City American Graffiti
posted by on July 24 at 23:35 PM
Happened to be walking up East Thomas Street near Summit Avenue right around sunset. Used to live on East Thomas, so I know everything about it—when to expect bricks, when you have to swerve to avoid big bushes, where the driveways are—but suddenly there was a wall I’d never seen before. No wait, it was a wall I’d seen before, but it was now a different color. Colors. It was covered in graffiti.
They used to sandblast and paint over graffiti on this wall to keep it from, well, being covered with graffiti. But now? Looks like someone came along and decided that a little graffiti doesn’t hurt anyone, even maybe that a little graffiti is kinda nice. How German. It does remind a person of Hamburg or Berlin, where just about every building, from the ground to about fifteen feet high, has a belt of graffiti around it. (You’ll be looking in the window of a fancy restaurant, people in coats and ties and such, and the exterior wall all around the window will be covered in spraypaint—drawings, tags, stencils, etc.)
As a former resident of the street, I had to admit this wall is looking not too bad. A couple old ladies walked by and they didn’t comment on what in the heck the gosh darn kids have been doing to the neighborhood, etc. They just walked on by, squinting in the semi-shade. There are green trees along the sidewalk, and these colors sorta go well with green. Yeah, some of the tags are crappy, but whatever. It’s nice to live in a graffiti town, just the way it’s nice to live in a poster-happy town. Go East Thomas Street! Go team! Way to—
I backed up and realized that the building behind this wall is in the process of being demolished. The whole half a block is junked.
In other words, no one with any clout wants this wall to look this way, it’s just sort of being left to look this way because its owner split, or its owner is going to get rid of it, and no one minds because something new is on the way.
If the other buildings going up in the neighborhood are any indication, what is on the way is going to suck. What I’m saying is, enjoy it while you can, people. Looking forward to seeing how it fills up.
(Related: Where can you buy spraypaint on the hill?)
my fave spot of this sort is the wall on the back of the cthulu building across the street from chop suey. there are some great pieces up there.
I pretty much prefer NO graffiti, but that is a personal preference.
Before we moved out here, we lived in a crappy town in South Dakota (which narrows it down to any town in South Dakota). Down the street from us was a street underpass that went under the railroad tracks. It would pretty regularly get a small amount of graffiti, which I always liked. It would pretty regularly get painted over, which I thought was dumb.
Finally after a few years of this cycle, some church group in town decided to paint a big, twenty-foot-tall American flag on one side of the underpass, along with a big "Faith in action" thing on the other side, just to make sure it was good and obnoxious.
On top of the annoying jingoism, it cracked me up that within a few months, the rainwater dripping down from the tracks had washed away swathes of the flag, replacing them with rust streaks. The underpass flooded during every big storm, so there was usually mud caked on to the bottom two or three feet of it.
I always wanted to paint over it with an upside-down flag.
you can buy spraypaint at the broadway market QFC! they have a decent selection.
Dude, no.
I'm extremely pro-graffiti if it's good graffiti, and I'm not terribly discriminating about what constitutes "good graffiti". A giant smiley face, done right, can be good graffiti. But most of the graffiti in Seattle, and particularly the graffiti on Capitol Hill, is just ugly pointless tags like that retarded purple tag.
The stencils you picture are images; they get the good graffiti stamp of approval in that, whether or not they succeed, they're clearly trying to be art. But the rest of it is just pointless shit put up by bored morons who think fucking other people's stuff up is somehow cool; who think it's ironic or revolutionary or coolly disinterested or whatever, and they justify it through pure ego. It exists on about the same level as the yuppie assholes who let their dogs shit all over the streets because they think being too fucked up to maintain satisfying social relationships with other humans makes keeping a large carnivore in the city a civil right.
Taggers are a blight on the urban landscape and if I ever caught one at work I'd feel very little compunction about putting the fucker in the hospital.
There's a building around the corner from the Kincora that was repeatedly hit about a month ago. Some was artistic in nature, but 99.9% of it was tag-related crap that made the building look like it was in a ghetto. I know the building is coming down when they take that block along Pine down, but COME ON! People shouldn't trash the neighborhood just because the the building is coming down. People still live in the building. On the block. Up the block. In the neighborhood and have to pass by that blighted looking bldg every day. It was an eyesore. I changed the way I felt about my neighborhood on my walk to work. I've noticed that the rest of the buildings along that block of Pine have been hit more often as well. Once it starts, is spreads. Within the last week or two our place a couple of blocks away was hit, too. That sucks.
I reported the tags on the apt. bldg to Seattle Public Utilities more than once. Legally, the bldg owner has to remove it within 24-48 (?) hours. They eventually painted over the bottom half of the building. But I have to admit, I was happy that they left the wolf up on the second story.
Like the stencils, really can't stand any of the rest of it. Tear-down or no, please do not put graffiti on this wall or any other wall, please.
Graffiti may seem Big City or something, but it's not. We need to have much bigger penalties for taggers. Those are the worst.
Judah @5, I walk around the Hill all the time, to work and back, etc., and I can honestly say almost everytime I see a dog crapping and it's not being picked up by its owner, its not a yuppie but rather the homeless kids with their pit bulls or whatever, and often its right on the sidewalk. The poor dog is lucky if their owner even stops to let him/her finish its business. Hate the yuppies if you will, but they almost always have a bag with them to pick up their dog's shit. I agree with you on the taggers, however. No one has a right, artistic or otherwise, to deface other people's property.
