Quality of Life

Quality of Life, a new independent feature film about two young San Francisco graffiti writers, is finally coming to theaters. It opens October 12 at the United Artists Galaxy 4 Theatre (at Van Ness and Sutter) in San Francisco. This low-budget film was shot in SF’s Mission district, but it looks like it will have more than just local interest. Ben Morgan, the director, was a very thoughtful and reasonable voice at the recent Commonwealth Club panel (which you can listen to here in RealAudio format). I haven’t seen the movie yet, but it’s been getting some great reviews, so I’m really looking forward to checking it out. See you there, opening night!

Graffiti events at RESFEST 2005

RESFEST 2005 hits San Francisco next week, and it looks like there will be plenty of interest for Bay Area graffiti heads. If you’re not already planning to be dancing your ass off at the Love Parade, be sure to check these two events on Saturday, September 24th:

2:15pm: Street Art or Not, a roundtable discussion featuring Jeff Chang (Can’t Stop Won’t Stop), Doug Pray (Infamy), John Trippe (Fecalface), plus more TBA.

8pm: Infamy, a feature documentary about graffiti, directed by the same Doug Pray who brought us the great turntablism doc Scratch a few years back.

So if you’re in SF, swing by the Palace of Fine Arts to check this all out. Maybe I’ll see you there. (I’ll be the dorky looking guy with the camera.)

Graffiti panel at the Commonwealth Club

Jim Prigoff shows an early Futura tag

Originally uploaded by otherthings.

Last night’s panel at the Commonwealth Club was pretty interesting. The topic was “Graffiti: Urban Scrawl or Artistic Freedom?”. There was an introduction and slide show by Jim Prigoff, street art historian and coauthor of Spraycan Art. The panelists were: APEX BA of San Francisco street art fame; Ben Morgan, Director of Quality of Life; John Doffing, Founder of Start Soma Gallery; Machaela M. Hoctor, San Francisco Deputy City Attorney; and Mohammed Nuru, Chair of San Francisco’s Graffiti Advisory Board. It was moderated by Jonathon Keats, an Art Critic for San Francisco Magazine.

Continue reading Graffiti panel at the Commonwealth Club…

Piece by Piece

It’s been many months since we’ve updated the site, but it’s not for lack of interest. My computer was busted, and it only just got fixed. I’ve been steadily gathering photos all this time, and there is some really special stuff coming your way very soon. Look for more updates sometime in the next month or two.

Also, I’ve started posting photos on Flickr, a kickass photo-sharing website. Check out the grafarc group photo pool if you want to see some of the raw photos that will someday get
incorporated into this site!

Meanwhile, here’s a plug for a local film you will not want to miss: Piece by Piece, a brand new documentary about the history of San Francisco graffiti, is playing this Thursday night only, January 13th, at the Roxie in San Francisco’s Mission district. Showtimes are 7 and 9pm. (I’ll be at the 9pm show if anyone wants to hook up.)

Psycho City

Today I started work on reconstructing Psycho City. I stopped by the parking lot on Market where this great spot used to be, and grabbed a piece of chipped paint from one of the walls. Check out what it looks like under the scanner:

If you, kind reader, have any old photos from Psycho City, please drop me a line. We have the technology. We can rebuild it.

The end of an era.

On February 2, 2003, I went to the cavern to find about a dozen guys in orange vests buffing the whole place with paint rollers. Here’s a brief timelapse video of the process.

(quicktime 75k)