BSA galavanted through the streets last year and here we re-paste our recent newsletter to BSA readers. Sign up for it if you like. Here’s the original.
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One criticism leveled at Street Art events around the world (and they are around the world now) is that sometimes the invited artists work is stylistically or thematically so foreign to the local taste that the piece does not resonate, or worse, it rattles nerves. A seamless cultural match is not likely when you are bringing someone from, say, Belgium, to say, Rochester, and the fact that an artists style or content causes a friction of opinions is a fair critique, although not specifically a disqualifying one.
By its lineage, Street Art (or Urban Art as its known across the Atlantic) was at least in part spawned from the rather anti-authoritarian practices and ruminations of graffiti and its snotty little brother, vandalism. So you’re bound to get somebody roiled at some point with your art. Actually, if you are not pissing somebody off then you’re probably not trying hard enough.
The act of doing your work in the public sphere puts it into a new category of considerations than hanging it quietly inside on a private wall and, by George, every person is entitled to their God-given opinion about it. And there are the children to consider after all. To be fair, there can be a modicum of “fear of the invader” for any city that is suddenly swooped in on by visiting weirdo artists from foreign lands like Argentina, Ireland, South Africa, and Newark. There may also just be unhappy people who are sort of bored. But we digress.
Local Street Artists and graffiti artists who have been toiling for years and who actually know the flavor of the city very well sometimes can similarly get the impression that they’ve been overtaken and overlooked in favor of the imperial aerosol forces, even if they are happy they came. That’s why it’s a smart organizer who takes pains to make sure that at least a few local talents are fully in the mix. It makes the whole feast richer, a great way to synthesize community, a positive way of evoking a host/guest dynamic among the artists and the organizers, and while the styles and interests are definitely going to be varied, the formula encourages a more genuine sense of cultural exchange.
At BSA we always value the courageous person who dares to engage the creative spirit and to bring it out to be seen by others, and we are happy to introduce you to a talent who has called Rochester home for seven years and who has been hitting up a wall this week alongside her visiting guests like the total pro she is.
Illustrator and fine artist Sarah C. Rutherford says, “This event often feels like a dream for me as an artist and community leader. I look around at the talented people who are visiting us and those from our city and I feel the power of our voices collectively shaping walls around Rochester.” Modest, too, but the girl’s no slouch.
Over the past few years Rutherford has contributed her line drawing talents for a brewing company, a school of music, a cookbook, the Rochester City Newspaper and the New York Times Magazine. An urban explorer who trudges in the rubble like the best of them, she’s admired the work of Street Artist Swoon for many years and has left her own mark on decayed walls in hidden places and has constructed installations with found materials. She also recently nailed a three month painting gig with her friend Lea Rizzo that included seven flights of stairs and 28 walls in the Highland Hospital, so she can handle a brush.
Yet WALL\THERAPY has filled her with a gratitude, she says. “I am so humbled and grateful to have been included as an artist in this event.”
BSA asked Rutherford to talk about her wall.
Sarah says she wanted her mural to be rooted in this city as a matter of local pride, and because of her strong feelings of alliance with it. She sites as inspirational figures the co-curators of this years festival, Ian Wilson and Erich Lehman, as well as the rest of the Wall\Therapy crew and all the many volunteers.
We want to give special thanks to photographer Lisa Barker for sharing this photo essay with BSA readers.
Top image Sarah C. Rutherford. Work in progress at Wall\Therapy in Rochester, New York (photo © Lisa Barker)
Take your phone and hit the road! Shoot your own pics and tag them @WallTherapyNY and @BKStreetArt – we’ll send them round the world! Click HERE for the updated Google map.
Check out our previous posts on WALL\THERAPY:
To learn more please visit:
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Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!
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New York was smacked upside the head this week by fresh work by Faith 47, DAL East, and ROA. BSA was lucky enough to catch all three, even as photographer Jaime Rojo was bouncing from spot to spot like a silver pinball to see as much of the action as possible. Here in the thick of summer, there was a lot more happening on other walls through the week too and we’ll be showing those images to you in the coming days.
Today we’re just going to bring you some of the live action, first with ROA, fresh from his controversial double bear portrait in Rochester for the Wall/Therapy project, which apparently alarmed some unfulfilled observers because it reminded them of a “69” position. Either a) they never experienced this personally or b) it’s been a really long time or c) things are kind of slow going in Rochacha right now, but clearly they may want to do some research before growling about these two sleepy bears. God only knows WHAT they would say about ROA’s new piece with three animals stacked on top of each other. Clearly what this Belgian hellion has created is an orgiastic scene of furry debauchery!
The Faith 47 project was produced by Keith Schweitzer of MaNY Projects in conjunction with Fourth Arts Block (FAB).
The Dal East wall was procured by Joshua Geyer.
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Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!
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