FlowerPower Girl

Another splendid mural find.  This one is closer to my neighborhood, at the transitional edge of one of the sketchier neighborhoods (Western Addition) before it transitions into Lower Pacific Heights.  Like the BlueHue Girl, I think this one was commissioned, and therefore isn't really graffiti, but it definately references street artist aesthetic.

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The full mural length is about 25 feet long,  so there is at least an equal amount further to the left of what is shown here. There were large service vehicles parked directly in front of that portion, casting long shadows - too messy for me to get a good shot of it. 

I had a strange incident occur while taking this photo - a homeless man saw that I was setting up for some photos, and he stood on the sidewalk and deliberately cast his shadow directly onto the area I was photographing.  He said some things to me (which I didn't hear, because I had my iPod headphones on) and gestured towards my camera. I wasn't in the mood to be panhandled, so I ignored him and moved as if to shoot a different area of the wall, which prompted him to move there, too. Once he was in motion, I swung back and got this shot, sans shadow of a grimey man wrapped in a moving blanket.

This incident brought up some interesting conversation about murals in areas where there are a lot of displaced people. Do they consider it 'theirs'? As in, do they feel protective about them, wary of people paying them much attention? It sounds strange, I know, but when you've seen a disturbed guy get super territorial over a broken toaster, the idea of someone 'bonding' with an image like this - it's symbolism of beauty/perfection - isn't that much of a stretch. Or like my own shadow-caster, do they see it as a way to make a quick buck off of the attention they garner? If I'd had more time and wasn't so irritated by the guy, it would have been an interesting contextural study to have taken a photo of the overall mural, with him shuffling past it.

Comments

[boris]

i love this mural too. i saw this many months ago and thought, "such beauty in such a decrepit area". hopefully this will be permanent.

[Justin]

Thanks for sharing this picture with us. When I went to look at this mural half the fun was enjoying the part of town I was in. As you said this area has a lot of interesting people. I’d like to know what is in this building that attracts all these fun people.