connecting*the*dots

2 Responses to “Graffiti Friday: Explosive Birth”  

1. 1 asbo Jan 10th, 2007 at 10:43 am

   when I did this stencil I had some text to accompany it which simply read:

   BUSH BABY

   during the act of spraying it onto the wall in my local town (Ipswich UK, where it still remains today) I broke the stencil with the text so only the image went up which in retrospect is more powerfull on its own than with the text which would have had a more direct and obvious message

   I’m very proud of this stencil for a number of reasons, one being that the original drawing for the template was done by free hand (though I think I could do alot better now..this was an early stencil for me) with a small picture of an old style hand grenade as inspiration, the actual stencil is A3 size

   I’m more proud of the fact that after 35 years of living on this planet and now working 9 to 5 and living the life of a parent, husband, car owner and home owner I still have the passion, anger and inspiration to want to challenge and comment what is going on in the world by sitting down for a few hours designing this stencil and getting up at 4am to spray it up on the street!

   in the scheme of things and as a form of protest putting a stencil on a wall is no big deal, but this is not a ‘protest’it is an image deliberately designed to promote a response in the viewer and hopefully nudge the minds of those that see it into challenging and thinking about how violence is sewn into the minds of our children and ultermately unleashed in the use of the tools of war that are used to kill our children, for after all:

   ‘all behaviour is learnt’

   thanks for using it in your blogg (would rather have been asked first) I still have plans for this stencil and I’m not done with it yet, sadly I get the feeling it will be as relevant in 20years time as it is now and as it would have been 20 years ago.

   Take care and if anyone wants to check out some of my other work follow the link set out below:

   regards

   ASBO

   http://www.flickr.com/photos/68224853@N00/sets/72057594096927165/

2. 2 sean coon Jan 10th, 2007 at 11:09 am

   thanks, asbo, for the background story (and for not asking me to take down the image. it’s extremely powerful).

   when i first came across the stencil on flickr, i interpreted the image the same way you describe it. i’ve been thinking a lot about the learned behavior of violence since the beginning of the iraq occupation and in particular, the israel/lebanon war.

   an entire generation of kids around the world are growing up with touch and go tendencies; something the military industrial complex from this country doesn’t care much about, i’m sure.

   and as a 36 yr-old guy with a mortgage, i feel you. ;) come on back.