Finding Philly

After a brief hiatus, we’re back! There was a short time there where the official Finding Philly camera was misplaced. It took the cleaning of both our rooms to find it but we’ve got it again. I won’t say whose room it was in – even though that person was pretty sure it was in the OTHER person’s room, and the OTHER person feels a little righteous poking and tickling is order.

This post is one I’ve wanted to do for a long time. It’s a bit related to my Walk to Work post . It’s about three artists whose work I see every day when I’m walking to and from work. Each of them has product that they sell but they’ve chosen to go out and decorate the city they live in, each in a very different way. Keep on this way to find some pictures…

(These pictures will be added to as I take more and move pics over from different flickr sets, so check either my flickr page or back here to see a lot of other philly street art!)

[flickr matt.ohara 72157602211191670]

My friend David once told me an old neighborhood joke. It goes like this:
“Don’t stop to tie your shoe in Bella Vista.”
“Why?”
“You’ll have a mirror attached to your ass when you stand back up.”

For anybody that doesn’t know, Isaiah Zagar is a mosaic artist. If you’ve been to Philly before and visited South Street/Bella Vista you may have noticed that the neighborhood is sprinkled (some might say covered) with mosaic murals created out of ceramic, mirror, bottles, bicycle wheels and more. Take the time to explore the neighborhood and you’ll see doors, walls and whole buildings covered with mosaic tiles. I’ll add a whole bunch more photography of his work to the set above in the coming weeks.

Philly is also the home of a huge mural art program. Everywhere you go in the city you’re bound to run into some murals. Here’s a nice photoset on Time’s website.
Philadelphia Murals and the Stories They Tell (Amazon)
They’re all different shapes and sizes and styles and subject and places. Many deal with famous locals. Many more are focused on positive messages for the community. They all provide a nice bit of visual stimulation when you round a new corner and find a piece that you haven’t seen before. There’s one artist I like particularly and that’s David Guinn. His 4 seasonal pieces are abstract and depict simple, colorful cityscapes in each of the four seasons. I’ve found three (all in the photo slideshow above), but I can’t find the fourth! If anybody can help me locate it please let me know in the comments. Update:Thanks Art from Foobooz for the spot, now I’ve just got to go get a pic of it!

My favorite artists in philly are a lot less well known than Zagar or Guinn. They’re El Toro and Bob Will Reign and they work with markers, stickers and paint. They work on train cars, signs, newspaper boxes, sneakers, vinyl records and well, anything you can put a mark on. They’re two of the first artists I found when I first moved to philly. They have more coverage than Zagar and Guinn put together but I’ve talked to a lot of people who have never seen any of their stuff!

El Toro on flickr

A Bob Will Reign slideshow on flickr

Toro has huge horns and giant toofs. Sometimes he’s wearing a gasmask. Bob Will Reign (AKA Bob) has a big head with eyes way out on the side and sometimes some arrows. Try walking around philly and looking for Toro and Bob pieces (they’re together a lot of the time). Soon you’ll be spotting them everywhere! Give yourself more points for non-obvious ones (like newspaper boxes and stop signs). Look in the photoset above for the painting of El Toro as Captain Ahab (it’s hanging in my house).

Philly has a ton of other street and sticker artists. It’s really fantastic that they keep their work in the city on signs and boxes and dumpsters, as opposed to marking up any of the old buildings we have around here. It’s illegal art for the most part but they have respect for the older art and architecture. And each other! Check out the box in the photoset above and notice how nobody has stickered over somebody else’s piece. If you have any other favorites that you’d like to share please let us know in the comments!

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