That is more than any other location outside
of the United States; South Korea is the runner up with seven views-- followed
by Finland and The United Kingdom with one view each. Seeing this has made me curious about the
Graffiti Culture of Germany. I have
gathered five WebPages that talk about German Graffiti Culture below. Each
paragraph of text is taken from somewhere on the page it links to.
The roots of graffiti culture can be traced back to West Berlin in the early 1980s, when the American-occupied sector was the reluctant melting pot of anarchist punks, Turkish immigrants and West German draft resisters.
Graffiti is not just the pathetic squiggles and insults you see scrawled on walls. It cannot simply be explained away as the rebellion of bored and antisocial youth. Graffiti is art. In fact, graffiti is now art with a price tag (and not a cheap one either!)
Lorenz is just one of a growing number of over-50's in Germany that are learning graffiti and other forms of street art, encouraged by courses targeting older generations. Often grey-haired or bespectacled, with some participants as old as 80, they don't exactly fit the profile of rebellious youth commonly associated with graffiti culture.
Over the last several years knitting has evolved from a grandmotherly hobby to a trendy diversion, but American Magda Sayeg is commonly credited with taking the trend to the streets as the creator of the yarnbombing movement in 2005. Within a few years the Houston, Texas resident had a large enough "granny graffiti" following to create her own crew of yarnbombers, who called themselves Knitta Please.
Our guide, a Scottish expat, took us to unknown art corners, where I had the chance to see many famous street artists’ work. As Wikipedia quotes “bizarre post communist locations, cheap rents, and ramshackle buildings give rise to a vibrant street art scene.”
The roots of graffiti culture can be traced back to West Berlin in the early 1980s, when the American-occupied sector was the reluctant melting pot of anarchist punks, Turkish immigrants and West German draft resisters.
Graffiti is not just the pathetic squiggles and insults you see scrawled on walls. It cannot simply be explained away as the rebellion of bored and antisocial youth. Graffiti is art. In fact, graffiti is now art with a price tag (and not a cheap one either!)
Lorenz is just one of a growing number of over-50's in Germany that are learning graffiti and other forms of street art, encouraged by courses targeting older generations. Often grey-haired or bespectacled, with some participants as old as 80, they don't exactly fit the profile of rebellious youth commonly associated with graffiti culture.
Over the last several years knitting has evolved from a grandmotherly hobby to a trendy diversion, but American Magda Sayeg is commonly credited with taking the trend to the streets as the creator of the yarnbombing movement in 2005. Within a few years the Houston, Texas resident had a large enough "granny graffiti" following to create her own crew of yarnbombers, who called themselves Knitta Please.
Our guide, a Scottish expat, took us to unknown art corners, where I had the chance to see many famous street artists’ work. As Wikipedia quotes “bizarre post communist locations, cheap rents, and ramshackle buildings give rise to a vibrant street art scene.”
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Thr33 Pairs of Shoes
Shoe tossing, is the act of using shoes as improvised projectiles or weapons, is a constituent of a number of folk sports and practices. Today, it is commonly the act of throwing a pair of shoes onto telephone wires, powerlines, or other raised wires. A related practice is shoe tossing onto trees or fences...
...Shoe flinging or "shoefiti" is the practice of throwing shoes whose shoelaces have been tied together so that they hang from overhead wires such as power lines or telephone cables. The shoes are tied together by their laces, and the pair is then thrown at the wires as a sort of bolas. This practice plays a widespread, though mysterious, role in adolescent folklore in the United States...
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I
found three pairs of sneakers hanging in trees yesterday. One pair was near the
Library Loop bus stop on The Evergreen State College campus. The other two
pairs were near the bus stop that is closer to my apartment across the street
from the campus dorms.
The
positioning of the shoes reminded me of dance steps unhindered by gravity.
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
The Evergreen State Collage
I wonder if the owner
of the lost wallet advertised on the yellow pages below lost their wallet while
chasing psychedelic little pills and cherries the size of his head. Or maybe he
dropped it while running from ghosts. Whatever the case he put together a captivating
document asking for it back. And it made me think about the way that the bulletin
boards on college campuses can make neat little snapshot collages of campus
life and campus values.
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Make Art
The following pictures are snippets from a chalk wall that was
located by the Artesian Well in Downtown Olympia. They were taken near the beginning of March
and last time I looked the chalk had mostly washed away. Someone involved with a homeless shelter/protest
to city ordinances against sidewalk sitting/lying and camping on city property
left a box of chalk on the ground with the words “Make Art” written above
it.
Pictures in Front of Olympia City Hall
In the words of one of the people I have recently interviewed—I
have become interested in the “Kerfuffle” that surrounds the issue of
homelessness in Olympia. On March 12th
I was lucky to be dismissed from jury duty in time to attend a Thurston County Commissioners
meeting in the afternoon—and I stuck around downtown Olympia for the rest of
the day so I could attend a protest activity in front of the Olympia City Council
prior to attending a council meeting.
Homelessness was discussed at both meetings. City ordinances banning sitting/lying on any
part of Olympia sidewalks between 7 AM and midnight— and “camping” on any city
property were a large part of the conversation.
The anti sitting/lying ordinance used to apply only to parts
of Olympia Sidewalks that were within 6 feet of a business—and it used to
extend until 10 PM instead of midnight.
The changes took effect between January and February of this year.
I am currently working on digesting the information I received
from the county and city meetings—as well as what I have gotten from interviews
I have already had with community members who work with the homeless in Olympia.
I am in the process of planning more
adventures into the kerfuffle.
The following pictures show protestors gathered in front of
City Hall. Some images show a picnic
blanket spread with food brought by and for the protestors—some of which were
homeless. Gathering and eating food from
a blanket on city property constituted an act of protest because a ban on “camping
paraphernalia” including blankets accompanies the anti camping ordinance.
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