A couple of weeks ago I met some friends at a local café in a little cluster of shops and restaurants where the old Madison Mill used to be. The mill was shut down and abandoned for decades which made it a great spot for graffiti artists. And it looks like it still is from that Bearded Iris mural. I went through my pictures of the old mill and here’s what was on a wall that was pretty close to the same spot five years ago:
It’s not much although the piece on the left is pithy, and I wish I’d had better lighting for the picture, but the important thing is at least one place that’s now in the same space has tried to preserve the spirit of what was once there.
Here are a couple of other examples:
That’s pretty cool, ain’t it?
Over pancakes I said a little bit about the history of the place where we were sitting and how there used to be a lot of graffiti there. One of my friends said, “Ugh.”
Excuse me? Did you just “ugh” graffiti to me? Never mind my own efforts to convince people that graffiti is art. Look at how much the lettering and style of graffiti gets incorporated into advertising. Look at how much street art and murals, which are often created by artists who started out and honed their craft doing graffiti, brighten city centers these days. Do not “ugh” graffiti in front of me.
If the pancakes hadn’t been so good I would have opened up a big ol’ can of art history right there. And it probably would have looked like this:
I love that they have gallery lighting for the wall now. That saying: so true, and the ant is spectacular!
I didn’t even think about the gallery lighting! But it is really cool. I’m sorry the wall that ant was painted on was demolished. There really was a lot of cool graffiti in the old mill and I only got a chance to document a very small part of it before it was gone.
The murals and graffiti in Nashville (and surrounding) are one of the best parts of the city.
I follow Nashville Graffiti on Instagram and it’s really amazing how much great art there is just in this area, but it’s even more amazing to me that I can be out somewhere and be completely surprised by something new.
Ugh to people who say “Ugh!” Thanks for all the art you share, Chris.
I tried not to take it too personally that my friend said “Ugh!” to the graffiti but sometimes I have to say “Ugh!” right back.