O Positive Plus

Posted on July 11, 2022 by Mary C

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!

a bright and colorful mural in an alley, large cursive word Kingston with smaller pictures around the letters, two faces in the mural as well

Bright and bold Kingston, but down an alley where it’s hard to see all at once.

the lefthand end of a bright and colorful mural in an alley, large cursive word Kingston with smaller pictures around the letters, only the first 3 letters are visible in this photo, K I and N

large pink female face at the end of a mural in an alley, face ends at the sidewalk of Broadway Ave in Kingston New York, shops and other buildings in the background

street art paintings around the entrance to a business, southwestern theme, cactii

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.

mural by Jess Snow and Jia Sung in Kingston New York, portrait of a woman with long flowing black hair, a small sailboat in her hair, all on background of watery blues

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.

mural on the end of a building showing girls and women of different coloured races helping each other

below: Thorneater Comics painted this sturgeon in 2015.

large mural of a fish, outdoors, in shades of grey

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.

mural, center is first nations portrait surrounded by circles of triangles looking like the rays of the sun, silhouettes of people on horseback on either side

below: “Native Americans Discover Columbus” by Lady Pink

day of the dead themed mural, girl with painted white face and decorations, a baltimore oriole beside her, she has long flowing hair

below: “Shadow Guide/Shadow Self” by Dina Kravtsov and Matthew Schulze, 2018

mural of two people on a bicycle built for two, a tandem bike

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.

mural on an exterior of Keegan Ales, with window and reflections in the middle of the picture, mural painted by

below: Another mural on Keegan Ale buildings – this one was painted by Jack Dishel and Vor138 in 2014.

mural on Keegan Ale exterior, cartoon like characters and items, skull, skunk, dart board,

below: Letting the imagination run wild as boys and girls read books in “Fishbone” by Eugene Stetz Jr., 2016

mural of two children, a boy and a girl, reading, with a cloud of objects from their imaginations joining them together. A mural on St. James Street in Kingston New York by Eugene Stetz Junior.

part of a mural, visualizing the imagination of a boy as he reads, planets, a baseball, an apple, a bone, and other items

below: “Sun/Moon” by Enz.

A two storey exterior wall, Keegan Ales, in Kingston NY with street art on it, a large mural across the top, a text piece on the lower level.

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.

a mural on Downs Street in Kingston New York

below: “Flight Sequence”, an owl in flight, by Justin Suarez, 2017

a horizontal mural showing three stages of an owl in flight

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.

A tribute mural, showing portraits of young black men, 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.

More Kingston NY murals
Photos taken July 2022

Ain’t I A Woman?

Posted on July 9, 2022 by Mary C

This mural can be seen in Kingston NY.

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!”

The mural was painted by Jess Snow and jetsonorama as part of the O+ Festival

Photos taken in July 2022

meating place and others

Posted on January 12, 2017 by Mary C

More Buffalo NY street art

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.

5 storey brick building on Grant St in Buffalo, with green trim around the windows and a small parking lot beside, sign on the side of the building says Meating Place. There is a large mural on the side of the building featuring realistic portraits of many people, including two trumpet players, a girl in a red head scarf, and other men and women,

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.

mural over the entranceway to a building. Two sets of clasped hands, all with different skin tones. Scenes of children playing in the background.

below: A large octopus swims close by on this door.
A supersized creature for a supersized door.

blue mural on an industrial building door, blue marine scene feathuring a large close up of an octopus eye and part of its body, along with some yellow fish, some lily pads and a water lily flower

below: Unicorn! But behind a fence.

mural of a unicorn with a rainbow coloured horn, jumping, behind a wood 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?

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below: A flute player plays to a parking meter. A Buffalo parking meter of a type that is long gone from Toronto streets.

black and white photo of a man playing the flute, pasted onto a woodedn fence beside a sidewalk, next to a book store, a parking meter nearby, on a street in Buffalo

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.
a large, life sized or larger, paste up of a drawing of the head and shoulders of a black middle aged woman, smiling, above the awning for the Sweetness cafe. 6 white mugs hang from hooks through holes along the lower edge of 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.

