Other (not always) wordless friends:
Cheryl Andrews
Allison Howard
Barbara Lambert
Allyson Latta
Elizabeth Yeoman
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Other (not always) wordless friends:
Cheryl Andrews
Allison Howard
Barbara Lambert
Allyson Latta
Elizabeth Yeoman
Matilda Magtree 
Graffiti at its best, Carin. Wherever did you discover this vibrant gem?
There’s a skateboard park in town. I’ve driven past it a thousand times but the other day I was on my bike so I stopped and walked around, and close up it had a whole different feel than the ‘view’ from a passing car. I was surprised and touched by what felt like an earnest art form in a confined space.
We’re having fun here – I bet this brought a sunny smile to your face Carin!
It did, Allison, in a surprising way. Places like this are so important for kids. They make them their own.
Yes, you’re right, Carin – they are important. My son and his friends used to skateboard downtown here and were always harassed by the police. Once they asked “Where can we skateboard then?” and the officer responded “In your driveways, boys, in your driveways.” They all lived in row houses downtown (the famous rows of coloured houses) and not one of them had a driveway! Now, wouldn’t you call that a failure of the imagination on the part of the officer?
Not only a failure of imagination but downright dim. Part of the beauty of skate parks is the freedom to make it one’s own space, a kind of cement clubhouse where only the like-minded hang out. The whole point being to be ‘away from home’. What you’d like to think one small role of policing might be is to act as the eyes and ears of the street and report what’s needed ‘out there’ to keep kids/people occupied in a safe way. Too proactive?? *sigh*
What charming, colourful graffiti, Carin. Very cheerful! Was it painted at the edge of something — is that why there’s a curve at bottom left? I cheated and read an earlier message, so I see it was taken at a skateboard park. Are there other such paintings there in the same vein, or was this the only one? If there’s one thing WW and all of you have taught me, it’s to stop and look at things from a different angle.
So bright and lively. Interested in your description of it as an “earnest art form.” if you feel like saying more about that.
What I mean by that is the intensity you feel in certain kinds of graffiti, that the ‘taggers’ have much to say but not entirely sure where best to be heard. So the message, sometimes cryptic, often beautiful, is splashed about in public places… anonymous for the most part, but sure to be seen. Paradoxically, it also feels like a closed society… that the messages are meant to be read two ways. Code for those in the know. For instance, the park I photographed had all kinds of tributes to a fallen fellow skateboarder. They didn’t have to make art in his honour, but they did… and you could feel the sincerity of emotion behind it, though neither the words nor the images were in any way sentimental. It always touches me that people have a need for expression and how they find ways to let it out.
Coincidentally, just yesterday I was looking at graffiti art in downtown St. John’s made to commemorate a skateboarder who died in 1995. It struck me especially because it was new art and replaced an older piece on which the paint had peeled. I think there had been other renewals prior to this one and it has become almost a tradition to keep an image of that young man in the public eye downtown. (It’s a skillful large scale painting of him on a wall.)