A Grafitti Park grows in Stockwell

Neither Stockwell nor Brixton have historically been viewed by mainstream observers as the fountains of aesthetics.

You do not learn about Brixton at the Academy. however, those of us interested in contemporary art or modern urban history are likely to find ourselves in stranger places. London, to world travelers, may seem tame in its roughest edges. Art, however, is not tame here. Projects are being developed. One which grabbed my eye way the Signal Project.

While Stockwell and Brixton have always been contemporary and artistic in the heaps on aesthetics they shed upon the modern cosmopolitan mind of London, I am not a scholar of English urban history. What I do is blog, blogging, and walking or some combination in between. And when I have time to pause, I pick up the local free papers, the local art papers, or a wifi/internet signal and research what I can turn up.

This blog turned up from the Thursday edition of the Evening Standard on graffiti gardening.

It is a terrific story (which you can link to above). Public art, 'spray can art' or outsider neo-art is what some of us think of as a new revolutionary spirit. It is embraced, disgraceful, misunderstood. It is highly debatable. It is a challenge to get a hold on whether you have read Banksy or prefer to simpy accept mottos. Solo's motto is often painted on the walls of the ball courts of stockwell and Brixton, "Say Something Beautiful or Be Quiet." I have said something similar in my revious blogs on the subject. Graffit can be damaging and offensive without purpose, or without even meaning to not have purpose. It can be venally vain.

It can also be a powerful movement for uplifting rises of power in marginalized communities. It sometimes can say what we have thought but not heard. It can replace and undermine the worlds of consumerism, advertising, and corporations. It is powerful. It cannot be turned off.

Like the arts and sciences this public art incorporates, is incorporated, shares and crosses boundaries with what it means to be human, social, cultural, individual. It can be as simple as the biases we already have, graffiti belongs with rap, breakdance, basketball, being black. It can be as ritzy and accepted by art forums as Banksy's wonderful book Wall and Piece.

London is not so shallow. It is multi-cultural (probably the multicultural capital of Europe).

Solo-one, the hero of our insider article, sees graffiti as feeding young people with positive ideas. "You have to have the heart to do it..." he says, tagging as opposed to art can, bring neighborhoods to the brink of "descending into madness." Art and the ability to pursue the skills of being an artist and perfecting the artistic craft is an agreed upon ethic that crosses generations of street artists whether they are well known or invisible. "If it is good, the walls are better off plain." Solo-One says, "Sacrifice is important. If a piece has only taken 20 minutes I know the artist's heart wasn't in it."

What is the difference really between the honing of artistic craft today and the construction of great murals, mosaics, and other public art pieces of the past?

In today's London, some of the best, most loved contemporary art can be found in the outdoors. Galleries are tucked between forgotten streets and along abandoned industry and rail yards. There are galleries tucked into the vacant spaces (read: parks) in Stockwell Park Estates. This is the domain of Solo-One and his kindred spirits. "This is a safe-place for kids to learn how to paint," he says, and to understand the commitment it takes to be a good writer."

Today we are off to the Meeting of Styles, it is an important part of our trip to London. We will try and guide ourselves to finding a Banksy tour beginning Waterloo underneath the railway arches... that is all we have right now to work with. Art it seems is never far nor hard to find.

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Reflecting on Estepona - Summer side hamlet with a view of Africa

There is a sculpture here in a park that says a lot about this ‘fishing village.’ It is an image on a hand. The wave seems to be landing - upside down! It is like an upside down ‘la vague’ with a child (baby Jesus) being swaddled on the end of an inverted waterfall. The sculpture is new but parts of the baby‘s finger digits are broken off. There is no genitalia to the infant.

This park wants to be useful and pretty. It has the sweep of wisteria covered arbors, lots of benches and a block fountain wall that seems to have an infinite pool perched on the edge above it. The fountain pours silently, rain over glass, onto a painted blue bottom pool. It is calming.

There is a sense in the park of a modern planning. It is recent construction. The good use of taxes. There are two paths that lead out of a fountain. They lead up rose covered walks to a sloping hills of manicured green, more arbors, more benches.

The benches are empty. They are waiting for people. The benches and the park are waiting for the town of old folks to adopt them and migrate in on afternoons. To be in the park away from dusty cafes, the tapa joints. The characteristic silent park is waiting for the English tourists and permanently disgruntled residents to take their pugs, bulldogs, and shelties here…once dogs and skates are allowed.

In Estepona, there is a park with an awkward sculpture hidden to the side of the entrance.

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New Ideas and Debate on Public Art: Reflections on Legal & Illegal Art Europe

I did not know it, that Europe would be the most graffitied place I had ever been. It is too much!

It is everywhere. Sometimes it is a masterpiece of enormous proportions; or, maybe it is a tiny image, politically understated yet provocative, hidden among graffiti tags on a slender alley's wall. Other times, it is debatable whether there is anything 'artistic' at all; if what you are seeing is plain ignorance; a teenage angst brought to life; or, the worst we have seen, desiccation of another, much more historically important or beautiful piece of art.

We have seen thousand year old ruins and statues spray painted. We have seen beautiful modern art sculptures covered with globs of paint or wax or worse.

So we continue a debate - what is Public Art: What is damage?; What is political?; What is juvenile?

In the Balkans, in Italy, and in France the lines of officialdom begin to blur.

Art is so useful here, so expressive, so 'cutting edge' and/or deconstructive. But, one has to ask - where would a modern open-minded society dare to put restraints on production, placement, or culpability of displaying public art?

Reticently, we have had a debate about how to use better, more temporary public art displays as environmental art. Our debate centers both in the sense of art display and in terms of its social and environmental impacts.

