Category Archives: Graffiti

Graffiti Friday – Cool Cat in the Permission Zone

2014-05-23 Graffiti

I was in east Tulsa yesterday for Logan’s school awards assembly (more on that later, he scooped up nine awards!) and I stopped by Mad Mike’s Liquor store on 11th street to see what was new in their graffiti. This cool guy with the shades was my favorite. 

Mad Mike’s has created a “Permission Zone” where graffiti art is encouraged. It changes quite a bit and is quite the place. 

Do you have any permission zones where you live?

Graffiti Wednesday – Nemesis Visits the Tulsa Children’s Museum

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Back in October the Tulsa Children’s Museum posts on their facebook site that somebody apparently named Nemesis had added some “non destructive graffiti” to the Museum’s building. So of course I had to go check it out.

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This crazy looking Wolf or Fox or whatever it is had been added to a grouping of silhouettes of children running. The figure is done with similar material and in the same material as the figures of the children and had been attached in a non-destructive manner.

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Of course I had to go check it out and I loved it. It fit perfectly in the fun motif of the decorations and fits in well. 

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In a subsequent facebook update the museum welcomed the addition. 

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I think they made a good decision. The figure is adds a little spice and interest to the facade.

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So kudos to Nemesis for a well designed and implemented piece of art and kudos to the Children’s Museum for their graciousness in accepting it and just letting it be. I love it when people act like this.

And kudos to fellow Oklahoma blogger at Jen who got me interested in graffiti and who came up the idea of  Graffiti Wednesday.

So what do you think? Did Nemesis do a good deed and was the museum smart or dumb for being so welcoming?

Graffiti Wednesday – Update at Mad Mike’s

You know I’ve been busy lately. I can’t get around and check things out like I like to. My geocaching finding is falling way off. That is the way things are these days isn’t it. Everybody is just too dang busy. Well I haven’t been over to Tulsa’s graffiti permission zone, Mad Dog Liquor in east Tulsa in quite a while. I was at a natural gas industry bowling event (not kidding!) in east Tulsa and had a little time after the event and before the banquet to go check out Mad Dog Liquor and see what was happening with their graffit.

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I was not disappointed. There were several new pieces including the one above. You know, there is a lot I haven’t figured out about graffiti but I have kind of picked up that the the artists feel free to add to each other’s work. Fro example I don’t think that the words in yellow above were by the original guy (or gal). I love the orginal work; it just kind of shouts out, big and bold in 3D.

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One thing I haven’t figured out is how to read graffiti. Above is an example by somebody is using letters I recongnize but I can’tfigure out the words.

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I can’t figure out this either. The texture is just all fleshy, soft, and ew, yuck but it stands out. Again, I think the dashed yellow “chains” are a later addition. I don’t know if it is a sign of respect or disrespect.

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Something else that I can’t figure out, and is added onto, I think.

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I love this creepy, dark, character. Graffiti is just plain creepy and disturbing. Don’t ask my why I am fascinated by it. I am fascinated by the things and people that everyone else hates, like Marilyn Manson. What has he ever done to anybody? You tell me that the evil guy tears the pages out of a Bible during a concert? So what? the Bible isn’t just ink on paper. I say that at least he is taking a Bible to his concerts. Do you take your Bible to a concert? His music certainly doesn’t make him famous. If he didn’t have his evil schtick, he’d be lucky to find a job sacking groceries as far as I am concerned.

#graffiti #tulsa #oklahoma Mikes Liquors #permissionzine

The slight details in graphically made designs and logos are interesting.The “O” is similar to the “O” in the Oklahoma State University logo.  The worm on the right is pretty common in graffiti I’ve seen. I think the green squiggles are are an add on as are the blue “bricks.” It seems that the bricks are a way to gradually cover up graffiti over time. I’ve seen similar bricks added onto an abandoned YMCA mural in downtown Tulsa. Every few months more of the mural is covered up. What it means? Shoot I don’t know!

Breast is Best

So much of graffiti is ironic. This seems so “third world” with all the drama about the big bad evil corporations with their infant formula vs those who advocate for breast feeding. That controversy is big still here in the good ole’ USA. Big guilt trips for those women who for one reason or another cannot breastfeed their children to the extent that one source I read claimed a hospital required mothers who wanted their children to be fed formula to sign a release. What do I think? I think mothers, especially those of newborns need lots of support and grace, not guilt and releases to sign. What do you think?

Thanks (or blame) to the person to Jen at are you there, god? it’s me, generation x

Jen is the blogger who got me interested in Graffiti. She is interesting, and so awesome and has amazing insight into lots of different things. She is also teaching a blogging class that I lived in Oklahoma City I’d be attending. Check the link, maybe you can still sign up. 

Graffiti Wednesday – C’mon Dog!

Nemesis Dog Collage

Graffiti that has been there long enough to fade and streak by Nemesis. Another example unofficially tolerated graffiti. Personally I think it is clever. Nemesis executed it better than I photographed it I have to admit. I’m thinking that the dog and human figures are stencils. But what do I know.

Check out Jen one of Oklahoma’s blogging stars. She got me started on this graffiti thing. She blogs about a bunch of stuff.

Also check out FatCap, a great web site with all sorts of information about graffiti around the world. Find out who the graffiti all stars are in your town. Their database doesn’t list Nemesis. He doesn’t google either. Anybody who this person is?

