.CPT

Busy

Been back at the studies and the weeks seem to fly by. Not too much progress being made. The Easter break will provide a chance to chase up on those last few interviews. Feels so close, yet so far. 

More progress

I am getting more excited as new contributions are coming in each week which make the finished project in my reach.

I got Sure’s full interview back. Was really interesting to get inside this writer’s thoughts.

Also, I mentioned a while back that Faith47 finished her interview. Now she has sent through some stunning photographs. Can’t wait to get home tonight and switch on lay them out in InDesign.

I think it is nearing 100 finished pages but there are still a few key interviews which I need to chase up on.

Learning a Lesson

A while back I was asked to write an article about street art for the Cell C magazine. It is unlikely that you read it (if you even knew Cell C had a magazine), but I would still like to clear my name. 

After handing it over to the editors of the magazine, they did what they do best: twist your words. I am not averse to having grammar mistakes corrected but what they did to my submission was just silly.

The edited article makes it seem as if I favour street art over graffiti. That is definitely not the case. The point I was trying to make in the article is that we don’t really have a street art scene here in South Africa. There is no one putting up street art in the same quantity or quality as Cape Town’s graffiti artists.  

Well, for the record here is the original article I wrote:

Street art is growing more popular every year with artists such as Banksy and Shepard Fairey gaining media spotlight. Banksy’s documentary, Exit Through the Gift shop in which both artists feature was nominated for an Oscar this year. But as this artform becomes more widespread there are misconceptions which develop, particularly between street art and its close cousin, graffiti.

Street art is often seen as legally commissioned, acceptable art whereas graffiti is defined by purely illegal scribbles or spraypaint vandalism. The legality of the artwork actually has very little to do with the distinction between graffiti and street art.

 Graffiti began in the late 1960’s in Philadelphia and New York when individuals decided to write their own tag name repeatedly all over the city.  Their methods developed and artists soon realized that writing your name bigger and with more style would grab more attention. Developing letterforms and spreading your name on the walls (or trains) of city is what graffiti is all about.  

Street art developed into substantial movement later and involves pushing a concept on the walls of the city as apposed to developing one’s own typography. Street artists use a variety of media including stencils and wheat-paste posters. There is some rivalry between street artists and graffiti artists especially with the commercial success some street artists have had. Many artists crossover between the two schools and there are many works which comprise of both graffiti and street art elements.

Spraybeast.com and Unurth.com give a contrast of the best of each world.

The case of South Africa is an interesting one, graffiti has grown and spread but street art has not quite caught on. In other cities such as London, New York and Melbourne the street art scenes have exploded. We do have some illustrators and other creatives who dabble in street art but there is no strong street art movement. Our most famous street art export, Faith47, is the exception to the rule but she came from a graffiti background.

It is difficult to guess why South Africa has committed graffiti artists who put up new work on a weekly basis but no street artists who are as dedicated. Maybe like other major art centres it is a natural progression for graffiti to establish itself first before street art can take hold. I look forward to the day that street art blossoms and fresh conceptual thinking is awaiting me round every corner.

Slow and steady

Progress has been good this week despite the fact that I have started a very hectic year at university. I have started incorporating all the bits and pieces that were in different InDesign files into one file. Think its on 70 pages with lots more to go. The majority of those pages are filled with text. 

Got an interview back from Faith47. Very stoked with that. Instead of spreading myself thinly and trying to get all the outstanding interviews in at once I am focusing on a few artists at a time.

The time this book takes to get finished is basically a function of how long my interviewee’s take to get back to me. Fingers crossed that it won’t be much longer.