Graffiti Friday: Stop War
(originally uploaded by counterclockwise)
Bloomington, Indiana
UPDATE: I just found a video clip of this work w/the artist’s description on WC:
From the Artist:
Tags: antiwar, artsy fartsy, graffiti, Indiana, video.“This piece is part of a line of work I have been developing over the last year or so, which is called “Urban Impressionism”, in which represent 3D objects in 2-Dimensions through shadows. These shadows are created at a particular point of day, or night, and later stenciled and spray-painted in order to resemble real shadows. Through this process I am able to discuss light and form, in an unconventional way, placing it directly on the streets of the contemporary urban “cityscape” that surrounds us.
Ideally I hope to create a moment of magic or illusion in which the spectator or passer-by questions the space around him/her, through the shadows that are either naturally cast or artificially created. This particular piece incorporates text to politicize a very important issue for many of us today — the end of the war in many regions of our globalized world.
PS. I noticed that on the site, the piece had been mistakenly tagged as a “chalk” piece… The piece itself is was stenciled on the floor using a shadow cast by a light post at night, and later carefully sprayed with a ‘camouflage black’ can.”
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I live just north of this sign and walked past it the other day, very cool and very cool finding it at the top of the StumbleUpon buzz charts.
WOW! Great. I like it.
This is what is known as “SOUL ART”
…whether you like it or not we are all connected on this planet — if for no other reason than we must share the air we breathe. Just think about that for more than 2 seconds! If the viability of Earth cannot sustain even one, then it cannot sustain even one1 more… “thinking out of the box” begins to take on a more common, closer-to-home visualization or theme: Learn to get along with diversity WHERE you are, in the body you are in and stop complaining about how hard you have it — what about those who have even less than you? Begin your day with thankfulness for that moment and believe that LIFE can only get better; for there is more love and its touch than you have experienced. Without that universal belief that we can enrich the lives of others as we enrich our own, or feed those yet hungry from the plenitude of this good earth, then we might as well shut our doors and close our ears to those who come our way. Not to do so will relegate the power of the many who can wait no longer for their basic needs of survival to be met…so you see there is no way around the wound in our physical being. The scar runs as deep as the oceans that have boiled, as LIGHT has traveled to connect with the cooling soil, and mankind has toiled to become.
THE LIGHT WILL COME WHETHER WE ARE READY OR NOT.
Wouldn’t it be grand if we would prepare ourselves to stand, hand-to-hand, and reach for one another with the grace of Light touching sand… knowing that we no
longer know just where it is that we belong. Only that this Earth is our home and we are its song.
i agree with your first line, freedomchild. after that… step away from the bong.
This is what is known as “SOUL ART”……
agreed… again.
Simple yet effective. We need to see this more often. *Applause*
great piece.
Sean coon is hilarious.
I wish one to be on every corner in every city.
Soul Art is also known as over-thinking. ;-) But…you made a good point about togetherness, in that we have to unite, but…for one purpose and that is to find and spread the word of God. He is the unifying factor that is needed for what you speak about. The very ideas of peace and love are because of God, He IS love. Wars WILL go on, people WILL die, starve, and worse. There will never be an end to it as long as humans have freedom and choice given to them by the Creator. Our goal is to choose to love him and to spread that love and word to others. Unite to help those in need but spend the rest of your time uniting in the Spirit of God. I think you got the right idea though FreedomChild.
I have to dissagree with the FreedomChild and OnMyWay. I don’t think this piece has a religous message. I think it says “Stop War.”
It’s more like a . . . political protest.
It’s a simple message delivered in a bold way. The phrase “loud and clear” somes to mind. It makes creative use of Stop Sign’s authority which is a universally recognized symbol, simultaneosly underminine the authority it plays off of in it’s black defiance. It was an excelent design decision to have just black juctstapose to the bright red.
Similar things show up in Austin quite a bit. You often see “Bush” or “War” painted on the bottom of stop signs.
yeah, people everywhere use stop signs as a foundation for their message.
witty, but not too original.
the shadow of war, though, grabbed me.
Nice one!
Who was it that said we had to “write our message on the pavement”? (pavement= sidewalk)
Keep up the great work!
Honestly folks… my remarks have no connection to any religion or any God (now I’ll probably get hammered for that, but so be it). I’m a wordy old soul and I know that; however, you can choose not to read it… lol
I’m just like every other mortal being (with a few shots too many of “love for humanity”). It just seems starkly obvious to me that if we began to fearlessly see that everybody else’s eyes, ears and hands and speaking voice rail with the thrust of FEAR… then perhaps we’d be somewhat more amiable to the concept of caring for one another — which also means that as we take into our heart the Ideal of Love, we let that Ideal take us to what we all say we want (but do not have the actions to back it up). And that what we say we want is “PEACE” — on a little sphere of dazzling beauty, dancing round our Galaxy (whose mysterious beauty and majesty is mesmerizing to the ephemeral pattern of a species just barely past its ‘cave man’ beginnings). To me it is just common sense. If we don’t nurture and keep our values near the kiln, it isn’t just “those people over there”, or those “barbarians… “who will ‘pay’, it is also going to be ALL of US. The ‘we’ who pleads with the other self-absorbed, self-righteous human beings for a change in the manner in which we choose to live our lives. It’s just that nobody wants to have to do anything different, yet they want things to change… without their domains being rattled.
i’ve shared similar sentiments in the past, freedomchild… just not as verbose ;-)
and thanks, john!
Great piece of work!
Stop War! Oh dear . Very intelligent socio-political comedy. Not!
A noble sentiment, undoubtedly. But what does this form of ‘protest’ achieve? Better to see it as a form of street art than a substitute for worthwhile political action.
