City Paint Phoenix 9 – through your eyes
You might remember that in the last City Paint post about the mermaid knitting her tail, I mentioned another mural about Native American/Pacific Islander myths being melded into one vision, or something like that….well, this is that mural. I didn’t to into much detail about it in the earlier post, but the owner of the building told me that this mural represents the joining of myths from these two cultures…or the one people trying to understand or view the other through that other’s totem or spirit animal. You can see by the alignment of figures, from left to right, that the Pacific Islander is looking toward the right…through the Native American’s spirit animal, the wolf, to his own spirit animal, the whale…and the Native American on the far right is looking through the whale to his own animal on the far left. That’s what I understood, anyway…and I hope it’s a fair representation in word of what the artist meant to portray when he explained it to the building owner….or what I understood the building owner to say about what the artist said…….hmm…..
If you will click on the first image in this first gallery, you’ll see the mural entire…the next four images are segments of the mural when viewed from left to right.
The second gallery contains isolation shots of what I thought were some of the more interesting portions of the mural….
And lastly, these are some angled shots that give yet another perspective….to what I think is a fascinating and remarkable bit of building art. If you’re new to the gallery presentation of the images, you can click on any photo to be taken to a slide-show presentation of the images where you can view them in a larger format.
City Paint Phoenix 1 – “Old Man Phoenix” at the Garfield Galleria
If you’ve been following or visiting my blog for the past few years, you will likely remember the City Paint series of posts that featured street art, graffiti, and building art that I found during my explorations of Salt Lake City, Utah. As you might also remember, I am no longer in Salt Lake, as my family and I have returned to Phoenix, Arizona….
In an effort to re-establish or re-orient myself in the locale and to introduce you to a bit of my new and old home town, I will begin sharing similar artwork that I find during my official and unofficial wanderings of Phoenix’s neighborhoods. I offer those two categories of wanderings for anyone interested, only to state that part of my responsibilities with my new (and old) employment here in this pan of desert is to venture into the wide city and county looking for individuals who might need to visit our clinic for one reason or another. During my searchings for street addresses and hang-outs, in addition to my lengthy commute to and from my workplace (and occasional recreational and photography-oriented explorations), I can’t help but notice the markings and decorations of buildings and alley walls that I pass along the way.
While I have noticed a striking difference in the style of art between the Phoenix and Salt Lake City offerings (although not necessarily with this first post), I still find the Phoenix art to be as creatively compelling and worthy of respectful consideration…for not only is it born of artistic minds and hands, it is also wrought with a richness of symbol and story and meaning that is so much greater than the simple results of the stroke of a brush or spraying of a can of paint.
So…please join me in this new venture of appreciating the street art, graffiti, and building art of Phoenix, Arizona, USA…as you have joined me in Salt Lake City. This first selection is from the side of a building at the Garfield Galleria…316 West McDowell Road in Phoenix proper.
If you’re interested, you can read more about the Garfield Galleria at this link…and if you’d like to check-out the artist, Coxy, you can click on his name to be taken to the street art page on his web-site. If you venture beyond that linked page to learn more about him, be fore-warned that some of his work is rather graphic…body parts…etc.
Scott's Place...Images and Words 