Most graffiti is anonymous and I’m okay with that. A lot of graffiti is just scribbled tags and, well, this is just my opinion but it’s not very good, so even if it’s interesting to me I’m okay with not knowing who did it, and I’m okay with it being removed. Sometimes there are some really well-done pieces but they’re still graffiti, and as much as they might brighten up a bland area I get it. You can’t just let anyone throw up anything on a wall anywhere anytime or we’d descend into total chaos.
And then there’s this.
I really, really, really want to know who did this. I have a million and one questions for them—maybe more because every answer just leads to more questions. I’m not sure if it is graffiti. The artist responsible has a pretty prominent signature on there, but it’s not one I can read so I can’t think of a way to contact them. And this puts me in kind of a tough position. It’s in a public park. I could contact the parks department and hope this is an authorized piece and that they can put me in touch with the artist.
On the other hand if it’s not an authorized piece then I’ve just let the authorities know it’s there and they’ll probably send out someone with a can of gray paint, which would be a shame. To avoid that I’ve tried some of the usual social media sites with no luck so far, but someone out there knows something.
And I hope I’m not drawing too much attention to it because, you know, if someone did this on their own I think we can need a little chaos.
It really is beautiful—I hope it was sanctioned and won’t get painted over!
The more I look at that octopus mural, and I’ve been back a couple of times, the more I think it must have been approved because it’s much too detailed and much too public to have been someone’s quick and dirty graffiti. I’ve seen some very detailed and really quite beautiful graffiti, but always in places that were hidden away where the artists could take their time. Meanwhile the search for the artist continues.
Beautiful, Chris, and thanks for doing what you do.
Thank you for making me feel appreciated, Ann, and I hope I can find the artist to let them know they’re appreciated too.