Before the Rain
We pulled into the festival site late in the afternoon. Due to poor planning and excessive fluid intake on my part, I was looking for a restroom and someone pointed me in the direction of a nearby gas station (“about a block away”). With the threat of imminent rain we quickly unloaded the truck and off I headed in search of some relief. Turns out the gas station was really three blocks away with one simple left turn and then a quick right turn. When I left the gas station, the rain had started with thunder in the distance. I thought that picking up my walking pace to a slow jog would be a good idea.
The Rain Came Anyway
As the rain quickly turned into a pelting downpour I started to run. And run. And run a bit more. Just before passing out from I found a tiny garage overhang that I took shelter under as the thunder and lightening approached. It occurred to me that I was definitely way past where my turn should have been and I was in unfamiliar territory. I pulled out my phone which required a reboot due to the rain (argh!) and tried to find where I was. Wasn’t happening. Wet screen, wet hands, wet phone, wet to the skin – maps were defeating me. Directions weren’t making any sense – 12 minutes back to my booth location? Can’t be right. A few more minutes of getting soaked and I decided the gps knew more than I did so I followed the instructions it gave. Plan – going down hill now.
The Rain and I Both Pause for a Moment
I made a turn or two based on the instructions. Suddenly I’m in an industrial district – train tracks, barbed wire fences, wide streets but no shelter from buildings. I made another turn and all of a sudden there was some totally awesome graffiti painted on the building walls. I couldn’t help myself – I had to stop and take a few photos of the amazing images with my iPhone. Below are two examples:
Now, I happen to really enjoy this type of graffiti but taking a photograph of it brings up several questions for me. But first, a quick end to my story…
Rain Shows Who the Boss Is
After my momentary distraction with cool graffiti and rechecking my map, I continued on. Lightening started flashing almost overhead with thunder cracking all around me. I ran as fast I could through the rain and puddles, water splashing everywhere. As I ran down the street, my hands over my head, swearing up a storm, I wondered if it was safer to run through the middle of the empty streets with my feet in puddles or to run on the sidewalk next to the high metal fences and buildings with huge metal posts on their roofs. What was I doing?!!! Now I was almost 25 minutes from my booth. What the heck??!! I came to large underpass with a warning not to enter under flooding conditions. Continuing onward throwing caution (and apparently all common sense) to the wind, I entered the underpass (which in my defense was NOT flooding at that time) and waited things out for another few minutes. Working my way towards the light at the end of the tunnel (appropriate to the situation I might add…), I popped out and started running again.
Lost and Found
At some point I paused at an intersection in what appeared to be a somewhat dilapidated abandoned few blocks and Maria called me at that exact moment – she had found that I was actually on the OTHER SIDE OF TOWN!!! Well, maybe not quite that bad, but I was about to turn left which was totally wrong so good thing she got hold of me. After running for a few blocks more I was actually BACK at the gas station and immediately saw where I went wrong. Ugh. A little more than one hour and three more blocks later and I was back at our booth. I was soaking wet, we were way behind schedule but Maria had our tent mostly assembled, and surprisingly enough I was safe and sound.
And then we found out that the building RIGHT BEHIND US was open and had restrooms for the artists to use!!
But The Point of this Post… Is it Graffiti or Art?
As I mentioned, I happen to enjoy a certain type of graffiti. So much so, that I will often take a photo of it for myself. To date, I’ve never printed any of them, but I happened to know somebody who was thinking about it and got mixed feedback on whether that was a cool idea for a piece of wall art or if it was wrong because it violated the artist’s copyright rights. Although some graffiti artists (vandals?) have the property owner’s permission, it’s rare and so I always considered graffiti as belonging to the general public because somebody illegally defaced public or private property in order to display their artistic vision. Because I thought of it as an illegal act, I never really thought about whether it would be considered wrong to photograph and print it, much less sell it (I’ve seen that). Well, it turns out that some graffiti, if not all, could be considered “protected” under current copyright laws. Who knew. There is a fairly large amount of debate, discussion, and more than just a handful of people who feel graffiti artists should be given all the same considerations of ownership and copyright protections that other artists are given despite the (often) illegal and usually temporary form of their artistic expression. Here’s an interesting article on the topic: http://jipel.law.nyu.edu/2013/04/protecting-artistic-vandalism-graffiti-and-copyright-law/ Fair warning – it is a long article, but it’s both enlightening and hard to believe. Give it a read and leave a note – I’d be interested in what you think on this topic.