Features

Graffitirazzi – Live Oak Park, Part 3

By Gar Smith
Thursday May 16, 2013 - 05:00:00 PM
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Live Oak Tunnel, East Side
Gar Smith
Live Oak Tunnel, East Side
The East side of the bridgeway is inaccessible to foot traffic. In order to protect children on the grounds of Congregation Beth El, both sides of the creek are totally surrounded by a tall fence, making access difficult, if not impossible. Fortunately, the barrier's metal wires are just wide enough to accommodate a curious camera lens.
Gar Smith
The East side of the bridgeway is inaccessible to foot traffic. In order to protect children on the grounds of Congregation Beth El, both sides of the creek are totally surrounded by a tall fence, making access difficult, if not impossible. Fortunately, the barrier's metal wires are just wide enough to accommodate a curious camera lens.
Viewed from a distance, the entrance to the west side of the tunnel is covered with some disappointing scrawls, including a tag by Psycho.
Gar Smith
Viewed from a distance, the entrance to the west side of the tunnel is covered with some disappointing scrawls, including a tag by Psycho.
Gar Smith
If you aren't wearing rubber boots, reaching the tunnel will require some effort. Camera in hand, I had to carefully slide down two concrete drainage channels along the wall of the bridge and then drop several feet to the rock bed of the creek. The question was: If graffiti teams had to scramble through the tunnel to reach the fenced-in eastern wall, did they leave any additional art behind, hidden inside the tunnel? Let's take a look. But first, you'll need to hunker down because the top of the cement tunnel is barely five feet above the water
Gar Smith
If you aren't wearing rubber boots, reaching the tunnel will require some effort. Camera in hand, I had to carefully slide down two concrete drainage channels along the wall of the bridge and then drop several feet to the rock bed of the creek. The question was: If graffiti teams had to scramble through the tunnel to reach the fenced-in eastern wall, did they leave any additional art behind, hidden inside the tunnel? Let's take a look. But first, you'll need to hunker down because the top of the cement tunnel is barely five feet above the water
Gar Smith
Gar Smith
At this point, the tunnel makes a sharp turn south, into darkness. Lacking boots or a flashlight, Graffitirazi opted to end the exploration at this point. If any readers wish to don some waders and document the rest of the tunnel's innards, photos can be sent to The Planet for future posting.
Gar Smith
At this point, the tunnel makes a sharp turn south, into darkness. Lacking boots or a flashlight, Graffitirazi opted to end the exploration at this point. If any readers wish to don some waders and document the rest of the tunnel's innards, photos can be sent to The Planet for future posting.
Gar Smith
Gar Smith

The west side of the Cordonices Creek bridge that supports Oxford Street is layered with patches of colorful graffiti that extend over the wall on both sides of the tunnel through which the creek flows. But there's another wall of art hidden on the eastern side. To reach it, however, you may have to take the same path used by the graffiti artists – through the tunnel. 

 

In Other News: 

Chronicle's C. W. Nevius, Targets Graffiti Supply Stores 

On May 3, San Francisco Chronicle writer C.W. Nevius offered a somewhat caustic article titled "Graffiti Supplies at Retail." Nevius drew attention to a couple of local stores that sell spray cans filled with paint. "While the city fights taggers," Nevius kvetched, "specialty stores are selling them spray paint." 

One of the shops singled out by Nevius was 1AM, a five-year-old operation located at 1000 Howard and Sixth in the SOMA. After Nevius' column appeared, the store's managers posted this response on their website (1amsf.com): 

Nevius … only focused on a small part of what we do. So, we wanted to give Nevius and his readers the opportunity to learn more about who we are by sharing our mission statement and making them aware of all the services and products we offer that was strategically missing from his article. 

(9) Make Moves by 1AM 

Mission Statement 

1AM, short for First Amendment, is a company that stands for the freedom of speech. We strive to showcase, teach, and inspire the public on street and urban art through our exhibitions, murals and classes. In our art gallery, we exhibit world-renowned and local artists that specialize in graffiti, urban, and vinyl toy art.  

(9) Make Moves 

Outside our gallery walls, our mural production team has been striving to beautify the city of San Francisco with large-scale murals that have positive messages like "Make Moves" and "Knowledge is Golden." …. We offer classes and team-building workshops and have hosted corporate off-sites with companies like Facebook, Genentech, Yahoo! and more. We have worked with local youth organizations, YMCA, Galileo High School, and First Graduates to empower and educate our kids. Most recently, we launched 1AM Mobile App, a free photography app that … allows you to capture and share images and locations of your street art discoveries and follow other members and their findings worldwide.  

Lastly, 1AM has a retail store that sells original clothing, street art books and art supplies. Similar to art supply stores like Blick, Utrecht, Arch and Flax -- as well as hardware stores like Ace and Home Depot (who carry a lower-cost option) -- we indeed do sell spray paint and markers. 

(10) Fear Head by 1AM 

 

 

 

Piece By Piece: A San Francisco Graffiti Documentary

Piece By Piece documents San Francisco's graffiti culture from the early 1980s to 2004. It is narrated by San Francisco graffiti artist Senor One, better known as Renos. The San Francisco Bay Guardian hailed the film as the highlight of the 2006 Hi/Lo film festival, calling it "a thorough history that still makes time … for abstract, lyrical flowing passages" and praising the film and director for displaying "a deep but entertaining understanding of the city as both a historical site and a nexus for contemporary change." Rory L. Aronsky in Film Threat wrote that the documentary "gets this graffiti culture completely right" while for Dennis Harvey in Variety it was "an excellent overview of two decades' graffiti in San Francisco."