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i bought a 200 acre farmstead in southern virgina several years back.the property had been basically abandoned for 20 years and the
locals had grown very accustomed to regarding it as their own hunting
ground. we bought the property in oct/nov'ish, which is the begining
of deer hunting season in those parts (the creep of southernism
in my speech will become readily apparent, bear with). so the first
several weekends, i would take my father up there to make a clearing
to put up a storage shed and build up my smithy forge. we put up no
trespassing signs and chains across the road, but they would be torn
down and cut when we arrived. it was clear we werent going to be
entirely welcome. .
One weekend my dad stopped at a pawn shop on the drive up, saying he
wanted to look at something. 10 minutes later he came out with 2
Chinese semi-auto assault rifles and 1000 rounds of high velocity
ammo.
'Ummm....' i said, 'not a good idea'
"We have to be prepared. Things might get hairy."
"Sure, but you know how to fire one of those?"
"pretty sure"
"nice....just put em in the trunk and forget about them dad.'
so when we arrive the signs are down and the chains cut and dad is
freaking out that the locals arent showing us respect. i sigh, roll
eyes, and start a fire to make some coffee. now in virginia they use
dogs to hunt. the deer are flushed out into open fields by baying
hounds and beagles where the lazy hunters sits on his truck or ATV and
pops off shots at them. as we start drinking coffee, a pack of dogs
tears thru our campsite and we see a deer pull out of a grove about
100 feet to our left and tear across 40 feet ahead of us into a broom
straw pasture. shotguns erupted from an opposing treeline about 100
feet to our right. 8,9, maybe 10 shots fired, tangentially in front of us. dad runs back to the car, pulls an assault rifle from the
trunk, loads up a 50 round clip, and marches past me towards the
treeline of hunters.
'whoa! what the fuck do you think you are doing?!'
'im gonna teach those bastards some respect!!'
'put the gun down, dad. you arent going anywhere with that.
just settle down.'
'just relax son, i'll take care of this, i'm not afraid.'
'hahaha, im certainly not afraid of them either. but...they know we
are here. they are just trying to rattle us - and apparently it worked
on you. now look, this is the big picture here. there are probably 4
or 5 locals in that treeline, they can probably see you right now,
they have probably been hunting here since they were children, they
know this land, they know the local sheriff, they dont know you. you
go charging in there and they might even drop you and not a word would
be said about it. you were in the army like 30 years ago, you read
soldier of fortune magazine on the toilet - this doth not a commando
maketh. just settle down, gimme the rifle and go load up the
other one.'
reluctantly he gave me the gun. i took it over behind a huge 4 foot
diameter fallen oak out of the sight line of the hunters, left it
there, and returned to my coffee. ten minutes later, another deer
flushed out and another volley erupted from the treeline. dad gave me
a withering look of contempt as if he was digusted for siring such a
spineless son. i smirked back and said 'breathe....its ok. trust me.'
i went over to the oak and the rifle, put down my coffee, and squeezed
off all 50 rounds in rapid fire. CRACK CRACK CRACK... an assault rifle
is a loud impressive beast, i must admit. a minute later we heard a
jeep and an atv drive off from the treeline. i went back to the fire,
finished my coffee and asked dad to get the other rifle and go get
down by the oak.
'what?'
'trust me...serious. you have about 2 minutes.'
as he got the gun and walked over to the tree, we saw a convoy of 6
trucks and jeeps and atvs barrelling down our drive road (about a mile
long).
'dad, please just stay put behind that tree, dont let them see where
you are, unless, obviously things get 'hairy', then call the cops on
your cell and handle things. but remember even if you shoot in
self-defense, you are going to jail, and its their jail."
"what the hell? what are you going to do??'
'no big, we are going to have a little chat. no worries'
a minute later, the six vehicles pull up around in a semi circle and
like 15 hunters get out, some with their shotguns, others without, but
certainly packing a pistol or something. this huge older thick headed
lout with a stereotypical chunck of chewing 'bacca in his lip and a
grimy blaze orange padded jacket was standing in front, looked around
at our campsite and snorted with complete contempt.
'boy, who the fuck is shooting machine guns around here?!' he says
walking over at me.
i just sat there on a log drinking my coffee looking at him.
'you deef boy? we was up yonder (swear to god they use 'yonder', go
figure!) and some dumbfucker starting shooting automatic machine guns
at us. waddat you?'
i lit a cigarette and just stared at him for another 10 seconds or so.
