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Getting “Woke” with the Word On The Street(s)

February 9, 2017 Artists

The powerful use of words and images is playing an important role in directing the events that lead us forward, or backward. It is right for us to be alerted to fake news, although the recent bashing of news sources has more to do with de-legitimizing and seizing power than any sincere interest in truth.

Visual Resistance (photo © Jaime Rojo)

If anyone uses words and images to create fake news it would be PR companies and the related industries who have been creating entire campaigns and planting them in newspapers and in electronic media and Reddit and Facebook comments for years now. Posing as everyday folk or genuinely respectable “think tanks”, they tear down people, sowing fear, confusion, and disinformation. Their persuasive words are often effective.

The Chief Strategist for the President is reportedly telling the press to stop all their words all together , and Mitch McConnell basically just told Elizabeth Warren to sit down and shut up, so powerful are words.

We can divine a lot about a person by listening to the words, as well the ones they leave out. We always say that the street is a reflection of society back to itself and today we share with you these text-based messages that give you an idea of what people are talking about.

Street Art ™ (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“Were you thinking that those were the words—
those upright lines? those curves, angles, dots?

No, those are not the words—the substantial words
are in the ground and sea,

They are in the air—they are in you.”

~The Sayer of Words, Walt Whitman

Political, social, straightforward, evasive, confrontational, poetic, strident, aspirational, inspirational, inclusive, loving, hateful, witty, simple, confusing; The average passerby regards, absorbs or dismisses the sentiment, feeling that their opinion is re-affirmed or neglected. Possibly they consider a perspective that is brand new.

Because of the anonymity and the lack of context, sometimes a well-placed missive appears as a message from the Universe, or from God, or another kindred soul.

As ever, beware the provocateur.

Chor Boogie (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Word To Mother (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified Artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Vudo Child (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Fanakapan (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Indecline (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified Artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Able (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified Artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Amberellaxo (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Baron Von Fancy (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified Artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Trek (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified Artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Queen Andrea (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified Artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

John Morse (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jeff Gress (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Blunt. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified Artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Megzany (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Steve ESPO Powers (photo © Jaime Rojo)

This article is also published on The Huffington Post.

Touring the Other Side of Town, A Taste of Asheville Graffiti

May 24, 2014 Artists

When you first pull into a new town you have to trust your personal barometer; a series of individual metrics you have devised over time with which to measure its personality and state of mind.

For example, you may see how good the grilled cheese and tomato is at the diner, inquire whether there is an organized bowling league, ask if there are any dive bars with jukeboxes. Also is there an Olive Garden, can you buy fireworks, do children wear helmets when riding bikes, do tween girls wear Uggs, how many confederate flags are in the windows, what is the overall ratio of skaters to jocks, choppers to fixies, lawnmowers to yard furniture, tacos to fish-n-chips, tracksuits to chinos, tattoos to sports bras, pigtails to pigs?

It’s a personal formula, a mix of criterion that helps you to measure the world, and if we could be so bold, would help somebody else measure you.

Nekst and Gus Isrich’s portrait. (photo © Geoff Hargadon)

Our featured photographer today is known for checking out things like home made and semi-professional signage that announces important stuff in front of the VFW, Bob’s Big Boy, the car wash, and Latoya’s House of Hair.

Of special interest are those illuminated roadside box signs with the easy-slide letters that are always falling off – like the ones preaching hellfire out front of The First Baptist Church of Baconbit. Clever upcoming sermon titles aside, if the church is offering marriage counseling on Thursdays at 6:30 or concealed weapons classes every second Monday at 7 pm or the Men’s Pancake Breakfast coming up on Saturday, Geoff feels like he’s getting some very important information to parse together about a community.

Naturally, he also likes to sample the local graffiti. And that is why we are here today, dearly beloved.

Cash4, Avoid, Valet and Rezu (photo © Geoff Hargadon)

When Hargadon told us he was heading to Moogfest in Asheville, North Carolina a few weeks ago he also surmised he might check out its graff spots. Organic and locally grown, this aerosol outcrops on certain spots around town, especially the abandoned warehouses and back alleys in the River Arts District. Geoff loaded up his camera card and came back with a treasure trove. Not only that, he found local graffiti expert Mr. Zen Sutherland, who himself is a gold mine on the subject of aerosol and who helped ID the creators of these fine graffiti images.

Our sincere thanks to both for this great taste of Asheville. Burp.

Valet, Stuk, Ahgen, Trek, Unknown. Also a car that might have a pack of Salem 100s in the glove compartment. (photo © Geoff Hargadon)

Berth. In the foreground and installation by a sculptor who studied at the University of Blairwitch (photo © Geoff Hargadon)

Firey Hell and damnation with Berth, GTB, Gyser, Gus Isrich, Wins. In the background the original burning monk by Dustin Spagnola. (photo © Geoff Hargadon)

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