any property owner on market interested in real type, please get in touch

YOU BETTER WATCH YOUR STEPS

OF COURSE THEY FROM CENTER CITY PRETZEL CO, WHAT I LOOK LIKE TO YOU, A JERKOFF?

No romance without finance. Gary handles money well, true.

When I was a yout running mild I had been asked by Jane to join the Phila. Anti-Graffiti Network, but I said something like “no way” because 1) I was PRO-graffiti, and 2) I wouldve been made to paint murals like the above. And even Jane, talented and focused and grown-up as she was, had to paint some pretty boring, and boringly unpretty work from time to time. The above is a perfect example of a PAGN mural – a nature scene disconnected from the neighborhood it’s set in. As a young Disco Des said at the time, “They want you to paint trees and ducks- fug that!” Now in 2009, Jane granted us permission to paint over the mural, and at the same time issued the directive that we needed to draw more from the community input we received at meetings. Looking at a list of suggestions from the 52nd Library meeting of April 22, The words ISLAM IS PEACE jumped out at me. I remember the guy that suggested it, he actually came to 2 meetings and offered the same suggestion, but went deeper with the explanation at the second meeting. Basically 52nd Street for him was where the black muslim movement emerged in the 60s, and did a lot to break the hold that drugs and gangs held on the neighborhood. (There is way more credit to be given to The House of Umoja, www.houseofumoja.org) He was also interested, and maybe even wary, of the messaging we were doing,  being saavy enough to understand that even the smallest flyer on a telephone pole says something about the neighborhood while it says something to the neighborhood. (Think about the WE BUY HOUSES ads you see, and what they are contributing to the neighborhood’s self-image). So I took his suggestion and had it painted on the wall. As Darrin was painting it, neighbors asked what it was going to say, and upon learning it, Cheered and put fists in the air, a project first, and a personal first. As an artist and ex-graffiti kid, I really had the thrill of doing the following detournement

I was  having trouble explaining to my brother  what I was going to paint on this wall when a youth walked by us with the Phillies Cap and “freeway” beard kit: “YEAH, I’M GONNA PAINT THAT GUY”. In painting it, Me and Suroc ICY realized a lifelong dream in doing real detournement, the way the situationists did with inane cimic strips, we wanted to do with an inane PAGN mural. Jane understandably cringed when I showed her, but I made the point that this wall was merely decoration and the elements we added transformed the wall into a work the neighborhood immediately took ownership of. What was ignored is now a source of power for the area. Upon hearing that, she got on  board with it, SALAAM JANE

 WE ARE!