Category Archives: paint

SF Shout Out!

I zipped into San Francisco early Saturday morning to pick up my new Canon G11 from Calumet.  Have you guys been there?  It’s a great professional photography store with really just about everything… cameras (of course), studio & lighting equipment, seamless supplies, printers with a wide assortment of papers, a fantastic equipment rental department, and an art gallery upstairs.

The G11 is the first camera I’ve bought in over three years since buying my 5D (except for my Holga), and I am very excited! Nearly all of the photos I’ve posted on this blog were taken either with a 8 year old camera (which isn’t particularly pocket-sized) or with my iPhone, because I am too lazy to carry my big camera everywhere. With this new smaller camera, I plan to take my photo-documentarianism to the next level! (And yes, I do believe I made up that word.)

While waiting for the camera store to open, I spotted CELLspace across the street. I haven’t been there in a few years (sadly), and I definitely don’t remember it being quite this amazingly cool outside…

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Recognize the hand above? The same stencil exists in Oakland… have you seen it? Check back for the Oaktown version, and hopefully a bit more info about the artist who created it.

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The one above reminds me of a cool poster slapped up in multiple parts by Ashby and Telegraph. It’s Berkeley, not Oakland, but peeps keep mentioning it to me so I think I’ll throw that up later this week too. Please visit again. We’ll be headed to the cemetery at the end of the week for a properly spooky Halloween!

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stay punk

So I’ve been wed to my bike these last few days because it just so happens that someone made off with my car in the wee hours of the night Sunday night (yes, Oakland does have some problems… but I prefer to focus on the positive).  It hasn’t yet turned up, and may not (sorry Mom!) so in the meantime, I continue to ride.  Which to be honest, when appropriate, is a far superior way to travel.  It’s healthy, non-polluting, low-cost, and helps connect residents with their communities by getting them out of the cars that separate them from the world around them.  Remember Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance? I do.

It’s kind of ironic because I was just blathering on and on about all the bicyclists and cycle commuting in Amsterdam and how fantastic it is, and then I come home and someone makes off with my car.  Hmmm.  I said that the universe provides (see Magic Bus post)… what I forgot to say, is be careful what you ask for.

In any case, the City of Oakland is taking great strides to make our city more bicycle friendly, and it is all happening now.  In the past ten years the city has added over 900 bike racks and 87 miles of bicycle lanes and routes.  What’s the difference between a lane and a route you ask? Or a bicycle “path” for that matter (which is another unique designation).  Check out Oakland Public Works’ website where you can read all about them.

And there’s a great little newsletter that comes out quarterly called “I [bicycle] Oakland” which provides the latest information about all things bike related, and how the city is doing with respect to implementing the objectives of its Bicycle Master Plan (2007), which include more than doubling the total current mileage of bicycle friendly byways within the city.

According to this document, 85% of all Oakland residents live within two miles of downtown or a major transit station… which basically equates to a relatively short trip on the bike.  The thing that holds most people back is the lack of safe bikeways…. so that’s where Oakland is putting most of its focus.

As I was riding yesterday, I spotted this piece…  I never would have seen it if I was in my car.

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I recognized the work because this artist had done a similar piece on a building in my neighborhood. The owner promptly painted over it, but not before I got the pic below…
Kind of creepy, but kind of cool. And definitely punk.

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Fake

So I am back from Amsterdam… my trip was far too short, but it was, indeed, sweet.

Folks seemed to love the picture from the other day… “love evol” and thanks to one of my graffiti Flickr friends, I now know that the artist that created this image goes by the name of Fake.

He’s a Dutch artist, so not surprising I ran across his work in Amsterdam. I only wish I had come across more.

Here’s a nice little interview with him, as well as other images: http://www.world-graffiti.com/2009/09/fake-stencils-netherlands-holland-street-art/

He talks about his preference for using stencils because it allows him to be speedy in public places, and he also mentions how  there are many places in Amsterdam where it’s essentially considered semi-legal to paint… construction sites, etc.  Definitely under the bridge we came across…

No picture for me today… it’s only 8:30pm (but that means 5:30am Europe time) and I need to get to bed for work tomorrow.  If you’re itchin’ for more photos, check out Fake’s photostream on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/lype/).

And speaking of Flickr, you can always check out my photostream there too:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/oaktownart Send friends too please.  Cheers!

Under the bridge in Amsterdam

Took a bicycle ride out to the countryside today… glorious! The bicycle is the primary form of transportation here and the rules of the road are very different… cars yield to bikes… and pedestrians watch out!! There are about three-quarters of a million people living in Amsterdam and they own about 600,000 bicycles. Amazing!

We came across this graffiti park complete with half-pipe skateramp under the biggest auto-overpass heading northeast out of the city central (Zuiderzeeweg). So cool…

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