new city: Olympia, Washington!

October 21, 2007 on 8:36 pm | In site updates | Comments Off on new city: Olympia, Washington!

Shown here: olympia/capitol layer 29, August 11, 2007. Photos by Jason Taellious. Stencil artist unknown.

I’m happy to announce a brand new addition to the site: the Capitol Theater Free Wall in Olympia, Washington. This wall’s evolution is radically different from the walls I usually shoot in San Francisco. The most notable difference is the rate of change: because it is truly a free wall, there’s something new to be found almost every day. Just as remarkable is the tireless effort of photographer Jason Taellious, who has been visiting this spot every day for several months to document it.

What’s up at the moment is just 29 of nearly a hundred layers I’m in the process of cobbling together from the photos of Jason and other local photographers. But this should be enough to give a good idea of the wall’s unique character. There’s quite a lot of graffiti in the New York tradition, done at various levels of skill. There are some pretty sophisticated stencils, and the occasional wheatpaste poster. High on the wall there are roller tags, and even one made with a modified fire extinguisher. And then there are random messages scrawled, it seems, by passersby who aren’t part of any street art subculture at all. All in all, it’s quite a unique mix. And how it churns. Nothing, not even a masterpiece, seems to last more than a few days, which does prompt the occasional complaint.

If you’re looking for more information about the Capitol Theater Free Wall, the wall has its own Flickr group. Also worth seeing is this chronological slideshow.