our house got tagged!!!

flores: You wanna go get a beer?

me: Naw. I gotta get home.

flores: What could possibly be more important than getting a beer?

me: I 've got a graffiti artist coming over to tag the house.

flores: What?

me: I'm doing my part to lower property values in Allandale!

We have four, white, neoplastic walls arrayed across our front yard. We've wondered if they would be targets for taggers, but thus far, being a neighborhood of good boys and girls, the walls have remained white. 

Until now. 

A few weeks ago, a local outdoor muralist, Frederico Archuleta, posted on facebook that he would come to your house and install a stencil for a nominal cost. It was a cool stencil, but not exactly our style. But what a great idea! Our favorite local stencilist is Dave Lowell. So I hit him up with "You should do this!" which ultimately turned into him and his g-friend (who also happens to be the vet-tech to our kitties [oddly small world...]) coming over for dinner and "tagging" the wall (on what turned out to be the hottest day of summer at 106!).

Dave, a degreed artist, prefers "install" to "tag" (not sure you can call it tagging when you have a glass of wine in your hand [and, yes, I know what tagging is]). Nonetheless, it was fascinating watching his process, using half a dozen stencils to reach the final result. This is the same diving girl we have in our house, so we avoid pangs of regret for having this excellent piece outside and unmovable.

One of the joys of art/graffiti installed outside is its ephemerality, how it slowly fades either because of the elements or later additions to the art environment. Another joy is the uncontrolled wabi-sabi of the install environment, something that changes with the light, the seasons, and human activity.

Our diving girl is not visible from the street. Instead, she's a surprise treat for anyone coming up to the house. She still surprises me when I get home, splashing a smile across my face.

recent art acquisitions

We've made several art acquisitions over the past few months, including the one above that we placed in the master bathroom. We'd been thinking of placing something arty over the tub, but it's a difficult location (bathroom over a tub). We went to the art show below (we already caretake several pieces by Dave Lowell, a local stencil graffiti artist) and saw this spray painted 1950s-era diving lady on a windowpane--absolutely perfect in that we love the imagery and it's (ahem) bathroom friendly!

Lilli seems to approve...

Also picked up this signed print by Sarah Joncas called "Aegean Sisters", maybe for the cabin:

I'm an old Blondie fan (my first rock concert was Duran Duran and Blondie can in 1981 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa), so I picked up my favorite Debbie Harry portrait photographed and produced by none other than Chris Stein:

Besides being lead guitarist and co-braintrust of Blondie, Chris has long photographed life around him.

Finally, we ordered a set of Shepard Fairey's "We the People" series. We didn't get in early enough to acquire signed versions, but we love the graphics (and the message).

art interlude: HULA

We just ordered a print of the above, a photo of a mural painted by HULA, a street (canal?) artist who made his name painting murals just above the water line. Simply gorgeous stuff. 

 

SaveSave

new art for the art wall

Last year, when we stayed in Marfa, the VRBO we stayed at had these awesome posters from various shows at the Marfa Ballroom hung about. There was one we particularly fell in love with. It had a horse (a passion of the bride) represented in water droplets (a passion of mine) representing a show in Marfa (which we both love) and the words TEXAS (which we both love) blazed across the whole thing. It was perfect! After a quick visit to the Marfa Ballroom, we found out it was also sold out.

And it taunted us...

We saw one hung in a Mid-Century Modern during a tour. We saw another one in another house in a magazine spread. We found the printmaking shop that made the poster (The Decoder Ring) at Flatstock earlier in the year. They said they didn't have any more and that the dude that made it, Paul Fucik, had left the group and started Arts and Recreation. I sent Paul an email, and he responded that he had some of the series for sale, but not TEXAS (TEXAS was part of four posters with versions that included ENJOY, SCENIC, and MUSIC). After some back and forth (and more back and forth) Paul agreed to sell a full set to us. Turns out Paul is passionate about water as well and is interested in getting into rainwater harvesting.

go east old man, go east!

The tour book.

Every year some good folks in Austin put on the EAST tour, a two-weekend open house tour of artists' studios and homes east of I-35. It's a thoroughly enjoyable affair with lots of art and creativity and, as a major side benefit, a lot of creative street art. I don't have many photos of artists' work here cause, you know, sometimes folks get wiggypiggy about people taking photos of their work. But I have lots of shots of street art.

We focused this year on the downtown area (there are an insane number of stops on this tour...).

There's a lot more to the north!

One of stops was the new offices of Element 5 Architecture, now located on the east side in a mixed-use development. One of their clients is an artist, so she occupied the space. Unfortunately none of the architects were there, but their new digs are quite nice (and one of 'em has a photo of our house pegged on the wall over their desk). 

We bumped into several friends, including the fine folks that run the newly opened The Lion's Nest, a gallery/gift shop/print shop that also carries works by our pals The Amazing Hancock Brothers. 

And we ended the day at one of our favorite places in Austin, Justine's, an amazing (and pleasantly) bizarre) French restaurant amidst a run-down collection of warehouses (that are still warehouses).