(honestly i couldnt tell if i was in way over my head, but i
knew if we showed weakness the whole adventure of living up there
would become some fuct hatfield-mccoy OK corral deliverance hillbilly
nightmare)
'this is my land now - and that is my gun. and dont call me boy.'
'now look here, we are out here hunting and you are gonna hit somebody
shooting like that. so you need to settle down...boooooyyyy. we'been
hunting here for over 20 years and the season just started. we'll tell
y'all when you its safe for you to come back here and play or whatever
the hell you california boys do back here (the realtor must have
filled the locals in on our situation).
cigarette drag. stare.
'you got me, boy?'
'no, boyyyy. here is the deal. this is my land now - and you are
fucking trespassing. i fired those shots, not at your boys, but into
the ground, because i know there is nothing a hunter hates more than
to think there is an asshole out there in the trees with an assault
rifle. i knew it would get your attention. now i am going to live
here. i am clearing off this land to build a home and eventually build
a business. i am gonna raise a family here. i believe in good
neighbors. i am gonna be a good neighbors. but y'all have started this
out ugly by vandalizing my signs, cutting my chains, trespassing to
hunt, which can land your ass in state prison for a couple months. so
short of you making some jack ass move and trying to shoot me right
here which i can tell you would be a very bad ideat, we can sit down
and work out some sort arrangement that will make us good neighbors.
so what do you want? you want to fight or figure it out?'
(snort) 'youre fucking crazy!'
'no. just very determined to makes sure everybody walks outta here and
that this little bullshit harrasment stops today. so what do you
want?'
'check this california boy out. who does he think he is'
'look, i already called the game warden this morning before i came up
here. real nice guy (one mongoloid in the back guffawed and said 'he's
a fucker.) he was very obliging and told me all about your state
hunting laws and the serious penalties for trespassing and he even
mentioned that he might be stopping by today to say hello. and last
week i spoke with the county magistrate (DA to them), also a real nice
guy, looks like we are going to be going to the same church (i had
stopped in at the beautiful 200 year old episcopal church on a
previous trip to meet the rector and meet some of the folks - never
especially religious, but i knew enough of small towns to know that
the church is where you socialize and get your social ranking), happy
to see some new faces coming to the county. he told me all about the
history of this part of the county and this property. in fact, he said
if i had any problems to give him a call and he'd give me a hand. so
you and your boys aint got much to stand on right now. you keep up
this hunting and the game warden is gonna revoke your licenses at best
and toss you in jail at the worst, especially if your poachin' was
done in a coercive threating manner, and im sure the magistrate
wouldnt mind a bit drawing up the cases."
'ha, the sheriff is my brother in law,' the lout says.
'cool, roll the dice, see what your brother in law will do for you. or
you put your guns back in your trucks and lets work this out.'
'what'chu got in mind?'
'ok, i accept that y'all have been hunting here since sheriff shappard
died because there was no one to say no, and we all know there isnt
another plot of property with an open 100 acres of clear shooting this
far back off the road for 20 or so miles. so i dont feel right just
telling you boys that you cant hunt here anymore. so you can hunt
here.'
'well thats good, glad youre talking some sense.'
'so you can hunt here for the rest of the season...but next season you
can only hunt the front half of the property and the following year
only the front quarter of the land. you get three more years you can
hunt here, after those three years i should have a home built here and
we can discuss if any of you wants to buy permission to hunt that
front quarter. three years free is a good deal.'
'not really...'
'its better than the alternative. but here's your catch. only you and
your hunt club are allowed to hunt here. no one else. understand?'
'thats not much of a catch, why would we want to share it?'
'the catch is that you are responsible for making sure no one hunts
here, no one vandalizes my gear that i store here, no one messes with
my signs. if anybody hunts and vandalizes this property, then all bets
are off and you can go ask the hunt club down 'yonder!' if you can
hunt with them - i'm sure they wouldnt mind .
long story short, they agreed, we agreed. no more problems with
vandals and such. in fact, they actually called the sheriff on some
boys from another county who had come over during the week to hunt.
and they made sure we knew they had done so. after two years a 300
acre property a mile or so down the road was bought by a timberer and
clear cut. after the trees and shrub growth starting coming back after
a year it was perfect for deer hunting and the timberer had no
objections to the locals hunting there, so it wasnt a problem not
hunting at our place. it was never warm and fuzzy with the locals up
there, but they did respect our property. we never had anymore problems with
them.
