Inspirational Window Installation

That's right, they are little army men! I love art like this--so casual, but witty and captivating. Sometimes just a simple gesture is the most universal and immediate way to communicate. This is an installation piece by the designer Adam Katz.

I found her!

This is the mural that used to live on the wall of the coffee shop next door to me. Several months ago, that coffee shop got bought out by Lestat's and got completely remodeled and re-done. I was kind of bummed about the whole thing. I mean, the old coffee shop, CREAM (Coffee Rules Everything Around Me) wasn't really great or anything, and I barely went there. It had really ugly, unmatching chairs and couches, and a lot of sort of middle-aged hipsters. Actually, the only reasons I liked CREAM, were the name (awesome allusion to 90's rap lyrics) and the two super luscious murals on the outside of the building. The one above was my favorite of the two and she faced Park Blvd. to the south of the shop so I saw her every time I drove home from just about anywhere.

When Lestat's took over, they painted the whole building over a garish shade of red (which is fine I guess, because the previous peach color was pretty hideous also). I'm not really opposed to off-paint jobs, it kind of fits in with the quirky-ness of University Heights, BUT, one day as I was driving to school, I noticed them painting over the mural. I literally almost drove my car off the road into their ladder to stop them. I was so upset, I boycotted their shop for a long time. I mean, who paints over a beautiful mural like that without at least letting people know so we can tell them not to??

So I was slightly devastated...I'm getting over it though, I guess that's the nature of public art right? It also helps that this new coffee shop has really nice people and it's open 24/7 (helloooo 3 a.m. study sessions...fully caffinated).


Then, after I had given up on the beautiful lost mural, I found her here while blog surfing! That led me to find the artist: El Mac who is still active and creates incredible murals all over the world. Check out his blog. Some of my favorites:

Imagine, just walking around in your daily routine, and coming across a monumental work of art just integrated with the urban landscape--what I'm saying is murals are awesome and I love the way El Mac uses subject matter, scale and emotion to make his art transform the spaces they inhabit.

I also came across another one of his murals while in SF last week--a nice surprise

And lastly, this is a picture of me with the surviving El Mac mural (the one that didn't get painted over by Lestat's).