It is easy to dismiss murals as graffiti or even as vandalism but over the years, and the last ten years in particular, they have flourished and have become widely accepted. What was once sometimes rude and crude is now often artful and valued. Wherever I go, I enjoy seeing mural art. Most cities encourage […]
Some of my neighbours have a flair for three-dimensional imagery and whimsy. Here are some of the garden ornaments that have caught my eye in the last few months.
In my neighbourhood, there is a house with images painted on one of the side walls. All of the images are derived from popular culture and all have been carefully drawn and painted. At the top is Mary Poppins flying away with her umbrella. At the bottom is Forrest Gump sitting on his bench. To […]
Here are a few more murals that I was able to photograph this week. It was a cloudy day but the colorful images actually stand out nicely against the gray background.
From time to time I see a message that someone has written and I wonder who they are. Why did they write it? Who did they think would read it? Is it a message for the moment or for posterity? Here are some of those messages:
Here are some new and some new-to-me murals seen this week on South 1st Street in San Jose. I always appreciate the colorful creativity of the artists’ work and am often surprised by the imagery. When I was here last winter the site at 791 South 1st Street was a car dealership and the building […]
The murals on the sides of the disused movie theatre near me have been updated. I don’t know the artists’ names, but I hope their signatures are in these images. If you can tell me what “Check Rast Mayoe Esten Kame Tiket” means, I will include that information here.
My oldest son treated me to lunch on Friday and afterward, we went for a short walk on 124th Street between 108th and 107th Avenues. It was a surprise and a treat to realize how many murals there are in that area. I always love seeing the variety of street art in Edmonton. The ingenuity […]
The city of Edmonton has a lot of construction going on right now. Roads are being repaired, buildings are going up, a new train line is being installed underground, and City Hall is getting a new wading pool. As I stood in the middle of Churchill Square I realized that there was some sort of […]
I promised myself that, before I left San Jose, I would get photos of a couple of murals that I normally drive past on my way to a shopping center. Today, I did that. It meant walking over a mile each way, and according to my iPhone’s step counter, I took 6,454 steps. The murals […]
The city of San Jose, California, was founded to supply agricultural provisions to the missions and presidios (garrisons that protected the missions) of San Francisco and Monterey. In the Parque de Los Pobladores (Park of the Settlers) in San Jose is a monument commemorating the first settlers to the area. It is composed of four […]
Outside the San Jose Repertory Theatre is the Oionos sculpture by Douglas Hollis and I must have passed it a hundred times. It was only today that I realized that the writing on it is not designed to be read by humans; at least, not humans on the ground. The writing can only be read […]
Some new murals for your viewing pleasure. I have included photos of the artists’ signatures because I didn’t trust myself to read some of them accurately.
In a short walk today around my neighbourhood I discovered that there are now two very large multi-family residential buildings in construction and almost completed. When they are occupied, this area will take on a very different character. As the new buildings go up, some of the older stores are closing down. Several small businesses […]
When I drove Jamie to the airport yesterday, we went through downtown San Jose and I noticed a few things that were new to me. So, today I went back to snap a few photos near Market Street and San Pedro Square. The first new thing I noticed was that there are lots of scooters […]
This year’s Rust Magic Street Mural Festival in Edmonton contributed two huge murals to walls on 118th Avenue. One is at the Edmonton District Family Support Association and the other is at Optimum Auto Service. In addition, a few other small street murals popped up at the Carrot Cafe and the Nina Haggerty Centre for […]
While walking on 103rd Avenue in Edmonton, I came across a wonderful collection of murals on a cinderblock structure by the service entrance to the Bell Tower high rise office building. I don’t know what the structure is for, but it is large, rectangular, and has no windows or doors. The murals are not signed, […]
