ACEs Low

I saw the tag above on a daily basis for weeks, without any desire for a picture of it. When I asked myself why - the obvious reason was that it has to be the single ugliest tag I've seen, not to mention that it is on a private residence, which crosses a line.

But then I wondered why the owner hadn't painted it over. The house was repainted a year or two ago. Surely there is some leftover blue down the basement. Maybe the owner knows what a lousy piece of work this is, and figures that the tagger should continue to see it and hang his head in shame as penance. Or maybe the owner just can't be arsed...

EHYO on the Right, HIERO in on the left...

The blank spot at the pit was filled in with a second HIERO piece, and at the far right - 3 new pieces from VA went up Sunday afternoon when the sun finally came out.

Under Construction at the Pit

ADICT's North wall has been painted over - with a promise of things to come. ZEAL neatly salvaged his defaced piece by re-working it. Today VA was busy at the south end, but it was too dark for any shots - maybe tomorrow.

You Tubed

I was looking at some video of graffiti in Halifax on YouTube, and much to my surprise, found my shots set to music, by c16green - check them out


ADICT


SAME


APER


ENDER

Oakland Road Railbridge

Here's what under the bridge as of April 2008.

These are a few of my favorite things...

Here are some of my favorite photos taken during the time I have been shooting graffiti around Halifax.

WSC/ACV

WSC is a crew tag "Weed Smoking Children" that was associated with 3 tags - SAOS, DEAR and PRIME. Recently WSC seems to have morphed into ACV "All City Vandals" - SAOS and DEAR again, with FAET rather than PRIME.

A walk down Quinpool the other day shows just as Blue is the new Black for 2008, SAOS is trying hard to be the new SAME.


PRIME


DEAR


SAOS


FAET

Eine, zwei, drei, vier... SYS

EINE/SYS is a tag that I first noticed after seeing SYS sprayed in the Old Infirmary parking lot, replacing the FYPT that had been there for agse until the wall was repainted. I had been seeing EINE/SYS around, mostly in marker/paint marker, then this week EINE has been popping up as a blue stencil almost daily in the South End.

Dartmouth Cove - April 2008

Dartmouth Cove is an excellent spot to easily see some great graffiti, especially the "Spirited Away" wall, which at present is the best themed wall up in town. Easy access, and always plenty of parking!

GHOST

GHOST is an older graffiti around Halifax, usually seen as a large painted ghost, but occasionally as a smaller cut-out ghost sticker. The stickers are interesting, both for their simple and effective design, as well as for the fact that two of them have the 'Cradle' logo associated with Town Pride. Are 'GHOST' and Cradle the same, or does it show a connection between GHOST and Town Pride? Who knows, but here's a selection of Ghosts from around Halifax.

Repairations at the Pit

Usually when a piece is defaced or damaged, it is replaced quickly, but clearly sometimes repair is an option (if someone's fast enough)

March 19, 2008

April 9, 2008

April 12, 2008

To see the rest of the graffiti at the pit click here .

Under Tower and Young Bridges

I hadn't been down to the end of the tracks for a while - about a year. This end of the line seems fairly static - maybe it's watched more closely given the presence of trains, or maybe it's just not safe to spend the time needed to put up a proper piece.

Here's what's up under the bridges...


Young Ave


Tower Road

Smog Rolls In

Among new tags around Halifax this spring, there was one that I thought of as 5-Nov, and one (a drawing of smokestacks) that I thought of as Smokestacks. I had not made any association between the two, until a found both on a piece of rail in a bright yellow paint marker. The final piece of the puzzle was one of the Town Pride stickers which had both tags, and 'SMOG' written on it.

Looking at the pictures I had taken over the past few months, the story I came up with was "SMOG', a member of Town Pride, starting out with tagging SMOG, then the modified SMOG (5MOG then 5MoooG) and finally SMOG(smokestacks). A perfectly sensible evolutionary theory from my perspective - except it's likely wrong. Looking back at older photos I find a 5MOG at Dalplex in October 2006, and a big Smokestacks at the Pit in April 2007, long before the first simple SMOG's in March 2008.


Evolving SMOG

Nonetheless - SMOG is an interesting tag - the '5MoooG' tag is one of the wittiest I've seen, and Town Pride seems to be an interesting bunch - more graphic - like AOD(Army of Darkness) at this point, rather than tags/fills. More on Town Pride later...

Mumford Mall Wall

The back wall of the Mumford Road mall is a little harder to get to, but now is a good time as it is heavily treed, making it hard to photograph in the summer. Here it is as of early April.

2007 Awards - My Favorite StreetArt Graffiti

There has been lots of good stuff around, but the best I've seen was this older piece by THESIS - truly spectacular.

Bayer's Road Railbridge

Another nice day in Halifax, so at lunch I dropped by Bayer's Road, Belmont and Oakland Road, not having been down there since the winter started.

Mumford Rail Bridge

The Mumford Bridge is the easiest to get to, accessible without any climbing. Here is what's there as of early April.

Coburg Rail Bridge

Here's what's up now under the Coburg Rail Bridge

HIERO in Evolution

A HIERO piece goes up over several days at the Pit.

2007 Awards - My Favorite Sticker

Stickers seem to be a gateway to proper graffiti - a way to quickly and quietly get a tag up, without having to use paint or a marker. However some stickers are more sophisticated, almost miniature artwork - such as those by ZORA(AOD), or Town Pride. My personal favorite sticker from 2007 was by WULF(AOD) - my kids loved it too, and indeed collected a couple.

New Tags Around Town - BUENO

Psychiatric Sidewalk Stencilling

No, it's not in Halifax, but given my close contact with shrinks, this caught my eye.

2007 Awards - My Favorite Stencil

There are a fair few stencils around - some are art - such as flamenco dancers or sailing ships stencilled on the sidewalk; some are political such as "Too Many Cops, Too Little Justice"

My favorite this year was found on a concrete pipe, beside a soccer field, on the way to the way to the N.W. Arm Drive Overpass (a great graffiti site)

My Favorite Stencil in 2007 - "George Bush - Errorist"