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below: But this painting is still on the wall of the Sweetness Cafe.

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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

part of the side of a green metal container for recycling bins on a Buffalo sidewalk, relief sculpture of a man on the side, to which someone has added to sticker, one is a happy face sticker on the head and another is a parody of wonder bread that says sonder.

Allentown (Buffalo) street art

Posted on January 10, 2017 by Mary C

The Allentown area of Buffalo is now home to some interesting murals. If you walk around the neighbourhood of Allen Street and College Street, this is what you might see:

below: ‘Voyage’ by Chuck Tingley, 2014. Commissioned by MyBuffaloPride and Loop Magazine and dedicated to Buffalo’s LGBT community and its allies. “In a world of scrutiny, we have the power to embrace our differences and use our inner light to guide us through the darkest of times.”

a mural called Voyage painted by Chuck Tingley on the side of a building in Buffalo, a large multicoloured boy is sitting in a small boat and holding on to a yellow paddle. The sky is rainbow colours.

below: The corner of Allen Street and Wadsworth Street.

intersection in Buffalo with old two storey square front storefronts. wet road, rainy day, liquor store on the corner that is now empty but the sign only half works - only half the letters in the word liquor are lit.

below: Nietzsche (German composer and philosopher) with the quote “Without music life would be a mistake”. When I googled to make sure that that was an actual quote, I found a quote from a letter that he wrote in 1888: “Music … frees me from myself, it sobers me up from myself, as though I survey the scene from a great distance … It is very strange. It is as though I had bathed in some natural element. Life without music is simply an error, exhausting, an exile.” The picture is on the side of a Nietzsche Bar.

street art picture of Nietzsche head and shoulders in black and white along with a quote that says Without music life would be a mistake.

below: It’s About Time, with three red fists on the upper part of the Allen Street Hardware Cafe. One is holding a yellow paint roller and one is holding a yellow spray paint can. The third fist is in the background and is holding either tools or paint brushes or markers? Painted by the Allen Street Street Art Collective (ASSA).

a brick two storey store with a mural on the upper part in red, yellow and black, with the words It's about time. The picture in the mural is three red fists. One is holding a yellow paint roller and one is holding a yellow spray paint can. Another mural is in the background, a car parked on the wet street, a pedestrian on the sidewalk

below: ‘Tribute to Spain Rodriguez’ by Ian DeBeer. Rodriguez was a comic artist who was born in Buffalo and the piece is largely about a fight that he got into in the bar across the street (once the Jamestown, now the Nietzsche).

long horizontal mural drawn like a comic book strip, dedicated to the memory of Spain Rodriguez and painted by Ian DeBeers in 2013, a large woman's face with bright red lips, the word 'she; painted in red, a motorcylce, a man wearing a hat,

a motorcycle, part of a larger mural

below: When this mural was first completed, the grey parts were black. The large picture of the man that stands between the windows on the left and those in the middle, was quite distinct. Now, you might have missed him when you first looked at the picture.

the front of a building is covered with black and white poster sized pictures of people.

below: The pink stripes in the background of the finger-like portions of this mural have also faded considerably since the mural was painted in 2013. “The work we do is not for the faint of heart”.

a mural on the side of a building. On the left is a purple and black drawing of what looks like fingers. on the right are yellow and turquoise stripes with the words, the work we do is not for the faint of heart

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below: The last ASSA mural features an iron fireman. It’s a long horizontal mural with the words Iron and Fireman written in large letters over shapes that resemble flames.

