ann arbor, street art, and connecting the dots

this past weekend i went out to ann arbor to visit jackie at u of m. i needed to get the true college experience out of my system. (you know, studying at starbucks, frat parties, lecture halls, dorms with community bathrooms...) and i needed to go to show that i support her & all the choices she has made to get her there. michigan suits her. it helped me to know that we are both in the right place.

when i got back there was an email from donaghy. some inspiration. he had seen banksy on the news today and wanted to pass on the link to his website.

here's where i start making connections.

there's a kid at my school, andrew, who does amazing street art. amazing. he's one of the kids i met at the baltimore/fear discussion. i found his flickr account and was floored. seriously cool stuff.

also, we had a presentation/lecture in art matters this past semester about graffiti. (and a baltimore graffiti tour in elements.) and i remembered afterwards about that whole turtle thing in detroit a few years back. i googled it to see what would come up. to see what the situation is like now and how it's being recorded as history. i hit the jackpot and found a site for a documentary titled "paint cans and politics." it was so intriguing.

and jackie and i took photos in a graffiti covered ann arbor alleyway yesterday for a future art project. they turned out pretty cool. it's weird. when i was little that stuff used to really bother me. now i can appreciate it. i guess decay never sits well with me. mentally filling in the foreword to things falling apart always makes me uneasy. (and also sometimes extremely motivated.) but it helps to pull forward the art inherent in those situations/settings.

jackie wanted to use a line from imogen heap to describe it.
"there's beauty in the breakdown."