damn, i hadnt thought about that story for years now.
property of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
for educational purpose only
please do not use without permission
To view more image of Marlow, in Buckinghamshire , please click, "here"
Marlow (historically Great Marlow or Chipping Marlow) is a town and civil parish within Wycombe district in south Buckinghamshire, England. It is located on the River Thames, 4 miles (6.5 km) south-southwest of High Wycombe, 5 miles (8 km) west-northwest of Maidenhead and 33 miles (53 km) west of central London. The name is recorded in 1015 as Mere lafan, meaning "Land left after the draining of a pond" in Old English. From Norman times the manor, parish and later borough was formally known as Great Marlow, distinguishing it from Little Marlow. The ancient parish was large, including rural areas north and west of the town. In 1896 the civil parish of Great Marlow, created in the 19th century from the ancient parish, was divided into Great Marlow Urban District (the town) and Great Marlow civil parish (the rural areas). In 1897 the urban district was renamed Marlow Urban District, and the town has been known simply as Marlow Marlow is recorded in the Domesday Book as Merlaue. Magna Britannia includes the following entry for Marlow: "The manor of Marlow, which had belonged to the Earls of Mercia, was given by William the Conqueror, to his Queen Matilda. Henry the First, bestowed it on his natural son, Robert de Melhent, afterwards Earl of Gloucester, from whom it passed, with that title, to the Clares and Despencers, and from the latter, by female heirs, to the Beauchamps and Nevilles, Earls of Warwick. It continued in the crown from the time of Richard III's marriage with Anne Neville, until Queen Mary granted it to William Lord Paget, in whose family it continued more than a century; after which, it passed, by purchase, to Sir Humphrey Winch, in 1670; to Lord Falkland in 1686; to Sir James Etheridge in 1690; to Sir John Guise in 1718; and to Sir William Clayton in 1736. It is now the property of Sir William Clayton bart. a descendant of the last purchaser". Marlow owed its importance to its location on the River Thames, where the road from Reading to High Wycombe crosses the river. It had its own market by 1227 (hence the name Chipping Marlow), although the market lapsed before 1600. From 1301 to 1307 the town had its own Member of Parliament, and it returned two members from 1624 to 1867.
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© Kaaviyam Photography - All Rights Reserved. Text and images by Kaaviyam Photography are the exclusive property of Kaaviyam Photography protected under international copyright laws. Any use of this work in any form without written permission of Kaaviyam Photography will result in violations as per international copyright laws.
Apparently, i wasn't allowed to use a camera on this "private property" according to the security guard who came out of the building in the rain to tell me to stop.
Not sure how they "manage" this policy when approximately 90% of the 6 million people that live in the Greater Toronto Area and its 21 million annual visitors carry some kind of device in their pocket or purse that is quite capable of taking excellent photographs?
That would be a total of 27 million "potential" civil disobedience cases per year.
This policy must be VERY difficult to enforce? Unless of course you are one of the only ones on the street at the time?
For sale - a place to build your dream home.
Family crossing the street in front of Christiansborg Palace, Copenhagen.
From Wikipedia:
Christiansborg Palace (Danish: Christiansborg Slot) is a palace and government building on the islet of Slotsholmen in central Copenhagen, Denmark. It is the seat of the Danish Parliament (Folketinget), the Danish Prime Minister's Office, and the Supreme Court of Denmark. Also, several parts of the palace are used by the Danish monarch, including the Royal Reception Rooms, the Palace Chapel and the Royal Stables.
The palace is thus home to the three supreme powers: the executive power, the legislative power, and the judicial power. It is the only building in the world that houses all three of a country's branches of government. The name Christiansborg is thus also frequently used as a metonym for the Danish political system, and colloquially it is often referred to as Rigsborgen ('the castle of the realm') or simply Borgen ('the castle').
The present building, the third with this name, is the last in a series of successive castles and palaces constructed on the same site since the erection of the first castle in 1167. Since the early fifteenth century, the various buildings have served as the base of the central administration; until 1794 as the principal residence of the Danish kings and after 1849 as the seat of parliament.
The palace today bears witness to three eras of Danish architecture, as the result of two serious fires. The first fire occurred in 1794 and the second in 1884. The main part of the current palace, finished in 1928, is in the historicist Neo-baroque style. The chapel dates back to 1826 and is in a neoclassical style. The showgrounds were built from 1738 to 1746, in a baroque style.
