iT'S STreeT arT THurSDay! & Malibu Morning Picture of the Day - Thursday, April 9, 2015

Dear Street Art Lovers, as well as Family, Friends, and Gentle Readers,

Today we've got a piece that occupies a small piece of wall over at Vine and Melrose, but it catches my eye every time I drive by and I have come to find it to be a friendly, neighborly presence.

Artists: Luck, Glaboe, and Yumad (?), Dude in Shades, spray paint on brick, perhaps some acrylic too.

It faces to the east, and something about it's patchwork of pastel catches the dawn light and makes this face of a shaved-head fellow in shades, just glow all warm and fuzzy in the morning.This almost makes me thing of an ice cream sundae.

This image gets tagged and I think the artist comes back and touches things up now and then. A lot of the times you don't see the whole thing because it's faces the parking lot of  plumber and big trucks are frequently in front of this face.

You also can't see the whole thing because there is a tree growing up on the right. But I moved in to get a detail shot that morning:

What we seem to have in black outline on white are teeming masses. All these people have their separate personalities (and overbites). It's a lot of fun.

There appear to be three names on this work: "GLABOE," "YUMAD," and "LUCK" but I have not become adept at deciphering graffiti penmanship yet.

Here's some more on the bottom; more portions of faces.

I think the scalloped line under the face indicates beard. I also like how the main character of "the dude" as I call him, has typographical hair over on the left.

The neighboring view, some commercial messaging rendered
by wall artists--part of the visual texture of the area.

Just on the other side of this building is a liquor store that has a painted image on its wall:

While this is art imagery that you see from the street, I consider this in a different category, illustrations commissioned to communicate commercial intent. It's a lot of fun too, but not an artistic vision given to the community for its own sake.

I will throw these in now and then because they're part of the landscape and it's nice to see the context of in which street art exists, but just know that things of this nature are really not my focus.

Contrast this to "Dude in Shades" above. This image is ultra, ultra-legible, symmetrical, has a unified and harmonious palette, has happy characters enjoying the product, and can be understood in the 2 seconds it takes to look at it. "Dude in Shades" HAS to be studied for a while (as simple as it is compared to other graffiti art that I have shared) to understand and try to interpret what it is you are seeing.

That said, next week I'll show you something that is commercial, but succeeds in being (at least to me) a successful piece of street art as well.

In my own head, I like to think of Vine Street as the westernmost boundary of the amorphous territory of East Hollywood, so this is just at the edge of the bailiwick of "The Hell's Edge Museum of Street Art" and it's purview.


AND NOW, BACK TO OUR MALIBU PICTURE OF THE DAY:

And what the hell, here's another; it's nice out today.





















See you all later.

Love,
Pops