San Francisco Street Art

Austin Exit Art

How great is this little guy?  A little spaceman?  A giraffe jockey?  I'm not sure, but I love his pout, his slouch, and his blue comma nose.  

Located on the back of a sign facing the Austin off ramp from I-290

Good Thing Nine: Graffiti

In Columbia's neighborhood, graffiti continues to be weird and awesome and often beautiful--even though don't fret has left our community. Anywhere huge swathes of young people live, new ways of expression are bound to crop up. . .


embroidered wheat paste? shut the door, that's great.


A little ship's masthead maiden just appears attached to the most colorful wall in the neighborhood? I've been passing her for weeks. . . like a little saint, leaving us looking for the other new stations of the cross. . .

garage graffiti

Saw this walking between meetings at work on the inner wall of a garage.

Totally beautiful.

One of the Best Weeks of the Year

Blog-wise, I usually get out ahead of this each year, but it's been an really busy spring. Anyhoo, this past week was one of my most favorite of the year--the week that ends in Columbia College Chicago's Manifest.

It's a magical week on campus--students are wrapping up their finals, seniors are dreaming about graduation, street art and performance art starts to crop up around campus. And we had the added bonus of hot sunny weather almost the entire last week.

The first thing I saw that let me know Manifest was gearing up was this great installation by (don't fret.). Super talented wheat paste artist that Columbia gave a wall to play on. Obviously, he doesn't need to be given a wall. His job is to find walls and take them over. But I think it's a lovely testament to the college's dedication to all forms of art that we invited him to do his thing on one of our buildings!

Why I like my job #1 and #2

So, this week at Columbia College Chicago ends in Manifest on Friday and Graduation on Saturday and Sunday. It's the best week of the year on campus.

My job is hard. Tons of work and not enough hours in the day to do it all. This is true of the work of nearly all of my colleagues as well. But it's good work. Interesting work. And it's all for a place filled with creativity and the ability to change on a dime and a spirit of innovation and a love of the arts.

So, this week, I'm going to try to post a number of cool things about the college in celebration of this exciting week and the fact that while I undoubtedly give a lot of my time to Columbia. . . it certainly gives right back.

Reason #1:

Columbia got a new dorm. . .
And it has a graffiti floor for the Residents to tag at will.



Columbia graffiti wouldn't be complete without a (don't fret.).


Reason #1.1:
The students are funny.

Reason #1.2:
The students are serious and aware and accepting.
(Thanks, Miss Just, specifically for this one)

Reason #2:
When the professionals at the college decide to decorate the walls, they do work like this:

Manifest is Coming Soon

Columbia College's annual urban arts festival, Manifest, celebrating all of our graduating seniors and graduate students is coming up soon. It's one of my favorite days of the year. . . but truth be told it's not just a day. Every year, at about just this time in April, an energy hits campus that is the beginning rumblings of that exciting celebration and it ramps up gradually through out the spring.

The staff throws a kick-off party today--and that's part of it. But that's so official. The thing I'm talking about is like little waves of excitement running through the students and the community. Usually how I notice it first is through higher levels and higher quality of graffiti around campus.

Exhibit A: Beautiful Wheat Paste on Harrison


Exhibit B: A Great Video About Landry Miller's Process in Designing the Branding for Manifest this Year



In the same way that there are the first signs of Spring, there are the first signs of Manifest. As they pop up, I will share them here. . .

Graffiti

The corner newspaper boxes at the corner of Wabash and Balbo on Columbia's campus are a canvas of revolving graffiti artists' work. (don't fret.) is a frequent guest artist. Here are some of his postal faces with a "don't fret" mixed in for good measure.

But today there were also a couple of super cute octopi in the mix (and boo to the not nearly as cool band poster that was covering up a third--not pictured here).

And, bonus, there was sun today.

Robots Attack En Masse

They're cropping up all over the place.

And I have no recollection of changing my facebook profile picture to a robot.
But there he is, pretending to be me all over facebook.
I wonder if his buddies will also make similar moves into taking over my virtual persona. . . creepy.

(don't fret.)!

More (don't fret.) on one of his most ubiquitous canvasses.

I swear that every time work gets hectic or times get tough, a new (don't fret.) shows up to remind me not to fret. Happy day.

. . . then Friday was Unbearaborrible

After such a great day Thursday (though admittedly that in the heart of a pretty stressful week), Friday was a mess. The kind of day a girl should never get out of bed. And there was no huge tragedy. No death. No job loss. No big break-up. It was just one of those days filled with such an unbelievable accumulation of screw-ups and bad timings and inexplicable rudenesses from complete strangers that you progress from cranky and out of sorts, straight through to crying, gnashing of teeth and rending of garments.

