Okay, maybe not...
I really should subtitle this post Sidestreet Part Five, because although I didn't just attack one area, I did do a lot of wanderings along various sidestreets... but the vast majority of big stuff that I found seemed to be by Benzo or Jules or both... Store too, but not so much.
This weekend has been so very much about the Street Art. Partially because of my visit to the TS Art Gallery yesterday, but also because I ended up finding a veritable online road map to a variety of pieces that I hadn't found on my own. Thank you Flikr!
So around noon I packed my bits and pieces (bottle of water, phone headphones, cowboy hat) and took myself off into the city. Granted it kinda took me maybe fifteen minutes to actually get the car out of the building, first I had to fill my windscreen washer water thing, then I'd forgotten my hat, and figured I should change my shirt, since wearing black probably wasn't the wisest idea, but I got my crap together eventually.
My first stop was the western end of the city (again)... I don't know if it's because that end of town is more residential and industrial rather than commercial, or if it's just technically out of the specific CBD, but there just seems to be more street art in that area.
Actually, I don't know how I missed some of the stuff I photographed today... I was all over that area before Christmas... but it just goes to show you, you miss one little sidestreet and you never know what you've missed!It did seem to be something of a Benzofest too... I found about eleven new pieces that I hadn't seen before, and photographed new versions of two more. Sadly I might have to go back at a different time of day to photograph a couple of them, because midday light isn't always kind when you're trying to photograph things under overhangs, you get partial shadows... it's a whole thing...
Interestingly enough, although I had a bunch of locations written down, for some reason they seemed to lead me somewhat sideways to various other spots fairly easily.
Anyway, I scoped out as many of places as I could from my location, then got back in the car and shifted it down to the carpark near the Rundle Street Markets, since there were some other spots down that way that I wanted to hit next.
It's slightly annoying that if we'd turned the car left instead of right yesterday I would have found this piece yesterday... interestingly though, after my explorations online this morning I know that not only is Jules responsible for this piece, and the Phoenix Crane, but also the little green Leave Me Alone faces too... and probably also the little blue bat guys too...Which is interesting, because when I originally started to see the Jules tag I didn't associate it with any particular pieces, but now I'm kinda seeing them everywhere... lots of birds oddly enough.
I wandered through the Rundle Street Markets to get to the couple of sidestreets I wanted to hit... happened to see some little modelling clay dragons and things that looked very much like the one I got from Petals in the Park, and I struck up a conversation with the guy behind the stall, turned out it was his work, and its possible that both he and the girl who did the little dragon I got at Christmas went to the same workshop or class or whatever that a woman from the States must have put on over here. Although I think he'd taken his stuff in a new direction from where the workshop finished. Some interesting stuff... dragons and mythological characters and a few seahorses... so Ma and I will be going back to visit him in the not too distant...
So, after taking the shots of Jules' flock and various other bits and pieces, I headed off in search of the place that Ma and I couldn't find yesterday.
On the way, I stopped at the park in Hindmarsh Square which has been overhauled recently and now has all these "backyard objects" in it... it's rather pretentiously called "Children's Interactive Science Learning Playspace"... and according to the description I can find "consisting of over-sized items from the average backyard – a dog’s bone, peg, fish, ball, thong, tap and hose as well as giant blades of grass"... the blades of grass are maybe a little overly esoteric, but the other things are quite cool, especially the thong (which is obviously the other photo up at the top of the post), the fish and the ball.
Anyway, after wandering up and down the "hills and dales" in the Playspace I powered along the Mall and out the other side to find the spot with the street art.
Turns out that the alleyway I was after was pretty damn easy to find, well, now that I know where it is anyway... and not only were there a bunch of new things from Store and Benzo (the pigeons up the top are Store's), but also a few older pieces I'd seen photos of online, but hadn't managed to find. I'll definitely have to drop back into that alleyway again, just to keep an eye on things (and again, the whole sunlight issue in at least once case).
Then it was off back to the carpark, and thankfully the place is still free on a Sunday, so parking didn't even cost me anything... and after a brief detour in search of some street art I thought was hiding behind a fence (which turned out to be a carpark, but fortunately right near where I parked the car was another Benzo piece that I didn't even know was there), I headed home.
Slightly overheated and sweaty, but very content...
Hmmmmm... obviously there's a street art theme going on in the Universe... I just saw a piece on the Sunday Arts show about the fact that Melbourne is planning a Zero Tolerance policy on graffiti... when the Melbourne alleyways are a tourist attraction (and not just for "other graffiti vandals" as one of the dumbass guys they were interviewing suggested) and a part of Melbourne's cultural landscape. Stupid, stupid, stupid government...
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