Quite nearby here is a local graffiti wall. I have shown a few pictures from this wall in the past, but it has a couple of things working against it. One, it is tucked down underneath the river road trail with a very weedy and narrow path next to it that has a perilously steep drop into the ravine just a few feet back of the art. This makes it challenging to see the artwork with any perspective, and also, of course, makes it difficult to photograph. The second problem is that the work on this wall isn't great. Oh, sometimes it's pretty good, but I've seen very few really impressive pieces along this long wall. For these two reasons I hadn't been down to this wall all this season.
But today, a hot and sunny one, I decided to duck down and see what was up down there, not least because it would be shady. I was most pleased! The first problem was naturally unaltered. Here is a sample of the trail leading in to the best area of the wall and to where it starts to narrow dramatically.
Here it shows how we're high up above the river and won't be taking any nice, distant shots of the pieces on the wall:
But as to the second problem I was surprised and delighted- the work was the best I've seen on this wall since I started going down here a few years ago. They are bright and clear and well designed graffiti artworks.
And if you can find it in your heart generously allow that these are broken pieces of the artwork, photographed at less flattering angles, you may appreciate some of the excellent quality of this graffiti, I mean, if you are ever inclined to appreciate the quality of graffiti.
To help you envision this work there were a couple of spots where I could back a little further out onto the cliff and maybe took a couple of better, slightly more formal shots. The third of these, a picture of a marijuana robot called "Side Kick!" is very much my favorite:
It occurs to me that, originally for privacy and work reasons, I have never mentioned my "real" name here on clerkmanifesto, and I'm not going to now. But for those of you in the know, the significance of the following piece will be clear and will explain the title of today's post.
And then to round this photo essay out I present the remainder of my pictures from this wall, concluding with an interesting, slightly inscrutable note from a graffiti artist whose work I've seen around here enough to recognize his name:
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