word Iron written in large letters, part of a mural

below: Between the two words is a painting of a black ‘iron fireman’, a robot-like creature shovelling coal to feed the fire. This was the logo for the Iron Fireman, a coal stoker first developed in the 1920’s by Thomas Harry Banfield and Cyrus Jury Parker. A coal stoker mechanically feeds coal into a furnace or boiler – the Iron Fireman was a commercial success in the days when coal was a commonly used fuel.

picture of a black robot figure shovelling coal

word fireman written on large letters in a mural, brick buildings (apartments) behind, cars parked in front.

below: One of the other interesting things about Buffalo is how the architecture is different here, or at least different from what I am used to in Toronto. The building with the green details on the front is the Puritan Building, built in 1893. It has recently been renovated with the Billy Club restaurant on the ground level and three storeys of apartments above. And yes, that is a purple house on the right. Many of the houses in the area are painted in bright and cheerful colours.

mural in the middle gound, two low rise buildings in the background, one is the Puritan building with green details around the windows in the front of the building.

below: She’s almost disappeared.

very faded street art piece of crouched young girl with a pony tail - although it is faded enough that I might be wrong.

below: But he’s as vibrant as ever.

a painting of a man has been mounted in an arched window, covers the window.

a red brick building, side of a store, bottom part has been painted orange, probably to paint over graffiti, but has since been tagged twice, once in black and once in red, a parking lot is in front of the wall, with a small snowbank at the edge.

a door is covered with graffiti stickers.

Old First Ward murals, Buffalo

Posted on January 4, 2017 by Mary C

The First Ward in Buffalo NY includes the docks along the Buffalo River and was once a thriving industrial area. Old grain elevators still dominate the area. The first residents were Irish who came to help dig the Erie Canal (completed in 1825) and who stayed. A second wave of Irish immigrants arrived in the 1840’s as refugees from the famine. They settled here and found work in the port.

Two large murals have been painted on Republic Street, both facing the railway tracks. The first is ‘The Worker’ on the old Brock’s building/warehouse between Tennessee and Kentucky streets. It was completed just over a year ago.

a long horizontal mural called The Worker, with the words Thw WOrker written in large capital letters and filled in with pictures of working people. Along the side of a wall beside a train track - view of whole mural with tracks in the foreground

The project was headed by ELAB (Emerging Leaders in the Arts Buffalo).

below: Molten metal and flying sparks by Nicole Cherry

a tub of molten metal and sparks flying, as part of a large mural that pays tribute the workers and labourers who lived and worked in Buffalo's First Ward back when it was an industrial powerhouse

below: Nick Miller’s painting, “Brakemen” a tribute to those who worked on the railways fills the word THE.

part of a larger mural called The Worker, with the words Thw WOrker written in large capital letters and filled in with pictures of working people. Along the side of a wall beside a train track

below: W O R K E R with its images

the word worker is written in large capital letters and each letter contains an image of people working, a large mural in Buffalo New York

below: A harbour scene.

part of a larger mural, a dock scene, harbour, ship in the water, lift bridge open in the background, kegs and barrels on the dock, a man working on the dock

below: Honouring the police and firemen. The boat is the “Edward M. Cotter”. This fireboat was built in 1900 as the “William S. Grattan” – named after the first paid fire commissioner in Buffalo. After a 1953 rebuild she was given her present name in honour of a recently deceased Buffalo firefighter and leader of the local firefighters union. She is the oldest active fireboat in the world and is a National Historic landmark. She also acts as an ice breaker during the winter months.

part of a large mural celebrating the workers of Buffalo, this panel is for the police and firemen and includes a red fire boat.

below: Scoopers with grain in the hold of a lake freighter.

part of a larger mural, men hauling a rope and filling a shovel with wheat

The second mural was painted by Vinnie Alejandro and a team of artists. It is a 5000 square foot painting contrasting the past and present of the Old First Ward.

railway tracks run past the community steel corp building on Republic St., Buffalo. There is a mural on the side of the building.

