MURAL MATCH 3: Castle Hill Graffitti

Wow! We bit off a little more than we could chew with this one. We hit the mural mother lode! This is both good and bad because we had so many to choose from that we didn't know what to wear in order to "match" any particular wall and ended up flinging three bags of colorful things and random accessories into the car, planning on some luck and a couple of costume changes.

What really happened? We depleted our camera batteries, patience and sweat within fifteen minutes. There were stumble holes crisscrossed with brambles and the ground was spangled with broken glass. There were at least four other groups mugging around with cameras and the kids started choosing their own clothes (my tshirts) instead of matching ones and I was so hot I stopped caring about anything. I think my brain was getting a little melty.

Luckily Sarah was with us and helped me talk the monsters off of the narrow walls (which they were using as balance beams) and took great pictures despite the 2000 degree heat. Check out her lovely design/creative blog and adventures living in a houseboat in Amsterdam. Afterward we bought overpriced smoothies at the hippie yoga place and summer dresses at the thrift store. (cheaper than the smoothies)

There are so many cool murals in this town that it could take years to dance in front of all of them. I might have to come back to Castle Hill because there were three more levels we didn't even get to! Here's an article talking about the public art project.

Happy Wednesday

3 frowns

MURAL MATCH: Brentwood Mosaic

Our second (actually first official) mural in our Mural Match project. Okay okay it's a mosaic. But so big! Getting two squirrelly monsters to stand still in front of a wall when there are slides in sight is something one should probably only do for hard cash but me? I do it for...pure silliness I guess.

Lucky for me I was joined by my friend Sarah (we used to work art department on feature films together) and her sweet Scottish boyfriend Arun and they gamely agreed to be ridiculous with us. These globescamperers have been living in an adorable house boat in Amsterdam for months (fight waves of green jealousy) not only that- they get paid to take exotic vacations together, Sarah taking the pictures and Arun writing articles. Yep. Poor things. Thank your stars we can live vicariously through them, check out Arun's muli-talents with music and writing at arunsood.com and Sarah's beauteous camera skills and my new favorite blog at nats-umi.com. Seriously? I can't believe I didn't know she had one because every last thing she puts up I want to re-post. Art, food, photos, movies, culture, travel, so wonderful! Do yourself a good turn and frequent her corner of the web.

This particular large piece of art I chose because not only is it in my neighborhood but it happens to be at the very playground we frequent, literally a few short leaps away from the same kickball field in which I spent many a dusty Sunday in my twenties forging strong friendships and never scoring goals. Runs? Whatever. This is my neighborhood. I love it. I used to drive to Austin when I was in high school in a car full of waifish girls to try to sneak into rock shows with our older guy pals, go swimming in unchlorinated waters and swing lazily in hammocks with a belly full of tacos.(2 blocks from here) It was the first Austin neighborhood I ever called home when I moved here eleven years ago and now I'm back, family in tow. (only one street over, it's like this barrio owns me)

I tried to look up who did the darn thing and instead I found a charming little 12 minute movie about the history of the hood. Most of the houses were built in the early 1950s and many of the original tenants remain, peppered with young families like mine and tons of character. A woman in the movie gathers her little community together to make a welcome wall mosaic to emblazon the bricks in front of the old mom'n'pop grocery and beauty salon. I wouldn't be surprised if she were behind this one too. It reads "Write peace on your wings and you will fly all over the world." Sappy? yes. You like it anyway.












This mural was easy to match because it had almost every color, and the pictures look great because I didn't take them, Sarah did. Have a hankering to know all about an obscure patch of Texas? No problem:

MURAL MATCH

A new segment! I've been plotting to do this for awhile, since there are so many crazy murals in this town. What better way to photograph a mural than to dress in corresponding colors and dance around like a pack of fools in front of it?

Today it was a pure stroke of luck that we were showing my Uncle Kevan around town and happened upon this colorful piece with which Ruby's self-chosen, purply, highwater little number matched perfectly.

In the future I plan to find out about the actual artists, link to more of their work, and even dress up myself. We can't let children have all the fun you know.