I felt utterly incapable of controlling a single thing around me and so ended the day (9:00 PM/12 hour work day/at the end of a week of several 12 hour work days/because huge bad thing discovered at 4:30PM/re:final straw) with a treat of a cab ride home. And the moment I got into the cab, a van cut the cab off and I was stuck for four blocks in traffic swerving pursuit of that van and the cabbie barking the worst possible swear words at the van at every red light. And at the end of the ride, I couldn't even get him to drop me where I want to and had to walk 4 blocks back to meet Dan and little grey and LP. And Dan gave me a big hug and I just cried and cried and cried.

I think this is what newborns must feel like--as if the whole world is a giant rough insensitive place and they can't even get a word in edge wise. And they cry and cry and cry.

Meh.

So, today, a whole collection of my favorite graffiti artist's sticky-label drawings. Perfect for the day after what will heretofore be known as the "stupidest day of the year":

don't fret, indeed.

L.P.: in a gang?

I don't know what "L.P." stands for in sidewalk/street maintenance land. So instead of figuring that out, we decided that, in a town with its share of gang problems, our boy L.P. has started to act out and stray from the straight and narrow path.

Maybe he sneaks out of the house in the thick of night and tags the neighborhood while we're sleeping.

He certainly stood next to his spray-painted name with enough pride today to make us suspect our imaginings to be true.

street lamp art

Love is. . .

as it turns out. . . I think this graffiti artist is a student at Columbia, because they hung some of their work in a show during Manifest. Such a huge arts festival that likely no one put two and two together, but not the smartest move.

My guess is that nothing will happen to Columbia's graffiti-er. But I offer this as advice to all of you young budding artists out there--graffiti is illegal. Period. If you damage private property for four years and then broadcast that fact formally right before graduation--you may find yourself with an extra 4-5 figure bill attached to your tuition bill to cover the cost of that repair work.

Dangerous business. . . that's why graffiti artists use tags, not their actual signatures, you know?

Bolt Graffiti

Another clever use of an open bolt hole in a downtown sign pole.

What's not to love. . . a piece that seems created just for me. The letter "A" smack dab in the middle. A couple of bees for my brother and all on wood bolted to something that already had an empty hole. Graffiti that hurts no one, damages no property.

Like knit graffiti, it's a crime with no victims.

Love it.

Art School

I'm super lucky to work at an arts college.  Many days, it can feel like a job, like going to any office and doing office-y work (though, I admittedly don't have a lot of other experiences for comparison and it feels creative most of the time, so maybe I'm wrong).  But when I go out for lunch and take a look around, there's always a surprise waiting outside.  I should have my camera always glued to my hand.

Yesterday, no camera on me, and I saw a student turn the corner balancing a nearly life-sized elk, painted matte black--made of what? papermache?--walk past totally oblivious people on Michigan Avenue and then turn into a building and disappear.  As if walking around carrying a black elk is totally common place.  And I have no picture to prove it.

Instead I have these. . . a series of strange little drawings two of our students taped to the seat of all twenty bikes locked to the bike rack out front.

More Wheat Past Graffiti

Yeah!  Surgeon Head.  

Don't know what it means, but I found it on an electrical box near my office today. It's certainly the brightest and most introspective body-less head I've ever seen.  And maybe that's enough.

Each year, as graduation and Manifest draw closer on Columbia's campus, the graffiti on campus begins to ramp up. There's not much direct freehand spray painting on buildings. We get wheat paste pieces, spray painted stencil pieces (more often on the ground or on the supports that hold up the el tracks on campus), or drawings on labels stuck all over everything.

I'm sure, due to the illegality of this past time, that I shouldn't look forward to it each year. . . but it's as sure a sign of Spring coming as robins in the park or crocuses popping up out of the snow. And it's art. So what's an art and spring lovin' girl to do, I ask you?

This week, I spotted these:

Funny, but I don't agree.  I think you're lovely.

Knit Graffiti

Yeah! This is post is for my mother who hasn't seen any knit graffiti in Cincinnati. In a short cut block of Oak Park--lined with small restaurants and shops--every tree in the block has its very own sweater. The husband and I first noticed this back during the holidays, and since then the graffiti has changed. So, a knit graffiti artist that obviously won't put up with faded colors! Love it!

I've seen a lot of this around Chicago. I like tree wraps best, but I saw an amazing bike rack entirely covered from end to the other that I wish I had a picture of.