INTERPRETATION NEEDED

There was much creative mural art at Paint Louis but a lot of what went on the walls can be described (if I understand correctly) as tagging. I looked for information online to distinguishing graffiti from tagging and found only a little, such as https://www.edenart.com/news/graffiti-vs-tagging.  Is this hyper-stylized lettering? I can see hints of letters, an R here and maybe a K there, but I can’t read.it. Is it meant to be intelligible to someone? Comments welcome.                       

HOW IT’S DONE

Painting a mural on a scale this big is a challenge. The flood wall is built in sections (you can see a vertical seam in the center). I don’t know the exact process, but the artists seem to get two of them. There must be a lot of planning, design and expense (think of all that paint!). The well-funded ones rent these jack lifts. Those less so bring tall ladders to go all the way up.                     

PAINT LOUIS

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the longest graffiti wall anywhere is here in St. Louis. It is a 2 mile / 3 km section of the Mississippi River flood wall south of downtown. Every Labor Day weekend, painters who have applied from around the world are given a section to do with it what they will. This is a first sample, perhaps a comment on liberty and capital. I’ll go back for more now that the crowds have left.                 

MENTAL HYGIENE

 

Some of the wall art at Paint Louis is pleasant fantasy, some political, some social commentary, but to me a lot of it is deeply disturbing. Sure, I’m in my 70s (okay, boomer) and would not understand lots of what’s happening to younger people. Nevertheless, much of the work communicates - to me - a dark, distorted, even apocalyptic world. It is so skillfully executed, but what motivates it? Some of it reminds me of the well-known English artist, Francis Bacon, https://www.francis-bacon.com/paintings, whose images curl my toes and make me look away. 

Other than that, have a nice day. 😃                

STOP

 

I went back to the flood wall yesterday afternoon. Monday was the Labor Day national holiday (nowadays sometimes a bitter irony) and Paint Louis was officially to run through the afternoon. Almost everything had been wrapped up by the time I arrived. Without crowds, I could cruise up and down, looking for what caught my eye.

An awful lot of it to my old eyes was, as usual, elaborate, illegible tagging. A new trend seems to be block capital letters, three to six to them, that might be initials or acronyms but never with an explanation. Lost on me. A few sections had strong imagery, some blunt, some subtle. That's what I stopped to record.

And this one? Well, this is the United States.         

GOAL POSTS

Another section of the flood wall at Paint Louis. I'm not sure what the scarlet pipes are for. Maybe something to do with a natural gas pipeline, but that's a guess. They fit nicely with the new paint job and the cloudless sky.         

PAINT LOUIS

First image from Paint Louis 2023, the 27th year for the event. Artists come from all over the world on our Labor Day long weekend to redecorate a 3.5 mile / 5.6 km stretch of the Mississippi River flood wall any way they wish. It was just getting started yesterday and continues through the Monday holiday.

There are still more pictures from The Fringe to work in somewhere but we also have the big Japanese Festival at the botanical garden this weekend.            

BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS

Something easier to read from the newly repainted section of the flood wall. The stylized STL on the top of the box is part of the logo for the baseball team, the Cardinals. The bowl and spoon are full of little cardinal heads, the winged blue note of the hockey team, little arches and, um, bullets. That's a very serious issue around here. The gun violence in parts of the area is appalling.

Gods of the air willing, I'll see the Atlantic Ocean by this afternoon.         

ART APPRECIATION

I don't know if this person is one of the people who painted the panel or just sitting on a rail looking at the image. I also wonder if the blue parts of these figures are some super-stylized letters - this old codger wouldn't know. The numbers 314 are written under the bill of the hat near the left. That's the local telephone area code, which is a symbol of local pride in some parts of the U.S. Not many people realize we just got a second, overlapping code to handle the explosion of mobile phones.

Tomorrow is a travel day, which may or may not affect posting. I'm going to one of my favorite places on earth, some place I have not visited in 10 years. Unfortunately, the weather looks bad at the city where I change planes.            

I'M MELTING...

Snow doesn't usually last that long around here. Warm temperatures and blue skies create a stream along the riverfront, reflecting a railroad bridge and the graffiti section of the Mississippi flood wall.                

KEEP OUT THE MISSISSIPPI

                Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

                That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

                And spills the upper boulders in the sun;

                                                     Robert Frost, Mending Wall

Artica head guy Lohr Barkley leads the annual parade by the Mississippi River flood wall.       

CROWNS

A wide view of some of the flood wall at Paint Louis. The Mississippi lies a short distance behind. This is freshly painted - you can see one of the artists in the left background - but I have no idea what it means. Not the first time that has happened to me with a painting. I just like the color and scope of the scene.          

PESSIMISM OR REALISM

A large section of the Paint Louis mural wall. The times we live in may be the inspiration for the work. 

The artist dangling from the ladder at the far right makes me queasy. It was interesting to see how ladder design has changes for improved safety.             

THE WALL LIGHTS UP

Back to Paint Louis. I may need to use pictures from there until we arrive in Seattle next week. (We were going to arrive in Prague today but that went down the drain.) Lots of colorful things to look at so no problem.

The wall faces roughly west so on a sunny day it becomes brilliant in late afternoon light. Of course, dramatic shadows, too.               

THE BEST CHRISTMAS PRESENT OF ALL

Something new on the Paint Louis section of the Mississippi River flood wall.             

EAT MY SHORTS

From the graffiti-permitted section of the Mississippi River floodwall. I've always admired Bart Simpson. He was a boy I never was, self-determined, sometimes rebellious, sarcastic, often disrespectful. I was a good kid, reasonably obedient, following the social, political and religious party line. Always had a good haircut. Rarely got into trouble. Then adolescence hit me in the cauldron of New York City. Wow, did things change. 

Got some mildly irresponsible things to do tomorrow. Three airports: STL - ORD - LAN. Gotta see those other grandchildren.    

GAP

If I'm out of ideas for a post the easiest thing to do is to go to the graffiti-permitted section of the Mississippi floodwall south of the Arch.  There is a time of year, known as Paint Louis, when the whole thing is redone. However, people repaint parts of it here and there as they please so there is constant change. This gap in the wall gives access to an industrial area that serves the river barges (a steel gate can close it when necessary). That gray horizontal streak in the lower center is one of them. The tall smokestacks are on a factory across the Mississippi in Illinois, more than a mile away.             

EVERYONE HAS THEIR PRICE

Gentle reader, please interpret for yourself. That's the Paint Louis section of the flood wall along the Mississippi on the right and a railroad bridge across the river behind. My guess is that it's someone's nom de graffiti. However, it also reminds me of Two Buck Chuck, the nickname of super cheap wine sold across America under the Charles Shaw label at Trader Joe's food stores. I understand that with inflation, it's now $3.79 a bottle. Cheers!           

Intermission

A day's break from Fringe Festival pictures. The show I'm working on now is difficult, for a couple or reasons.               

But there is a lot of other stuff going on here this weekend. One of them is Paint Louis. There is a long section of the Mississippi flood wall south of downtown where graffiti and wall art are permitted. Once a year spray can artists are invited to renew it. It's going on now. Back to The Fringe shortly.

The Lowdown

What's the bird's eye low-down on this caper? Whatever that means . . .

      - Nick Danger

      The Further Adventures of Nick Danger

      Firesign Theatre, 1969

Anybody else out there old and strange enough to remember that? One of the funniest and most challenging things I've ever heard. Firesign Theatre was a major influence on the person I became.

This is on the graffiti-permitted section of the Mississippi flood wall.