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Graffiti Wednesday – Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame

Graffiti Bench

A bench on the Boston Avenue Pedestrian Overpass near the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame. I don’t think this  is an official color scheme for the city. I think somebody, on their own initiative, painted the bench red and stenciled the images on in honor of three performers. I don’t know how long it has been like this but from the worn condition of the red paint I think it has been there for some time. I think that some graffiti is unofficially tolerated in our fair city. I notice that some “bad” graffiti disappears quickly but more artistic graffiti is allowed to stay, at least for a while. I run on the cities Riverparks trails two or three times a week and I’ve noticed that a lot of graffiti in visible areas disappears where more “artistic” works have been allowed to stay. I don’t know who is making the call, the guy or gal with the brush or one of their bosses but I applaud the judgements being made.

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Still there, as of last week.

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Painted over, for some time.

I like to see a little discretion used by our public officials. When they mouth “we are just following procedures” to justify stupidity it makes me cringe.

Does anybody out there have any idea who the guys on the bench are?

My friend Jen in Oklahoma City started the Graffiti Wednesday meme is posting about graffiti today.

Graffiti Wednesday – Updates from the Permission Zone

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I went by Tulsa’s only Graffiti “Permission Zone” at Mad Dog Liquors at 9347 East11th Street and there were already new works from  just a few weeks before.  My favorites were the “Sunday Demons” above and the scariest doorway I’ve ever seen below.

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I really love the bright colors and imagery in both pieces.

Have you seen any good graffiti lately?

Graffiti Wednesday – Downtown Finds

I was headed home from work the other day and I caught the writing below out of the corner of my eye. I was on a one way street and so turned off and went up an alley back to it and took a picture. I got home and  saw my big ole fat thumb on the edge of the photo. So I went back the next morning to try again.

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It looks to me like an overlapped work judging by the background. The core area of downtown is pretty much devoid of graffiti. Lots of big empty walls and they are just blank. Actually I’m thankful. A little bit of graffiti goes a long ways.

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If you look closely though you can spot micro Graffiti. (I just made that name up. Feel free to use it though.) I found the above and the following in the “Blue Dome” District of Tulsa’s downtown, just east of the core downtown area.

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This was pasted on paper. I have no idea what it means, do you?

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More signs just a few inches tall on a street sign. I like how the colors of the sticker and the sign are similar. You can bet that the writer’s belt and shoes match, and his murse.

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Even the standpipes have stickers on them.

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Another example of sticker graffiti.

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I also found a micro poster on an electrical junction box cover.  I’m all excited about all this micro-subversion (another term I invented, please by all means use if you feel led) going on in here in Oklahoma. It is going on right under our noses. Ironically the micro poster and and micro graffiti above are all within about 100 feet of the first geocache that SuperPizzaBoy and I planted a few years ago Tulsa Time which has been found 370 times so far. I hate to admit this but it is a “microcache” ( I didn’t invent that term.) Does that make me part of the microsubversion going on in the Blue Dome District? 


Check out Graffiti Wednesday by my friend Jen, she posts about Graffiti quite frequently on Wednesday. 


One last thing,  from the Broken Arrow, OK “Chalk it Up Festival” this past weekend.

 THUNDER UP!

My apologies to Miami Heat Fans. The Oklahoma City Thunder is the only major league professional sports team we have, if you don’t count the University of Oklahoma Football Team that is. I’m a huge Thunder fan, have been for days.


Let me ask you: Have you seen any micro-graffiti where you live? How about micro-subversion? I want to know!

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Graffiti Wednesday – New Orleans Train Graffiti

My hotel in New Orleans on my recent trip was a true intermodal transportation hub, Trucks, cars, street cars, busses, and ferrys were just a few steps away. On the water, three cruise ships putted by, and the combined Navy’s of United States, Great Britain, France, Indonesia, and Ecuador were there.  It was the freight trains that provided the graffiti.

They wouldn’t stop for me though. I had to stand and track the cars to get decent photographs.

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Most graffiti is baffling to me, I don’t get this upside down R. I don’t know what the two comma looking splotches to the right are about either.

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Another baffler,

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And another, I like the 63 cents sign though.

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Anybody know what ZMOKI is? At least I can read the letters.

Graffiti Wednesday

Graffiti Wednesday – Good and Bad?

I went running on the Arkansas River trails here in Tulsa a couple weeks ago. I always take along my trusty point and shoot. You never know what you are going to see. In twenty years of running I’ve come across one of the fox that live along the trail three times. I haven’t had my camera any of those times. Next time I see one, I’m taking their picture. Today though some graffiti stopped me.

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I think a stencil was used to do this. I certainly don’t condone graffiti in non-authorized places but i dont’ think this example really bothers anybody. I’ve tried googling “nemesis” in various ways for Tulsa graffiti and didn’t get any good hits.

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But then, on the other side of the structure you get this, meh.

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I also noticed lots of these stencils along the trail. It’s just a few inches long. I have no idea what the purpose is. They don’t seem to be distance markers since they are spaced at irregular intervals.

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And then running across the pedestrian bridge I saw this cheesy Christian evangelism and peace sign symbol.    It looks like two people getting in on the act.

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Do you think any sort of graffiti is acceptable? Do you think that graffiti evangelists are going to heaven?

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And then I ran a little further and came across this memorial to a motorcyclist who died within feet of this tree just a couple weeks earlier. Is this graffiti, you see more and more of these memorials. They don’t age very well. They seem to be at least tolerated by officialdom. As an aside, fast forward two weeks, and I met a police officer in a social setting who worked the accident. Tulsa is the biggest small town I’ve ever lived in.

Graffiti Wednesday