Oly taggers | OlyBlog

I've also witnessed blackberry bushes and weeds arriving uninvited, pushing through beautiful brick history(!) and quite generally making a nuisance of themselves during my numerous walks about downtown Olympia.

Comrades, I fear it is us or them. Clearly no matter what we do this nature thing refuses to engage with us in a civilized manner, spreads its detritus willy-nilly throughout our thoroughfares and even drops its dead on our houses leaving us to foot the bill for proper disposal!

My fellow Olympians, I say no more! Rise up against this vandalizing force with me and raise our voices in concert to demand, "Monsieur Maple, mend this fence!" And keep your spiders off of my cup...

I think we're winning.

Submitted by Rob Richards on Sun, 10/21/2007 - 9:36am.

Monsieur Enpen...

Submitted by Phil Owen on Sun, 10/21/2007 - 11:45am.

Nicely done.

(Beautiful photos, btw!)

The Canaanite's Call

Amen!

Submitted by Norm on Sun, 10/21/2007 - 12:36pm.

I'll bring the weedkiller and machetes!

I'm pretty sure he just

Submitted by Ehver Green on Sat, 10/20/2007 - 10:31pm.

I'm pretty sure he just missed that they were shadows.

Yesterday

Submitted by Guglielmo on Sun, 10/21/2007 - 6:59am.

They even painted the sky.

I'll tell you what, somebody

Submitted by Merwyn Haskett on Sun, 10/21/2007 - 8:41am.

I'll tell you what, somebody blew some rotten old leaves on my balcony. Now the place looks like some trashy trailor park. Damn kids.

Catholic baiting is the anti-Semitism of the liberals.
Peter Viereck, Yale Professor

Same here

Submitted by Sarah on Sun, 10/21/2007 - 8:50am.

I tell ya, kids today, no respect. Random leaf blowing now, what will they do next?

In my day, kids knew the

Submitted by Merwyn Haskett on Sun, 10/21/2007 - 9:21am.

In my day, kids knew the value of a leaf. They smoked them, at the Reef or Java Flow, or if they were at least sixteen and a half in a bar. I just don't know what the world's coming to anymore.

Catholic baiting is the anti-Semitism of the liberals.
Peter Viereck, Yale Professor

Having just returned from

Submitted by w1r3d1 on Wed, 10/24/2007 - 1:17pm.

Having just returned from Milan Italy where nothing is safe from Taggers, Enpens fall photo essay is a nice relief from the spray paint assault on everything from 800 year old apartment buildings to the Duomo. Nice stuff man.......

Oh Noooooooo!

Submitted by JstPlnOnry on Wed, 10/24/2007 - 8:11pm.

I've paid for a trip to Italy next summer! I don't want to see 800 year old buildings defaced by graffiti! UGH.

"Do not mistake for conspiracy and intrigue what can best be explained by stupidity and incompetence." - Unknown

Where

Submitted by Guglielmo on Wed, 10/24/2007 - 10:31pm.

do you think the word came from. Anyway...don't worry about having your trip ruined by the medium. You'll be overwhellmed by everything else.

Pompeii

Submitted by enpen on Thu, 10/25/2007 - 1:10pm.

If you're really not interested in seeing the graffiti, by the way, I'd stay as far away from Pompeii as is possible.

that's shocking!

Submitted by enpen on Wed, 10/24/2007 - 11:47pm.

Who would have thought Milan, a city steeped in western art history and modern design, would be so heavily caught up in a revolutionary shift in art's canvas?

great

Submitted by Rob Richards on Thu, 10/25/2007 - 9:17am.

this kind of stuff shows that people live there. It's not a museum, you know? There are towns that I've been to that are just devoid of any life or culture and apparently Milan is not one of them. Of all the places I have been Tokyo had the most and best street art. I feel more at home around graffiti. Maybe it has to do with the environment I grew up in.

And Rome

Submitted by Guglielmo on Thu, 10/25/2007 - 1:23pm.

Tags everywhere -- even cut into stone!

I've been to Zurch, Basel,

Submitted by Ehver Green on Thu, 10/25/2007 - 1:34pm.

I've been to Zurch, Basel, Paris and London this year for work. All of these European cities had graffiti far worse than Olympia. Paris and London were on par with major cities in the US but Zurich and Basel (Switzerland) were FULL of graffiti! On the train from Zurich to Basel I rarely saw bare concrete - lots and lots of tagging. It was brain overload when trying to focus at 60 mph looking backwards.

some trends...

Submitted by enpen on Thu, 10/25/2007 - 8:03pm.

Here are a few things picked up from the research I've been doing:

As American cities primarily approached the graffiti movement as vandalism it spread throughout the world by way of popularism (art tourists went to NYC specifically to see subway pieces), by virtue of American culture at that time being an exported commodity and because when the graffiti shows made it out of the U.S. the art was regarded on the basis of aesthetics and historicity which ended up creating a different morality around the art amongst art students.

With the Euro's adoption it is easier than ever for artists to travel and be a part of multiple scenes throughout Europe.

Re: Basel & Zurich, a goodly amount of the interest from abroad in the pictures I've taken around Olympia has come from Switzerland...

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