The Creepy, Yet Beautiful Street Art of Dan Witz Now in L.A.
Eye Nosh: Is This the Best Pastrami in America?
Does Traffic Get Worse After the End of Daylight Saving Time?
Silver Lake Art Crawl: Also a Food Truck Crawl?
Thomas Keller Comes Home: Book Signings and a Recipe(!)
Photo by Andy Sternberg/LAist
Who knew an early Monday morning post about graffiti on a mural posthumously made famous by singer/songwriter Elliott Smith would lead to such wonderful results. Nearly six months ago, then-editor of LAist, Tony Pierce, posted a photo of the graffitied wall stating that "this is why we can't have nice things." Then, on Monday, reader Robert T. wrote an e-mail attaching a photo of a new tag on the wall. What we noticed was that the tag from six months ago was still there, under the new one.
It was time to say something. And we did.
It nudged City Councilman Eric Garcetti's office enough to send a representative to the store that very afternoon according to a commenter who said he as the owner's son. "Someone from the council came in today and asked what was going on but it didn't seem like he was going to do much about it either. The wall was restored to its original state today..." And so it was as one LAist contributor who happened to be rolling by when the mural was being repainted as he snapped a photo.
In a lengthy ad hoc interview with the owner of Solutions Electronics, Stephon Lew, another commenter posted the alleged conversation. "I wished and accepted a continuous flow of good spirit -- as much as Elliott's fans' could place of their expressions on the Wall over the many years -- but the layerings of the fans' art invited other larger, overbearing, and then -- even more irrelevant, and random 'Other Art.' Art-upon-art is possible -- up to a point." In the comment, Lew gives an in-depth history of the wall as well as future plans.
Graffiti is a tough battle to fight as it comes often, sometimes within hours of abatement. We may have rubbed some people the wrong way, nevertheless, Elliott's Wall is once again ready for his true fans to write him a note. Thank you for all of your support in making this city the best one there is.
To get involved with helping keep the wall graffiti clean, check out their myspace page.
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
uhm, am i the only one who doesn't care about this?
Can we get the city to fix the potholes on vermont?
I got the impression that he didn't want anymore "fan tags". Like it was a nice tribute and now it's gone. So that's why he's going with the other installations.
It looks awesome! This makes me happy.
Also, didn't the store fix it, not the city?
I think Weston needs an Elliott Smith mix CD stat!
Weston, I'm happy to do an article on the whole pothole thing.
ezfinn, I'll go reconfirm about rewriting on the wall.
Jacy, yes, the city did not do it in this case. It is a private wall and if they owners wanted the city to do it, they could have requested it, but at the risk of hurting the mural depending on if there was a protective coating or not.
dammit, now i gotta think of something new to write up there.
Cool!
Although I don't think people will care whether he wants messages and tags on it....its gonna happen. Hopefully with some style.
haha yeah people started writing on it within 1 hour...but the thing is, the artists arent even done with it yet. They still need to retouch it and as you can see from the blue paint still on the top right corner, it is indeed incomplete. So hold off on writing on it because your stuff might get erased anyways.
Also....i heard that the city council finally might do something about it like put up a coating but its up to the fans because once they start writing all over the wall, itll trigger graffiti taggers to do the same but in heavier force/with more paint. The more people write on it, the less these ruthless taggers will understand that this wall isnt MEANT to be tagged on. Think about it, if people start writing on a wall, uneducated, unthoughtful individuals will come and just think that other gangs are tagging the wall which will then trigger them to "battle". This is how tagging works. The bigger the tag=the bigger the gang. It's all logic.
It's a little disappointing that some people are writing that they dont care about this wall...if you dont like it, dont comment on this page, send a message to the writer perhaps??? WE are fans and i think its really disrespectful that you would talk bad about someone who passed away.
myspace.com/repaintthewall
where is the splasher when you need him.
It's a shame all the fan messages are gone. It would seem kind of lame to try to redo that.
If anyone wants to see a hi-res version of all the messages from that wall, I posted it on my website a few years ago:
http://www.dailyramblings.com/?p=543
I don't think it's a shame at all as it is an ever-evolving wall. Does it have to last forever?
Who is with me when I say Andy Goldsworthy is a kickass artist, visually and conceptually?
Thank you, this is awesome, ive yet to visit LA to see this in person! hoping to!