We are seeing some types of art, especially grafitti, causingdamage, social stress, and reinforcement of negative values. How can this negative become a positive, we ask ourselves? After seeing so much damage and vandalism to property by 'artists' we were happy to find that some artists were looking for compromise and solutions. One art exhibit in particular really seemed very well thought out in Marseilles.

In this exhibit, a photography group has produced large paper prints of two separate expositions. The first group of photographs takes up the concepts of spirituality and public spiritual displays in India. This was a terrific exhibit which stretched over several blocks in the historic foothills surrounding the Vieux Port area.

The second exhibit was apparently produced by either the same photography exhibition group or very kindredly inspired artistic spirits. This exhibit collects recent and historic photographs from the neighborhood where it is exhibited.

What impressed us and drew te fire together for our debate on producing meaningful, and harmless art in the form of intentionally temporary exhibits.

What are some of the benefits of producing temporary public art exhibits?

Our debate about basic questions concerning placement, quality, temporality, and nature of Public Art is one that we give more thought to now than before we reached Europe. The Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How - of whether art and its display in public space should continue to exist is, to us, now unquestionable. That more art on public display produces more thought, insight, debate, camaraderie, and a more sociable urban aesthetic is, to us, obvious.


But... are there ways for all 'public' art artists to improve their art. Can it be made more green? Can we put moral or critical restraints on ourselves in order to not offend or to reach different audiences? Are some lines too important not to be crossed? How do we distinguish between art and vandalism? How can art collectives strengthen social fabric and explanation of art?

In temporary photography exhibits we see in Europe (and those described above in France) there is specificity.

Here, we found in two exhibitions a melding of Marseillaise social history, of green arts technologies and recycling, of bridge-building, of mosaic collage, of spirituality, of international ambassadorship, of much to make neighborhoods and cities humane. These were progressive, thoughtful, for everyone.

Art can be fun. It can be interactive. It is something which we can identify with, be critical of, and be proud of (sometimes, all of these we can find at one and the same time)...

Public art is a tradition as old as humanity. Let's support it!

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Visiting a Mosaic School outside Venice

Our energies and aspirations to ‘know’ a portion of Italy in too short a window of time was luckily informed and bolstered by our experiences in the region of small hamlets north of Venice.Thanks to our wonderful host and the lovely countryside surrounding Pordenone.



The region is a historic wonderland. It is a place to see villages almost entirely intact dating back a thousand years. There are towns filled with frescoes covering insides of churches and outsides of normal buildings. These are public art murals dating back 400-600 years!! People will be warm to your visit. In many places, they only get some regional tourists, maybe an Austrian bus tour or two, but not very much in terms of distant travelers (these people rarely leave Venice).



Our best find was one of the only two Mosaic schools in Italy. At the School Mosaicisti del Friuli, Spilimbergo, Italy, Students come from around the world to spend three years studying the Mosaic arts. The school itself is basically a museum of sculpture and mosaic arts right down to floors and walls which were created, designed, installed by students and staff. Types of Mosaics on display range from historic reconstruction, to portraiture, to abstract and contemporary arts. A visit to this venerable institution will likely broaden your appreciation for craft arts and sculpture, for trades and guilds, for public art, and for a general respect which the arts are given in Europe.

Try and visit while classes are in session to meet some of the students. Their dedication, craft, and work ethic will amaze you. It is a place of living history supporting the crafting of art - modern, contemporary, restorative, public.

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Service in Parks - or anywhere you go

We have found ourselves with an abundance of service projects everywhere we go. We love to look back down a beach, to gaze across a park or campground, or, look at the flowers of a roadside and enjoy a view without trash and plastics. There is something different about being in places where you can make a public difference; something about finding a space that is of a human scale which can be seen as approachable, conquerable, measurable. We have found these spaces in parks and beaches: essentially in the places which we decide ‘ought‘ to be clean.

While traveling, I myself stress that I would prefer not to let my own moral code define the interactions I have. (This has come in handy lately in lands where even wealthy, educated, business owners have not given a thought to tossing plastic bags and bottles out their windows onto the precious landscapes all around us.) In fact, though I am blogging about public clean-ups as service projects - one of there best qualities is that they are an invisible good. When done correctly, no one should have to know that we have done a service project at all. Leaving a place cleaner makes it more enjoyable without seeking recognition or reward.

So, I find service cleaning beaches, trails, parks, campsites, and roadways. And, while I wish that in many parts of the world people were more than jut beginning to get a grasp on the non-disposability of plastic (meaning: it does not go away); I do not take on this service with negativity or discontent. Instead, I mostly enjoy therapeutic and fast rewards of the calming exercise and my immediate betterment of the space. I love the feeling of improving a space which I was already enjoying..

As any passionate dishwasher, car washer, grass cutter, or vacuum maven will tell you, there is a meditative value in organizing and cleaning our environment. While it may not all be our mess, stewarding its utility and preservation is a kindness we do for both ourselves and others.

What I call the greatness of service in cleaning public places is the silence and invisibility of the act. While it would cause some discomfort to pick up trash (coming from my own society, the USA, where cleaning of public parks and roadways is often the purveyance of non-violent incarcerated offenders). It is my hope that people who see someone cleaning pubic places will choose one of two principle actions for their own life: (1) to not litter; and, (2) to leave our public (and private) places cleaner than we find them. If you question your ability to clean up a public mess, start smaller, clean a remote trail, clean a community garden, or the public ways of residence of someone you know infirm. Enjoy that small satisfaction; then let that small success motivate you towards other, more public places.

My theory behind why public places should be clean is a simple one: If the lands and special places which we all enjoy together are kept to a high standard, we will all expect the same in our own home lands.

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