Category: Graffiti

Bill Murray Triptych

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Hanging around the Cully neighborhood in northeast Portland on a recent substitute teaching assignment had me enduring minor transportation calamities in the way of two trashed/flat bike tires (thanks for helping Cat Six Cycles), discovering that a record shop called Jump Jump exists in the neighborhood and the possibility that germy kids put the kybosh on my ability to digest birthday celebration chicken wings. It’s all par for the course I’d have to say and finding Bill Murray’s face immortalized in artistic expression, in triplicate no less, soothed my soul and made it somehow worth it.

Gracing the back of an apartment mail box container on NE Prescott Ave. was the Bill Murray Triptych. Amazingly I was able ride by it the first time without stopping to genuflect. I filed this phenomenon away and returned for a photo. The image seems to come from Murray’s quintessential role in the film Stripes. The art captures Murray in all his Zen comedic charm, smirk and swagger. It has the feel of a Warhol homage in its decal, spray paint and screen print. Where Warhol created art based on one named legends like Elvis and Marilyn, this unknown artist offers passersby a portrait of a man of the people. I’d be hard pressed to consider that the Postmaster General would be have a problem with apartment mailbox vandalism when one look at Bill Murray in any form makes people feel good and would cheer up even the most down and out stragglers who happen by.

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The work is marred only by a fellow vandal who decided to join the fray.  I have no problem with the sticker, subject matter or design. I’ve seen this sticker around and it seems a faint homage to Paul Stanley so maybe there’s a celebrity theme going on but I would have preferred to see the predominant piece of art given some space and not crowded out by a more colors and noise.  Don’t mess with Bill Murray with your GOO GOO for God’s sake.

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A triptych is really the way to go here. One Bill Murray would not have been enough yet any more than three would have thrown the universe off balance. I’m not sure everyone in the neighborhood knows who Bill Murray is but it’s a face and artwork that with one glance returns a sense of serene, comedic calm and possibly even enlightenment. It’s a generous offering of street art, taking it out of the normal confines of the art world and exhibiting it on the side of the road where fine art is rarely seen. I can only imagine how Bill Murray figured out that he could entertain the world, but I’m glad he did. Forget your troubles, stop, and look at Bill Murray.

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BOO-BOO

When Scribbles Mean Art

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Anyone who’s read a few of my posts must sense an underlying obsession with scribbled graffiti. It feels like annoying visual noise buzzing through my head when I’m out walking the dog. In my best agitated curmudgeon state it seems like a blight openly screaming that vandals have no need to consider people’s property or businesses, that it’s their right to make nasty, meaningless ribbons of paint wherever they want because no one seems to care. I’m heading into Travis Bickle territory with that last sentence, but I don’t see graffiti getting cleaned up or painted over often. It hangs around not looking like much. I can’t help but look at it, feel curmudgeonly feelings towards it and dream about living in a scribble free world. I wish the scribblers could have gotten it out of their system when they were babies. I had a flashback to a religious pamphlet a guy handed me downtown. The cover had Jesus and a group of children from many different nationalities in their native garb approaching a glowing, crystal city with a giant rainbow over it. I’m guessing there’s no graffiti in that place. I’m sure people can defend it and call it street art. I look at it and most of the time I grumble. I’m grumpy. I just paid my Arts Tax, and my household payment of 70 bucks puts a dent in my anemic budget. I would have preferred to go out with my wife and have dinner with some money left over to support an art event. I do like knowing that the money is going to hire teachers and I want to support art, but I want to complain more. Buy the kids some canvas with some of that art tax. Let them make indoor art.

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I was around mile 7 of a 9.5 mile bike commute home from a substitute teaching job. My route from Southeast Portland had me heading to Lombard Ave to hit the bike path and ride along the railroad tracks. It started raining in the afternoon and I hadn’t thought to pack rain gear. The Bison Coffee House jumped out at me like an oasis so I stopped to drink coffee and warm up. By the time I got along the railroad tracks the rain started back up. I was getting soaked and in no mood to stop. I had seen some old school multi-colored subway train graffiti on a cement underpass, but it was too hard to reach. When I saw the scribbles that made a face the part of me that wanted to check it out overpowered the part of me that wanted to get home. I’ve ranted about scribbles that make no sense to me but these scribbles captured my harried, soaked to the skin, dampened spirits. I was looking at about as much art as you can get out of a spray can. The mouth, the grimace, captured the spirit of life along the railroad tracks. It took scribbles to a whole other level. There was movement, meaning and great energy. I could overlook the vandalism aspect because I saw art and when you’re riding a bike down Lombard Ave with cars whizzing by and rain in your face a little art takes the misery out of the whole endeavor.

