Category Archives: west oakland

There are laws about these things…

So here’s another creation from the artist we’ve been stalking much of this week… These are much larger stickers (11 x 14″ I think) and have been reproduced, unlike the individually hand-drawn stickers from Tuesday.

It took me awhile to decipher this image, which is kind of what makes it interesting… in the first photo below you’ll see that I’ve added some yellow highlighting to help show my points.  In the top image you can see the basic face that we’ve seen on his/her other stickers (wide square nose, thick lips)… it’s almost identical to the face seen on the newspaper rack yesterday.  But in this piece, the artist has added another level of complexity. In the bottom image, see the outline of a man riding a motorcycle… the eyebrows become shoulders, the nose his torso, the lips seem to be handlebars, and there are two side view mirrors above his knees which frame the front wheel.

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And another…

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In both of these instances, the artist has chosen to place his stickers on public property…

Of course, there are laws about these things, and it’s really up to the individual artist to decide where he (she) deems it appropriate to place his art, and what risks he is willing to undertake. Many street artists feel it is hypocritical of our society to criminalize public displays of art, while endorsing massive public displays of private advertising campaigns that we literally cannot avoid.

Just the other day, I was at the corner of 51st and Broadway, and in just a portion of my line of sight were 5 huge billboards, all virtually screaming at me to buy something. Ick.

Despite this, I am definitely not a proponent of defacing/enhancing/altering (whatever you want to call it) private property without permission. My own building has been tagged with spray paint (in a manner I would not deem artistic), and I can tell you it’s a real pain in the ass to clean up.

I like Keri Smith‘s take on this subject… she uses materials that are environmentally friendly, non-destructive, or often temporary in nature (like chalk or soap), and prefers to post her creations on temporary construction walls. She rarely posts art on privately owned buildings or property. (The Guerilla Art Kit)

U.S.P.S.

I saw this artist’s first sticker just outside my house… the same speedbump signpost as our “remember: shame is a 4 letter word” sticker from Monday.  Recognize it? (Note yellow house in background.)

Since seeing this first one, I’ve seen other works by this artist all around West Oakland and Uptown.  I saw one the night of Art Murmur on the front of a stop sign (people more often slap stickers on the backs of traffic signs).  I saw several the other day on my ride down the Mandela Parkway greenbelt.

What’s cool about this artist’s stuff is that many of them are individual, original pieces of art.  He/she has a whole slew of stickers around that are hand drawn on various United States Postal Service labels (this one’s actually two), and then slapped up.  A unique little work of art with no reproduction involved.  I think this is so cool.

What’s also neat is to recognize an artist’s work as you move about town… I recognized other pieces by this same person after seeing only one because his/her style is very distinctive and he does a lot of faces similar to this one, with a wide square nose, oblong head, and various hats or hair.

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The use of thick lines and USPS labels also seems to be trademark.  Here’s the one I saw the night of Art Murmur…

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And for those of you who’ve made it this far and are twisted enough to notice or care, I’m fairly certain that’s chocolate frosting dripping off the stop sign, and not poo.

Stickem’ Up!

So I think the first time I even noticed sticker art, really noticed it… I mean, had an image stuck in my mind (no pun intended) and thought about it long afterwards, was during the Obey Giant campaign in the early 90’s, which made its way all the way to San Francisco from its origination in Providence, Rhode Island.  I had seen the stickers, stuck everywhere, for years.  It wasn’t until my friend Zak asked me if I knew what they were about, that I realized I had just assumed that “Obey Giant” was the name of a band and that these were promotional stickers for some rock group.  It had never crossed my mind that these might be art, and that the artist might be promoting something different than merchandise or an event…

As everyone now knows, Obey Giant was the creation of Shepard Fairey who achieved mass recognition and mainstream notoriety last year with his indelible incarnation of Barack Obama in red and shades of blue.  We’ve all seen it.  Fairey’s image became the publicly-but-not-politically-endorsed campaign image, and subsequently became the subject of a lawsuit regarding ownership rights of the original photographic portrait of Obama that Shepard used as his basis..  But I digress…

We were talking about stickers.

The Obey Giant stickers paired the word “Obey” with a graphic image of Andre the Giant, in stark black and white.  You can read all about the experiment in phenomenology that Shepard Fairey intended with this campaign, and more that you ever wanted to know about stickers in his essay on Sticker Art.  It begins…

“Sticker’s rule. When I pause to think about it, stickers have changed my life.“

And with that sentiment, I leave you with this lovely whimsical sticker, found along the Mandela Parkway bike route, which incidentally, was a great addition to my West Oakland neighborhood…

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Sticker Kick-off!

So last week I focused on murals, and believe me, there are many more to come… we haven’t even scratched the surface.  But I want to take a 180 this week and talk about the very different world of small-scale Sticker Art.

While murals can be produced by individual artists, more often they are the products of collaborative efforts, with students and community members coming together to contribute to large scale efforts under the direction of one or a few professional artists. They can take months or more in the planning & production, and often live on in the public space for years, even decades… note our “Oceanus” entry from last week, first produced over 30 years ago and still beautifying Claremont Avenue (with help from a restoration in 2003).

Stickers, on the other hand, are fast and inexpensive to produce… perfectly bite-sized projects for the solo artist.  They’re also easy to transport and affix in any number of places.  And compared to large scale murals, they have rather limited permanence (depending upon the materials used), and will often fade, disintegrate, or simply be removed within a relatively short period of time.

We’ll delve into more details as the week continues… how to make ’em, where to stick ’em, famous sticker artists, and more.  But for now, here’s my first entry:
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Someone graced the speed bump signpost outside my home with this one…  I love it!

It shows “2:AM” in the lower right-hand corner… don’t know if this signifies the artist somehow… these things are usually anonymous.