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Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Does this make sense?

"Highland Park owners had a mural painted to deter taggers. But the city painted it over and the taggers are back.In today's installment of Read It and Weep: Your Tax Dollars at Work, we visit a besieged Highland Park mom-and-pop grocery store owned by the Antonio family. The Antonios can only guess at the number of times they've begun their day with a can of paint brushing over fresh graffiti left on the side of their store by taggers."Maybe 70 times," said Jacob Antonio Jr., 27.His father, Jacob, begged to differ."More than 100 times," he said with exasperation"
Read rest of story here
by Steve Lopez


The LA Times reported this story in today's news regarding the removal of a mural on a Highland Park mom and pop shop called " Los Paisanos"
The city served the owners an “Order to Comply” letter to buff out the mural on the side of their grocery store because of so called “excessive signage”
The work was done by popular artist Playboy Eddie and “ Ezra “ Cervantes ,their bold and bright work did well deterring tagging for the time it was up. Prior to that the owners where constantly painting over tags.
Then the voice of haterism came out when a single complaint got it buffed.
How ridicules this lady who complained sound, she says it gets her “nervous” just to pass by it”, “it is gang looking”
I know that Highland Park is undergoing gentrification as well and this lady who is from “Historic Highland Park neighborhood Council” did not like the work ,so strived to get it buffed and succeeded.
Now I love historical societies and what they are about but why go too far and complain about a mural? and one that deters tagging?
I am sure she seen that since other shops in the area changed that problem with a murals by those artists. They much rather have a beige wall with tags and mis matched buff spots on it then a mural right?

So now that they buffed and right away it became a target to get tagged on, who must feel stupid now?
They now seen it did help with the headaches of tags but too late after they spent time and tax money removing it.
Now they want to go off and say maybe another mural will do
BUT with the acceptation that they have to agree on the work and make sure ol lady over there does not get to scared. I say that lady or city pay up for the next installment since they got it buffed and made the Antonio family lose $3.500.
What will they complain about next!

Update 08/14/08

This morning I seen this coverd on the Fox Good Day LA news coverage, here is link to the video Fox LA


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

i see this all the time. for the most part, graffiti artist respect community murals. sometimes gangmembers dont care if there's a mural. so there's a difference between the two.


tin, from florycanto.net

Doña Junta said...

Tin
Yes you are right there are many murals that are still disrespected by taggers and gangsters,As a matter of fact I am doing a new blog post on a mural that got a beating and disrespected and since I my self,(when I was
younger) been guilty of that.
When I got older I realized it was wrong
so I agree it definitely does happen...
In this case if did help deter that problem, what gets me is that this ONE complaint made that decision now they got to look back on it like geesh did “we did fuck up” lol
Plus the money that that family put out is no joke I mean it was pricy, I know peeps that will do an awesome job for free, but I know them artists need their money too.

Anonymous said...

I read this article earlier 2day....what?!!?

Anonymous said...

another good article!
i too agree she should be the one to pay for it since shes the one who basically caused the graffiti to start again.

Anonymous said...

MOST OF THE TIME ITS THE GANG BANGERS OR THE TAG BANGERS THAT WRITE OVER MURALS. GRAFFITI ARTISTS RESPECT MURALS FOR THE MOST PART, BUT WILL GO OVER POORLY DONE MURAL, TO MAKE IT LOOK BETTER. I THINK THE CITY OF LOS ANGELES IS LOSING A LOT OF HISTORICAL MURALS AND SHOULD LET THE NEWER GENERATION OF ARTIST TO PAINT THE STREETS. ITS COOL TO LOOK BACK AT HISTORY, BUT ITS ALWAYS BETTER TO MAKE HISTORY, RATHER THAN LEARNING IT.