Lets not forget who’s making our world so unstable — the international banks that are making money out of thin air; they fund the puppets we call leaders and they fund the wars, stop them to start with and the world starts to become safer. We all need to do some home work on this we have to evolve as a race… Here’s one link to start with:
http://www.communistrobot.com/
scroll down to the video title “Money as debt”
this picture reminds me of not seeing the forest for all these bloody trees …far out…cool stuff
It’s a fucking sign and some chalk on a sidewalk. Saying a message that has been sent for years, stop war. PERIOD.
Name a year that the US has NOT been in a war and you will find a year that this message has not been said, written, drawn or in some other way talked about.
What is there to analyze??
STOP WAR. That’s it.. no shadow of war, have you ever known a war to be “shadowed” ?
You guys analyze so much of things I’d love for you to analyze Carlanisms, that would be hilarious!
Here, I’ll start you out…. If a Number 2 pencil is the most popular pencil used why is it still number 2?
the “cool factor” of this isn’t the message itself, it’s the presentation.
let me guess: you’re not a fan of art or how the medium can be the message?
No 2 is the pencils grade of softness/hardness the softer the pencil lead the darker the line it draws……..maybe he had a bad day lol
This is actually encouraging, from the perspective of art, when you think about it.
Cause no, I’m with those of you that says it isn’t a deep meaningful religious thingummy. And no, it’s not a particularly new message.
What it is, though, is an example of someone creating art as a form of expression again, rather than just as something gratuitous to make money off of. This person isn’t being paid. Yet they’re taking the time to create something visually striking (LOOK at it) that’s sharing something they have in their mind. Rather than what a lot of artwork has become (ie, masturbatory modernist crap, not to put too fine a point on it.)
as long as there are wars, there need to be anti-war drawings etc. as long as they fight for oil, the message is needed.
i like his idea! :-)
Great!!
Gives me feeling to go and buy airbrush.. do this all over amsterdam 2!
in the words of the jock-hick that threatened everyone in high school… shut up hippy-faggot.
next time try writing a well informed essay or letter to the editor based on reason and historical evidence.
simon, how perfect that your ignorant ass probably landed on this ancient post from the pseudo-porn site that pushed thousands of people here today.
please, indulge me your criticisms of teenie bopper porn; i’m sure it’s just as compelling.
sorry you’re feelings were obviously hurt. the preceding explanation of where ’shut up hippy-faggot’ originated should have alerted your sense of humor, though i suppose it has not.
and let us not assume criticism of this marks me as ignorant, for that would be short sighted on your part, no?
people feel ‘empowered’ by stuff like this, i get it. i’ve done it. so allow me to in good humor again criticize the the extreme left for, as i see, one of its larger flaws, sloganizing reasonable ideas/movements, with a slogan: SOLUTIONS, NOT SLOGANS!
and unless you are prepared to define an absolute moralism to which one cannot argue, then apply that mode of thought to why war in ALL cases should be avoided because the moral wrong of war itself outweighs moral wrongs the parties are attempting resolve via said war, you are again probably being short sighted.
but any fyi, i came here from www.skoopy.com that linked to this page under the heading: “Clever graffiti”
postscript - don’t know what ‘teenie bopper porn’ entails, sorry :(
exactly, dude — every ad on that site is porn. they run up and down every free bit of space. i’ve gotten a ridiculous amount of traffic from there today. but that’s not your cup-o-tea i guess…
i find it kinda funny that you assign ownership of this type of expression to the “far left” while we’re knee deep in one of the longest wars/occupations in US history. maybe if it appeared out of the blue during a clandestine war in the 80’s, like the Contras/Sandinista conflict… but now? i know a bunch of republicans in dockers and members only jackets who’d think this didn’t say enough.
but context doesn’t matter right? what’s said stands on it’s own, no matter the conversation…
Have you ever thought of the concept of vandalism and the costs associated to remove your “art?” If cities didn’t have to spend money on removing your crap perhaps they could be putting more services towards people who need them. Way to go Einstein…
removing street art = $50 sandblasting rental, tops.
supporting/allowing the occupation of iraq = upwards of $500 billion, 4,000 dead US soldiers, 30,000 wounded and more that 100,000 dead iraqis, easily.
you’re right, steve, politically charged street art is too costly.
very cool,
and i mean it in the coolest way possible!
love,
Poet
Well you seem on the right path…. But you wrote on the wrong side walk…..
We didn’t start the war jerk! They did…… Alot of people died in the those towers….. How will you explain yourself to them…..
Write your graffitti over on the other side of the world…..
how do i explain to the innocent people who died on 9/11 (my neighbors, as i lived in brooklyn at the time) that i’m against killing innocent people who had *absolutely nothing* to do with 9/11?
how do i explain that i’m against creating a whole new swarm of people pissed with the united states; people who might want to take revenge on innocent american life in the future?
are you for real?
do yourself a favor and read. anything other than a comic book will clue you in. shit, here’s one for you that’ll do the job.
btw, i didn’t make the graffiti, i posted it here. jesus, try reading the fucking post before losing your damn mind.
Man it must suck to be you sean. To have your beliefs shown to be
total crap and have your face rubbed into it. So much so that you
must sensor and delete. Well I’m sorry that the truth hurts but ‘ll
tell you, it’s the lies that will kill you. Come on, if you can remove
your head long enough to delete why not keep it out and enjoy the
fresh air.
Typical mouthy know nothing pansy lib!
Moderate this you fucking pussy!
Yeah… a lot of over-analyzation going on.
STOP WAR
To anyone who says removing street art is costly: it’s only costly if you choose to remove it. If you let the art stay there, like it should… hey! Your city just got a -free- miniature art gallery.
Slogans are important for morale-boosting, but never as important as action.