below: A young girl surrounded by tulips and feathers painted at Rutland Road by Danielle Mastrion to honor the annual West Indian Day parade.
below: Community mural of palm trees and flowers by the lake. Brooklyn Peace Constellation was the work of a long list of artists and contributors.
A group of Fumero portraits beside Errol’s Caribbean Bakery on Hawthorne.
At Flatbush and Fenimore is this white on black mural by Katie Merz. In it you can find hundreds of little shapes, symbols, words and images such as a guitar, cats, dogs, and even a loaf of bread,
Small collages of images or photographs along with printed messages on Priority Mail stickers from the US Postal Service are the work of Sticker Maul and they can be seen around Manhattan. Most of the ones shown here were found on the Lower East Side near The Bowery or Freeman Alley.
below: Their message is usually positive and uplifting such as this ‘Stay Hopeful’. Is the word Go from a previous sticker that has been covered?
below: Flowers are pretty and so are you. They look so much like packages of seeds; let’s spread some seeds of hope and acceptance.
below: Playful and fun. We all need a smile in our lives and yes, we need friends too.
below: An exception here – instead of a sticker, a small miniature plastic pail finds a home in a small niche in a wall.
Back in 1996 the first Pokemon game was developed for the Nintendo GameBoy. Since then, the franchise has exploded in popularity and has included movies, television series, cards, and merchandise galore. If you “Gotta catch ’em all” then you’ll have to catch 923 species of fictional pokemon characters.
Obviously, only some of these species are shown in this mural including the bird-like characters in the picture below – Zapdos (the yellow spiky bird in middle) and Moltres on the left; the blue winged creature on the right is Articuno .
below: Gengar is the angry looking purple fellow guarding the door. MewToo keeps an eye on him from the other side of the door.
below: Here we see a sleeping snorlax living up to its name.
And of course there is cute little yellow Picachu
Five artists created this mural – Downer Jones, the duo of Menace Two and Resa Piece (aka menaceresa), Mch (aka damthatmooch), as well as demondoes.
There are two large colourful murals on 10th Avenue that were painted by Eduardo Kobra. Both are visible from the High Line, Manhattan’s elevated park.
below: Mother Teresa and Gandhi as seen from the High Line
and then closer up, face to face, respectful, hopeful
below: A hint of a second mural – Andy Warhol can be spotted between two buildings.
below: Above the Empire Diner in West Chelsea is this mural inspired by the carvings on Mount Rushmore, a re-imagining of it if you will. Instead of four American presidents there are four famous artists – Andy Warhol, Frida Kahlo, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat.
In a vacant lot on 14th Street in Manhattan are two large murals by the street art team, OSGEMEOS (or Os Gemeos), a Portuguese word meaning twins. An apt word in this case because the two Brazilian artists, Gustavo Pandolfo and Otavio Pandolfo, are twin brothers. The murals were painted in 2017 after a building was demolished – the lot is still vacant and the murals are still looking good (even if they are behind a fence).
They face each other across the wasteland. Music fans might be able to find the references to various musicians that have been included in the paintings.
A large mural in Bushwick (Brooklyn) NY called ‘Brick Venus’ was recently painted by two Italian artists, Ligama and Mirko Loste. It features large sculpture-like faces. The face on the righthand side is so large it extends off the top of the wall so that you can’t see her eyes.
Some colour seems to be creeping into the middle face. Colour and life.
By the third Venus, the transition is complete; she is no longer made of stone
The Bushwick Collective – a graffiti and street art project of artists from around the world founded in 2011 and still going strong.
below: Have a beautiful day, a beautiful autumn day!
Phoebe paste-ups have been seen around New York City for a few years now. Sometimes she’s whimsical and sometimes she’s serious – she’s had a very busy life! She even has her own instagram page, Phoebe New York, where you can find all the other Phoebes!
O+ Festival is the name of an annual art, music, and wellness festival in Kingston New York that began in 2010. Most of the murals in this post were painted as part of that festival. But not all of the murals in Kingston are included – my apologies to those left out – but I will be back!
