Virgen de Monserrat graffiti 21/02/2007
Posted by dlatman in Graffiti, Spain, art, europe, travel.add a comment
This graffiti is located just across the street from where I lived on Virgen de Monserrat Street in Granada, Spain. During my stay there I often prowled the streets in search of cool murals and street art. For some reason I ignored this mural until my last days… Yet it was made by one of my favorite artists, El Nino de las Pinturas. Maybe the mural reminds me to open my eyes and face forward like the girl, not close my eyes and ears like the monkeys. I love to travel but sometimes the best stuff is located close to home.
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Este graffiti esta abicado cruza la calle de mi piso en la calle de Virgen de Monserrat Granada, Espana. Durante mi tiempo alli, buscaba frecuentemente por las murallas y el arte en las calles. Por alguna razon, no pague atencion a esta muralla hasta mis dias finales alli… Pero lo hecho por uno de mis artistas favoritos, El Nino de Las Pinturas. Posible la muralla me recuerda abrir a mis ojos y orejas como la nina, y no cerrarlos como los monos. Me encanta a viajar, pero a veces las cosas mejores estan muy cerca de la casa.
“tolerancia” graffiti, budapest 14/02/2007
Posted by dlatman in African American, Graffiti, hungary, love.add a comment
Last summer I had the fortunate opportunity to travel around Europe with a friend. Hungary was our eastern-most destination, but to my surprise, people in Budapest asserted that they are in fact from Central Europe, not Eastern. Perhaps this demonstrates the divide between their political inclusion into the EU, and the rather shaky economy and high level of unemployment. People I met were incredibly friendly and curious as to why two American girls would visit their country. I got to try their national alcoholic beverage, palinka, which in my opinion is an aquired taste. This graffiti, located on the Buda side of the city, captures the tolerant attitude I experienced there.
This graffiti is appropriate for today… Valentine’s Day! Yesterday I attended a lecture by African-American studies scholar Craig Werner, who spoke about expanding the idea of love to include, in addition to romantic relationships, friends, family and the community. He said that the main way to enter into potentially difficult discussions on race, among other topics, is to LOVE the people you are speaking to.
Also, he advised white people to simply listen more… interestingly enough, my landlady has a magnet that says “Listening is the first step towards love.” Coincidence?
“Take time” collage 09/02/2007
Posted by dlatman in Collage, fun, love, peace, time.1 comment so far
As my boyfriend Michael Habib noted, this post is similar to the previous one. The shared theme is time. I’m interested in time because I’m a very slow person, for example it’s taking me at least 10 years to graduate college! Our industrialized society doesn’t necessarily value this unique or natural sense of time, and encourages people to rush life, cramming as many things as possible into a short amount of time. I think that contradicts natural cycles of time, in which flowers, trees, the moon and children develop and grow gradually. The first part of the collage says, “Take time,” asking the viewer to take time to smell the flowers and enjoy what’s around them right now.
The second part of the collage addresses time in a different sense… sometimes the media promotes a negative idea of the future. We are inundated with violent and apocalyptic images, creating the idea the that war and environmental destruction are inevitable. But I propose an alternative concept of the future, more like the one we had as kids: every new day can be exciting, fun and totally different from the one before. The numbers are in English, Hebrew and Arabic. I wrote out 1-2-3 in Hebrew and 4 in Arabic, the numbers go counter-clockwise because both languages are read right-to-left. I want to show that this positive future can come about by love, acceptance… and having lots of fun!
“Tempo” graffiti 04/02/2007
Posted by dlatman in Graffiti, time.1 comment so far
Taken in Lisbon, Portugal, the most laid-back capital city I have ever visited. Grumbler, my Flickr friend, helped translate this from the Portuguese. He says: “The idea that the text tries to transmit is that we don’t really own anything except our time. And that the ones that fully enjoy it are the people that are not stuck to one place, since they can go anywhere and fully enjoy their time…”
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Sacaba en Lisboa, Portugal, la ciudad capital mas tranquila que he visto. Grumbler, mi amigo de Flickr, ayudo a traducir este de la portugues. El dice: “La idea del texto es que no tenemos nada excepto de nuestro tiempo. Y los que pueden disfrutarselo son las personas sin techo (?), porque ellos pueden ir en cualquier sitio y se disfrutan su tiempo…”
