Hopefully Not Half-Ass

A very aggravating sickness afflicted me this weekend, and a fever and cough drove me inside for the (I hope you'll understand, Prof. O'Donnell). However, I can still continue with the narrative of street art, in an albeit unconventional way.
This Wednesday there was an awesome snowstorm and we received probably 6-10 inches of snow. BU cancelled classes for the day, and being adult college students, many people decided to head to the Esplanade for a huge snowball fight and snowman-making extravaganza. When went out to see the remnants of the battle, pictured above, I was amused by the variety of snowmen that I saw. Some conventional, some unconventional, they all have a unique style that is surprising, given the generally limited materials (snow, carrots, sticks?) that a builder usually employs when building a snowman.
I tried to make it out and see the city, but only managed to get as far as Ruggles Bus Station on Northeastern's campus to photograph a mural hanging at the south end of the bus station. Before I could make a full tour of the campus, I had to flee the wintry conditions and nurse my cold.
Since I was stuck inside because of the damn cold and my damn cold, I decided to flesh out the idea that the snowmen are completely spontaneous art pieces, not necessarily created by artists. Essentially, the ice hotels of Scandinavia and China are built by professional snowman-makers! Boston's paintbox program follows this model, as many artists are able to participate.
Digging through the pictures on my computer, I ran across shots I took in Italy, this summer. Not only did thinking of warmth make things seem a little brighter, I also discovered that I had some very well documented instances of spontaneous "layman" art from my trip abroad. We never found out what or who was behind the stickers, but all over Florence street signs were altered with amusing, simplistic images. Additionally, I ran across some really cool graffiti and tag; Europe is a graffiti haven, and the contrast of rebellious new art to stately old architecture is something to behold, an aesthetic of precariously balanced opposites.

Behold what I called "The Spirit of the Esplanade." The builder of this snowman made it extra grand by forming it around a tree. This snowman stands over six feet high, and was the largest I saw that day. Unfortunately, the builders did not flesh out his backside: behind the snowman is flat and almost barely built up. The face seems to be enigmatically happy, and the viewer wonders what the point of the truncated branch that sticks out of the Spirit's chest is supposed to be.

It is almost impossible not to laugh at this snowman, probably the most original that I have ever seen. It is interesting to note that there were no freestanding snowmen not of the classic shape (snowballs stacked on top of each other, largest on the bottom and smallest on the top), and there were no snowmen that were built around an object that were of the classic shape. Even "The Spirit of the Esplanade" shouldn't be considered a true "classic" snowman, because it is not actually snowballs stacked.

If only the maker of this snowman had had a scarf and hat to donate, it probably would have looked like somebody was sitting on the bench. Almost human size, it is interesting to note the way that the builder proportioned the body. The legs and shoulders seem to belong to one person, the torso to a second, and the head to a third. I wonder if the builder had thought about realistic proportioning at all during the building process, because obviously they wanted to be amusing and unconventional.

A traditional type of snowman, its builders chose to place him at the head of a small path on the Esplanade, and being five and a half feet high, the snowman was formatted well to the setting. In fact, all of the snowmen seemed to be ponderously placed, each having enough space between them so that each was isolated and yet still standing in relation to all of the others. I did not see any groups of snowmen built that day. It seems odd that a large group of people would gather for a combined event (snowball fight and snowman building) and not one flock of snowmen would be built.

This is a wall fixture in Ruggles. It is reminiscent of East Asian Art, with a graffiti type bent to it. The size leaves a little to be desired, and I think that the fixture does not use the full wall the way that it could. Additionally, it is the only piece of art in the entire Ruggles Station, so it seems to be an orphan of sorts. My biggest criticism centers on the artist's choice to have a flat, defined edge at the top of the piece and an ambiguous edge at the bottom. The organic form would have made more of an impression if it had been allowed to extend over the top of the wall and cut off the view of some of the window.

All of these are reiterations of the same idea, but the sheer variation of ways that that simple idea can be reiterated is amazing. These are only five examples, but I have about 40 of these pictures on my hard drive. I do not think that these were placed by one tagger, because the styles vary across the city. My friends and I were unable to decide how exactly the decals had been applied, but most of us came to the conclusion that they were stickers. It is interesting to note that the signage of Italy is more conducive to this type of alteration, because it is comprised more of symbols than of words. In the United States, one rarely finds signs in cities without some text on them.

I'm not sure who Mors Henek is, but his mural is huge - the face is approximately five feet across and seven high. Mors is placed on the landing of a long flight of outdoor stairs climbing a hill, so he is very imposing. I'm not sure if it was artistic choice or an unfortunate mishap with materials, but I did not like that the right eye was defined while the left was obscured. Had Mors been depicted according to a more realistic focus, it would be logical that the eye nearer to the viewer (the left) should be in-focus and the other should be blurry.

Almost surely done by a professional artist, this is the most aesthetically pleasing piece of graffiti that I have seen in person. It is interesting how the artist chose to format the bird in the Z shape, an intentional choice, I think - the artist name appears to be Zadol. I would especially like to know how Zadol was able to give the bird's eye the all-important shine that makes it look three-dimensional, because as far as I can tell this piece was accomplished with spray paint.

Dirty this boy is. The style of this graffiti particularly caught my attention, because it looks almost like a stencil. In fact, each line is a separate stroke made with the paint can by the artist. I wonder if the tagger had a paper for reference, or if he freehanded the work. Ironically, Dirty was placed in a corner that was home to the various effects of some absent homeless person, and probably marked the place where they performed the same act.