Bright and bold Kingston, but down an alley where it’s hard to see all at once.
below: This mural was painted by Jess Snow and Jia Sung and is titled “Oh Wind, Take Me to my Country”. It is a portrait of Sudanese poet Safia Elhillo and was inspired by one of her poems.
below: “Late Summer Kill Swim” by Samantha French and Aaron Hauck. Apparently the word ‘kill’ is a reference to the local Hudson Valley swimming holes.
below: “LIfted” by Lindsey Wolkowicz and Dillon Paul, 2018. Women and girls girls working together to lift each other up.
below: “Pretty Nose and Dakota Unity Riders” by LMNOPI (aka Lopi LaRoe). Pretty Nose was an Arapaho woman war chief who participated in the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876. It is said that she lived to be 101 years old.
below: “Native Americans Discover Columbus” by Lady Pink
below: “Shadow Guide/Shadow Self” by Dina Kravtsov and Matthew Schulze, 2018
below: On one of the exterior walls of Keegan Ales is a mural painted by John Breiner in 2016. “From the Ground Up” has faded a bit over the past few years but there is a photo of it in its former glory on the artist’s website.
below: Another mural on Keegan Ale buildings – this one was painted by Jack Dishel and Vor138 in 2014.
below: Letting the imagination run wild as boys and girls read books in “Fishbone” by Eugene Stetz Jr., 2016
below: “Sun/Moon” by Enz.
below: “Shadows of our Ancestors” by La Morena (aka Lucinda Yrene Hinojos) , with help from Cesar Castaneda, 2018. The mural depicts the artist’s grandmother, daughter, and niece participating in a healing ceremony while the hummingbirds represent her spirit animal.
below: “Flight Sequence”, an owl in flight, by Justin Suarez, 2017
below: A tribute mural by Jalani Lion and Donny Mapes; In memory of Adam (Jeff) McQueen, Kaireem Meeks Jr, Dante Crump, Jonte Clark, and Jeffrey D’Aguilar, painted in 2015.
Written in circles around the woman on the left are lines of poetry by Mahogany L. Browne
“you black girl magic you black girl flyy you black girl brilliance you black girl wonder you black girl shine you black girl bloom And you turning into a beautiful black woman right before they eyes”
The screen on the phone shows the portrait of another Black Woman, Sojourner Truth. The words written around her head are from a speech that she gave at the Women’s Convention in Akron, Ohio in 1851. Over one hundred and fifty years ago. Sojourner Truth was calling on Black women, and all women, to fight for the right to vote. The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gave women that right but that didn’t come into being until 1920.
In a lot of ways, Sojourner Truth’s words ring true today. Has there ever been a time when women weren’t fighting for their rights in one way or another? The text:
“that man over there said women need to be helped into carriages and carried over ditches. nobody ever helped me over a ditch or lifted me into a carriage AND AIN’T I A WOMAN? look at me! look at my arm! I have ploughed, harvested and sowed and planted and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! AND AIN’T I A WOMAN? I could work as much and eat as much as a man – when I could get it – and bear trash as well. AND AIN’T I A WOMAN? I have born thirteen children, seen most all off to slavery and when I cried in my mothers grief no one but jesus heard me! AND AIN’T I A WOMAN? the first woman god ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn back and get right back up again!”
below: On the side of Lorigo’s Meating Place on Grant Street, a large mural featuring many people that was installed in 2013. This is “Grant Street Global Voices”; it was created by muralist Augustina Droze with help from students at International School 45 and Lafayette High School. Eighty panels were put together to form the mural – and unfortunately a couple of them seem to have fallen down.
below: Also on Grant Street is another community mural… The PUSH mural by Max Collins and others, named for the fact that it is over the entrance to PUSH (People United for Sustainable Housing) center.
below: A large octopus swims close by on this door.
A supersized creature for a supersized door.
below: Unicorn! But behind a fence.
below: It was the interesting architectural detail over the door that first caught my eye. Then I notice the words, “diez anos como un roble cayendo” Ten years like an oak falling?
below: A flute player plays to a parking meter. A Buffalo parking meter of a type that is long gone from Toronto streets.
below: Sweetness cafe is the scene of at least three pieces of street art, starting with this woman who smiles at those of us who look up from the sidewalk. I also like the white mugs hanging from the awning.
below: The door next door has been re-done but that involved removing the face of this paste-up. A facelift gone awry.
below: But this painting is still on the wall of the Sweetness Cafe.
below: And we’ll end with the trash. He’s looks happy to take care of your garbage.
Added note, Sonder is a band from Buffalo
Eyes on the Streets 