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The Portland Orbit editorial board wishes to make the following statement: We’re asking that David Craig acknowledge that he is not promoting vandalism and that if he wishes to continue writing about graffiti it will be for the purposes of documenting it and not promoting it or encouraging it in any way. And by documenting it he will also refrain from harping on how much it annoys him.

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Not art.

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Graffiti free zone.

Sign Round Up Snarkathon

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Here’s a chance to empty the Portland Orbit photograph backlog that also allows me a forum to make snarky comments about street sign graffiti, bumper sticker philosophy and homemade signs.

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Stay True

I’m thinking this message on North Lombard is referring to staying true to my convictions. Too bad my convictions aren’t paying me a dime. But it’s a nice message written in admirable penmanship. I wouldn’t be offended by foul language written in this script.

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Don’t Postpone Joy

Ah, bumper sticker philosophy! Joy, joy, joy, joy, joy, you want to talk about joy.  I thought that was a Christmas thing. How am I supposed to postpone joy when I can’t muster up any in the first place? I had to look up the definition of joy to get a clear idea of the sentiment of this bumper sticker. Joy resembles the temporary euphoria I get after my second, or third cup of coffee. I noticed the word dismal was included in the dictionary entry as the opposite of joy. That’s closer to how I feel and I don’t have to postpone a thing. It’s better for this bumper sticker to be stuck on the back of a stop sign instead of a car bumper or I would find myself unable to postpone the joy of smashing into any car displaying this message.

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Pick Up Your Poop

I pick up 97.999 percent of the poop my dogs, past and present, have pooped out while on dog walks. The one time I didn’t, I was instantly scolded when I hadn’t realized one of the dogs I was walking had made a deposit. This was back when I was walking two old dogs that were kind and gentle. They didn’t get worked up about seeing other dogs or chase cats, squirrels or flying birds. This meant I could multitask and read the weekly papers while walking them. I had been reading an article about Gene Simmons of KISS, so engrossed was I that I hadn’t paid attention. A guy walking to the body shop where this occurred asked me if I was going to pick up my dog’s poop. Like I said before, man, I didn’t see it happen. I wanted to tell him I was reading a Gene Simmons article but who the hell cares about that.

I haven’t figured out my complusion to read about Gene Simmons every chance I get. He’s repulsive, his hair, his arrogance, his TV show, which I hope is off the air. Besides, I’m still getting over being traumatized by seeing Paul Stanley sing the National Anthem in a New York accent last Fourth of July before a Timber’s soccer game. This whole KISS aura, including their arena football team, has infiltrated me.  The sophomoric response is to consider the “your poop” section of the message.  It really should refer to your dog’s poop but I guess there’s only so much space for messages that people hang in trees.  All in all, Pick Up Your Poop is a good reminder, although I don’t think I need to read it every time I see it.

Please No Litter

Please No Littering

Like the Pick Up Your Poop sign, this sign was also spotted in the Kenton neighborhood. If I had been creating this sign I would have spent at least an afternoon deciding on whether to include a comma in the message.  Using the word please is a nice way to begin an imperative sentence. It doesn’t feel harsh in that do this or don’t do this kind of way. All right, so I’ll figure out a better place for my candy bar wrappers and cheeseburger bag. I won’t toss them on the street under your sign. You win anonymous sign poster because you have manners.