It is just up the street from ‘The Workers’ mural – on the side of the Community Steel building at Alabama and Republic.

mural about the Old FIrst Ward, Buffalo. involves two large panels, one is an image from the past with grain and grain elevators and the other is a scene from the present with the area as a residential parkland with old grain elevators in the background. Railway tracks run in front of the mural.

The area has many railway lines. The ones that run parallel to Republic Street were in 1903 the City of Buffalo granted private railroad rights to the Quaker City Cooperage Company (they made barrels). These tracks connected to the Erie Railroad.

From what I could find, other artists include Tom O’Brien, Amanda Gala Roney, Suzie Molnar Goad, Ed ‘Sparky’ Lawton, Jake Wiles, and Chris Kameck. Like all community mural projects, many people and organizations were involved. For a short history of the mural, and a list of groups who gave supplies and/or time, see an article in ‘Buffalo Rising‘ (an excellent resource if you’re interested in the city of Buffalo).

Photos were taken January 3, 2017

after the last departure

Posted on December 21, 2015 by Mary C

The last train left Buffalo Central Terminal station on October 28, 1971. Many of the platforms remain, abandoned for more than forty years. It was a modern structure when it was built in 1929 but now it lies in disrepair. The upper level offices and waiting rooms are open to the elements and the tracks are overgrown.

graffiti on the walls of an abandoned building, blue and green tags

There are few reminders of its former life

pink concrete post with an old painting on it, red circle with white words that says fire extinguisher here. Someone has written in yellow below it, not anymore.

but most things that could be removed were ripped out long ago.

crumbling brick pillers in front of a wall on which someone has written Slime heads

large pink hand giving a thumbs down sign, graffiti on a wall. the words Urban scar have been written beside it. The hand is in a large yellow oval shape

graffiti painting - a man with the words Can't you see? The foundation is crumbling. Trashman is written in large red letters, also a mock coca-cola logo
hole in a brick wall, through the hole can be seen graffiti writing on the wall that says Dawg tag klew memba only!

An x has been cut into the edge of piece of corrugated metal. Someone has painted two white dots above it to make it into a face

graffiti painting of a person's head with wide brimmed red hat covering the upper part of the face. Words coming from his/her mouth are: For adult intellectuals only. On a wall in an abanded train station

walls in a state of decay and crumbling, with scrawls and graffiti on them

broken brick wall with an orange and yellow bright tag on it.

a wall with yellow and white tags, an abandoned train station, the room is now open to the elements

a blue tag that says youlok on a wall in an abandoned building

red and white horizontal striped square painted on a wall of an abandoned building with a drawing of a padlock on top of it. Brand name of the lock is master.

pink and purple stencilled butterflies on a concrete post

Words and other graffiti written on grey walls of an abandoned train station in Buffalo, one set of words says This place is a prison. Another set of words says Our work was good

street art paintings on the walls of an abandoned train platform.

red and white horizontal stripes in a square with a large H.A. painted on top of it. Someone has made the first period into an exclamation mark. Written in black on top it are the words Life Lyfe Nigger

a large spiral made with spray paint on a concrete block wall

murals, Rochester New York

Posted on December 21, 2015 by Mary C

Wall/Therapy

Wall Therapy is now an annual event in Rochester New York. It started in 2012 with 11 street artists painting 16 different walls in the city. From their website, Wall Therapy is “a public community-level intervention using mural art as a vehicle to address our collective need for inspiration.” The Wall Therapy website also has a map of the locations of the murals. They are spread around the city. It is possible that some of these murals are not actually a part of the Wall Therapy project.

photos taken in June and September of 2015

below: ‘Anabel’ by Faring Purth, on 4th Street.

below: ‘Rhapsody’ by Faith47 with a close up of the skull below it. Pleasant Street.

below: Jimi Hendrix, by Ernest Shaw Jr., 2014, on King Street

below: ‘Untitled (Eagle and Wave), by DALeast, on West Main Street.

