2 thoughts on “NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK GRAFFITI: PIGEON LIFE”
I love the textural look of graffiti, it takes me back to my undergraduate days, riding the trains in and around Philadelphia and seeing the artwork on the abutments and overpasses. Also growing up right next to the old Pennsylvania RR lines between DC and NYC, I saw tons of rolling stock graffiti. I started following your blog to get a feel for what graffiti looks like for some modern and post-modern diorama work I have coming up, and this has driven me back into just looking at it as art.
One thing I have always struggled with is actually reading what the artist has stylists. The bubble lettering above looks like “Crolle Grwe” to me, but maybe I’m reading the letter keys incorrectly. Is this something you can decipher or are you just shooting the art that appeals to your eye?
Hi Eric, thank you for following and thank you for taking the time to write. To answer your question: a little of both. Sometimes I can decipher, other times, it’s just the overall aesthetic. MOSTLY, it’s the overall aesthetic. Even if it looks ‘trashy’ to some unlearned eyes…I understand the difficulty of spray can control and the speed pressure and anxiety (because of law enforcement) under which a lot of these writers are working… that ‘background history’ of a piece or a tag really intrigues me. This pic specifically, was all about the PIGEONS. They swarmed me at just the moment I stopped in front of this piece. They are what makes the photo/s, in my opinion. I don’t care if it’s “Groke Crue” or whatever… 🙂
I love the textural look of graffiti, it takes me back to my undergraduate days, riding the trains in and around Philadelphia and seeing the artwork on the abutments and overpasses. Also growing up right next to the old Pennsylvania RR lines between DC and NYC, I saw tons of rolling stock graffiti. I started following your blog to get a feel for what graffiti looks like for some modern and post-modern diorama work I have coming up, and this has driven me back into just looking at it as art.
One thing I have always struggled with is actually reading what the artist has stylists. The bubble lettering above looks like “Crolle Grwe” to me, but maybe I’m reading the letter keys incorrectly. Is this something you can decipher or are you just shooting the art that appeals to your eye?
Hi Eric, thank you for following and thank you for taking the time to write. To answer your question: a little of both. Sometimes I can decipher, other times, it’s just the overall aesthetic. MOSTLY, it’s the overall aesthetic. Even if it looks ‘trashy’ to some unlearned eyes…I understand the difficulty of spray can control and the speed pressure and anxiety (because of law enforcement) under which a lot of these writers are working… that ‘background history’ of a piece or a tag really intrigues me. This pic specifically, was all about the PIGEONS. They swarmed me at just the moment I stopped in front of this piece. They are what makes the photo/s, in my opinion. I don’t care if it’s “Groke Crue” or whatever… 🙂