Justy:
Well, full disclosure, I am a yuppie, so I can't hate them all. I just don't own a dog. And I agree that the homeless kids (and I actually have a particular crew in mind here) do let their dogs shit all over the place. But I see a lot of yuppies do it too-- particularly in gardens and places where they don't think anyone will walk. They mostly do it early in the morning and late at night, when they don't think anyone will see them doing it.
They're just replacing the crummy siding on that building, aren't they? It's a condo building, and I thought they were just fixing the substandard facade. Funny how all these condos need so many fixes.
I love the wall also and hope they don't repaint it until last.
Hey shitface, tell me where you live and I can give you all the tagging you want.
Chris: are you addressing moi?
You can get spraypaint at the art store across the street from Six Arms. As one of the taggers on that wall, I'll tell you.... spraying that wall is satisfying in a way you can never know. Let alone the fact that others have added on to it as well. It's become the story of the white wall on Thomas. Thanks for posting this, maybe I'll make up a new stencil tonight for it.
I don't think the building in question (at corner of Thomas&Belmont) is being torn down, I think it has water damage and is being repaired. Also, I don't think it is a condo building - it is an apartment building, or at least was from 1996-2000 when I lived in it.
A little graffiti doesn't hurt anyone?
Tell that to the poor young couple on N 39th just half a block west of Fremont Ave N who keep having their garage tagged every week.
They buy paint in bulk.
It hurts them.
(accept no imitations for Will in Seattle)
oh, and @13 - where do you live so we can tag your place?
sorry, I was addressing the original poster.
I hate taggers.
Personally, I think there are worse things in the world than tagging.
In fact, I like tagging.
I graduated from an Arts high school. I'm very happy to say that we had to deal with a lot less crap than most other high schools. Most people got along. The only fighting issues we had were because of an actual "Fight Club" (yes, like the movie) and all of that was just for fun, so I don't see it as being necessarily a bad thing either. We had no gang troubles as far as anyone knew. Our only real "issue" was tagging. And even that was supported by our Media/Acting teacher, who went so far as to make the back wall of his classroom into a free tag wall!
All that to say, I consider tagging a form of art. I don't mind it. Yes, some of it is crap, but do you honsetly think that everyone should be a brilliant artist the first time they ever pick up a can? It takes practice!
And while I myself do not tag (I don't have the artistic skill) I am a proud supporter, and glad to have taggers as friends.
Courtney, do you believe in private property, or do you think that no one should own property and have control over it?
If you're asking me if I think it's wrong to tag all over someone's actual house, then yes... that's just someone being a stupid ass punk.
I'm just saying that if someone tags up a random wall in the middle of downtown and some person starts throwing a fit about how they are "degrading the city" or some shit like that, that's when people are being stupid and should back off. But if someone is tagging like... the front door of your house or something, then yeah, you've got a right to pissed. Otheriwse, I'm just saying, back off.
If you're asking me if I think it's wrong to tag all over someone's actual house, then yes... that's just someone being a stupid ass punk.
I'm just saying that if someone tags up a random wall in the middle of downtown and some person starts throwing a fit about how they are "degrading the city" or some shit like that, that's when people are being stupid and should back off. But if someone is tagging like... the front door of your house or something, then yeah, you've got a right to pissed. Otheriwse, I'm just saying, back off.
If you're asking me if I think it's wrong to tag all over someone's actual house, then yes... that's just someone being a stupid ass punk.
I'm just saying that if someone tags up a random wall in the middle of downtown and some person starts throwing a fit about how they are "degrading the city" or some shit like that, that's when people are being stupid and should back off. But if someone is tagging like... the front door of your house or something, then yeah, you've got a right to pissed. Otheriwse, I'm just saying, back off.
Shit... sorry about that guys. My computer went a little crazy...
What is the difference between someone's front door and the side of a "random" wall? 99% of walls aren't freestanding structures, but part of a building. Buildings belong to people. Often they are people's homes (apartment buildings) or livelihoods (businesses).
As for needing somewhere to practice, I was under the impression artists practiced on their own time and materials before perfecting their work for display. If somebody wanted to learn to play trombone and decided to practice in someone's business, it would be ridiculous!
That said, I like a clever, well-placed stencil (Banksy comes to mind). The trick is keeping it clever, placing it with discretion to the property, and keeping the amount to a minimum. They cease to be clever and edgy when there's one every few feet.
It just boils down to not being an ass to other people. Random tagging is not art, it's ego.
To Courtney:
The issue to me is not who owns the property that's tagged, but rather, what is the overall impact of that action. If one person tags (artistic stencil or scrawled "3A") it begets other tagging on the site and surrounding area. Rarely is a single tag in isolation. Tagging, "good" taggers and "bad" taggers alike, contribute to the Broken Window theory of neighborhood deterioration. Wiki it.
If a blank wall becomes home to a series of tags, at some point the wall may be perceived as unowned or part of an unoccupied building (as was the case in earlier posts). That could lend itself to other issues. For example, the apartment building I mentioned earlier, near the Kincora, was home to tags and soon there after was home to a trashed yard, illegal dumping, etc. Yes, it's the owner's responsibility to correct these problems, but what happens when the owner is absentee.
It's not as easy as just "backing off."
Courtney:
No, I'm not asking you anything about someone's actual house or someone's theoretical house.
What I'm asking is whether or not you support the idea of property rights. Do you or do you not think that we should be able to own property and have control over it?
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