below: ‘Etty’ by Faring Purth, under the railway bridge at Brown and Silver Streets.
The bridge is in a dark spot and the mural is long. (4 photos)

below: `From the Ruins` by Mr. Prvt and Msshaftway on the side of Cook Iron Store, Andrews Street

below: I Got You, by Elicser, West Main and Canal

below: ‘Avery’ by Jarus, 2014, on Palmer Street (Fedder Industrial Park)

below: ‘The Red Dress’ by Jarus, Seward Street.

below: ‘Love is Sacrifice’ by Jeff Soto and Maxx242, at Rochester Public Market

below: `Martin Luther King’ by Case, on Park Avenue.

below: by Troy Lovegates, 2014, Fedder Industrial

below: by Conor Harrington, on the wall of Historic Houseparts, on South Ave.
On a photo of the original mural there was no red colour.

below: by Cern, 2012, Pennsylvania Ave.,

below: by David Walker, 2014, on Goodman St.

below: Untitled (Fish Market) by Alexis Diaz, West Main Street

below: Fox and Rabbit by Mr. Pvrt, 2013, on Comfort St.

below: Armand from House of Guitars, by John Perry, 2014, on Pennsylvania Ave.

below: Pixel Pancho, 2013

below: Sea Creature, by Bile, on the wall of Stanley Steemer, South Ave.

below: Mermaid, by Case, 2012, on Pennsylvania Ave.

below: by Liqen, 2012, on Pennsylvania Ave., by Public Market

below: by Mike Ming, South Ave. on the north side of Personal FX Hair Studio

below: by Sam Rodriguez, 2014, on Greenleaf St.

below: by Omen, on Greenleaf St.

below: by HowNosm, on Pitkin St. by Harts Local Grocers.

below: Understand, by Adam Francey, South Ave. on the south side of Personal FX Hair Studio

below: Discount Evolution by DALeast, 2012

below: by Omen, July 2014, on East Main St.

below: The World is Yours, by Queen Andrea, 2014, on Greenleaf St.

below: by Thievin’ Stephen, 2012, on Pennsylvania Ave.

below: `The Giant Storybook Project` by Herakut, Oct. 2012, on St. Paul Street

below: It rained the day that I was there and I didn’t realize that my pictures of this building were taken with raindrops on my camera lens.

below: A bear by Mr. Pvrt at Rochester Public Market

below: ‘Sleeping Bears’ by ROA, on St. Pauls Street,

below: Luong Mural by Addison Karl, 2014, on Palmer Street (Fedder Industrial Park)

below: Untitled (REXY) by St. Monci and Justyn Iannucci, behind 700 South Avenue.

below: ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’ behind South Ave near Gregory (and next to the one pictured above).

below: The next four murals were on the side of the same building. I am fairly sure that it was at the end of Flint Street. It is definitely on the west side of the Genessee River by a street that dead ends at the Genessee Riverway Trail.

by LaShonda Davis

by Myron Hall

A mural on the side of a building. Blue background. A young man with an Afro hair style is wearing red boxing gloves. The words on the mural say " To be once defeated is to find cause for an everlasting struggle to reach the top" It is a quote attributed to Marcus Garvey. The mural is signed by Lujar.

by LuJar

below: The next three photos are at 400 Atlantic Avenue.

below: ‘Together We Fall’ by Aaron Li-Hill

below: At 430 Atlantic Avenue – this building was painted on three sides by four different artists, Daze, Nate Hodge, Eder Muniz and Vexta. Daze’s contribution is on the east side:

below: Vexta painted this face on the northeast corner 430 Atlantic

below: The southeast corner of 430 Atlantic Avenue.

below: ‘Untitled (Boy on Heart)’ by Icy and Sot, South Avenue.

I haven’t found any information on the remaining murals.

below: I haven’t been able to find any information yet about the next two murals either. They were both on South Ave. Liquor Store, to the south of most of the other murals that I saw. By the way, it was a nice little store with an interesting selection of wine.