Elegant Graffiti

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I’m surrounded by graffiti. There’s no escape. While I want to document it, I’m wary of praising it. This giant decal art work that appeared on the side of my neighborhood strip club, the Dancing Bare, caught my eye a couple of weeks back. It was slapped on the wall that faces the Trimet Max train tracks by an anonymous source. Most graffiti is created anonymously or it might be easier for those who create it to get in big trouble.  It occurred to me that if people needed to deface buildings it might be appreciated a bit more if it were done in an artistic manner.  This one screams art. The bearded dude is a painter holding a palette and brushes.  Artist imitating art.  It could very well be a deep statement pasted on the wall of a strip club.

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When I consider the rest of the wall, I see an ad for Bud Light, bolder, letter type spray painted squiggles as well as some painted sections covering up past graffiti and I had to consider which image I could live with more because there’s no way a blank wall can exist for long in Portland without someone wanting to spray paint squiggles on it or display advertising.

I considered who the figure in the picture was. He resembled a pumped up Charlton Heston playing a combination of a Moses character who decided to retire after delivering the tablets and parting the sea to take up painting and then ended up looking more like Michelangelo. Anyone young enough to not have a feel for who Charlton Heston was, well there was a time when he had cool roles in movies like Omega Man and a couple of the old Planet of the Apes films. He shouldn’t be remembered solely as the crazy old coot who stumped for the N.R.A. talking about how we’ll have to pry the gun out of his cold dead hands before anyone messes with the 2nd amendment. Such a memory for that might also be murky. He’s been dead a while.

There’s an endless cycle of decorating and redecorating the neighborhood. Charlton Moses Michelangelo is already in the process of being peeled off the wall. This style of graffiti might be appealing (pun intended and unintended) compared to other forms but it may be harder to remove much less paint over. And really there should be no tolerance for graffiti of any kind. Regardless of the skill level or technique it’s still vandalism. Get there early to catch the first form of this constant flux.

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My apologies to Mrs. Yuckmow (the third grade teacher of Pittsburgh Orbit blogger Will Simmons) for starting a sentence with the word “and.”

Stop!

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Who is laughing at Danzig? Those who stop at the intersection of N Greeley Ave and N Willamette Ave might see themselves as the culprit and I hope they consider the serious nature of their mirth and realize that someone in this world thinks their laughing needs to end. I’ve seen many a defacement of stop signs that told me to stop this or that, but this one impressed me by looking like a sticker that had been made to be applied to multiple stop signs to stop an epidemic of hilarity that has been foisted upon Danzig.  I can’t imagine someone applying a Laughing at Danzig sticker to the bumper of their car.  That would not go over well in a goth neighborhood.

I ran into another example of this mayhem.

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The sentiment is nice, and it’s written in a doom metal font that overshadows it’s message.  It’s hard to read.  Stop is bold and clear, the word apathy is running off the edge of the sign.  I didn’t get into the blogging business to critique street sign penmanship, but it’s common sense. Make your message legible.  I don’t want to have to stop my car or bike, get out and squint my eyes to get the general idea.

I rode through a North Portland neighborhood trying to remember where I had seen a “stop austerity” message.  I couldn’t find it.  I remember it well but it wasn’t where I knew I had seen it.  It had me wondering how often stop signs get replaced.  Certainly times would have to be a bit more austere before a stop austerity sign would get replaced. Stop signs aren’t cheap.

I was at the last stop sign before MLK when I noticed a faint scrawl, possibly written in dust, underneath the stop message. It’s almost not worth showing because even with the most highly sophisticated, forensic-like, software manipulations, I could not get a good image of the “stop working” sign.  It’s probably a sentiment lost on most people anyway.

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Stop working: I tried.

Finally, doubling back to head home, I spied the sign below. Scribbles! I have no idea what’s trying to be stopped here. Sure stop sign manipulations are minimal vandalism and while I can’t condone it, I can be entertained by it. For the most part the message is lost on the people who just want to obey the law and stop at the stop sign. They probably aren’t going to stop anything but their car. For me, I’m done laughing at Danzig.

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 I’d stop it, if I could pronounce it.

Are these folks laughing at Danzig? You decide:

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Scribbles Speak

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I usually eschew graffiti writing it off as noisy scribbles marring the neighborhoods but one sunny Friday afternoon I caught this image and between the shadows, sunlight and even the spray bottle in the window I recognized art! This appeared in the window of The Office on Interstate Ave, a strip club that never seemed to open or operate for long.

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