Christiansborg Palace is owned by the Danish Government, and is run by the Palaces and Properties Agency. Several parts of the palace are open to the public.
This one made an interesting development from idea to completion.
I wanted to take a photo of a classic transparent ("ecotoxic") tungsten lightbulb, while they are still available.
Well apparently they aren't available any more already, but my mom had a few old ones in her basement.
I wanted to shoot it switched on and I wanted to show the socket. Originally it was supposed to be just levitated in some sort of negative space. This was hard enough to realize but while I was doing it I once held my hand below and that was when the "protection of intellectual property" theme came to my mind. Well, so this is where I ended up.
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Along one side of our property, there are the remnants of a very old barbed wire fence. Our house/farm is about 100 years old. I don’t how old the fence is, but most of the wooden posts have long since fallen down. Only a few metal ones remain partially upright.
Happy Fenced Friday!
and any girl friends coming by when he's older are going to have to answer to MEEEEEE!!! Where's my shotgun LOL
somewhere in Milton, WA This is the first abandoned house the where police showed up and escorted us off the property. The officers were very friendly and we cooperated and left without incident.
Graffiti (plural; singular graffiti or graffito, the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings, and has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire (see also mural).
Graffiti is a controversial subject. In most countries, marking or painting property without permission is considered by property owners and civic authorities as defacement and vandalism, which is a punishable crime, citing the use of graffiti by street gangs to mark territory or to serve as an indicator of gang-related activities. Graffiti has become visualized as a growing urban "problem" for many cities in industrialized nations, spreading from the New York City subway system and Philadelphia in the early 1970s to the rest of the United States and Europe and other world regions
"Graffiti" (usually both singular and plural) and the rare singular form "graffito" are from the Italian word graffiato ("scratched"). The term "graffiti" is used in art history for works of art produced by scratching a design into a surface. A related term is "sgraffito", which involves scratching through one layer of pigment to reveal another beneath it. This technique was primarily used by potters who would glaze their wares and then scratch a design into them. In ancient times graffiti were carved on walls with a sharp object, although sometimes chalk or coal were used. The word originates from Greek γράφειν—graphein—meaning "to write".
The term graffiti originally referred to the inscriptions, figure drawings, and such, found on the walls of ancient sepulchres or ruins, as in the Catacombs of Rome or at Pompeii. Historically, these writings were not considered vanadlism, which today is considered part of the definition of graffiti.
The only known source of the Safaitic language, an ancient form of Arabic, is from graffiti: inscriptions scratched on to the surface of rocks and boulders in the predominantly basalt desert of southern Syria, eastern Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia. Safaitic dates from the first century BC to the fourth century AD.
Some of the oldest cave paintings in the world are 40,000 year old ones found in Australia. The oldest written graffiti was found in ancient Rome around 2500 years ago. Most graffiti from the time was boasts about sexual experiences Graffiti in Ancient Rome was a form of communication, and was not considered vandalism.
Ancient tourists visiting the 5th-century citadel at Sigiriya in Sri Lanka write their names and commentary over the "mirror wall", adding up to over 1800 individual graffiti produced there between the 6th and 18th centuries. Most of the graffiti refer to the frescoes of semi-nude females found there. One reads:
Wet with cool dew drops
fragrant with perfume from the flowers
came the gentle breeze
jasmine and water lily
dance in the spring sunshine
side-long glances
of the golden-hued ladies
stab into my thoughts
heaven itself cannot take my mind
as it has been captivated by one lass
among the five hundred I have seen here.
Among the ancient political graffiti examples were Arab satirist poems. Yazid al-Himyari, an Umayyad Arab and Persian poet, was most known for writing his political poetry on the walls between Sajistan and Basra, manifesting a strong hatred towards the Umayyad regime and its walis, and people used to read and circulate them very widely.
Graffiti, known as Tacherons, were frequently scratched on Romanesque Scandinavian church walls. When Renaissance artists such as Pinturicchio, Raphael, Michelangelo, Ghirlandaio, or Filippino Lippi descended into the ruins of Nero's Domus Aurea, they carved or painted their names and returned to initiate the grottesche style of decoration.
There are also examples of graffiti occurring in American history, such as Independence Rock, a national landmark along the Oregon Trail.
Later, French soldiers carved their names on monuments during the Napoleonic campaign of Egypt in the 1790s. Lord Byron's survives on one of the columns of the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion in Attica, Greece.
The oldest known example of graffiti "monikers" found on traincars created by hobos and railworkers since the late 1800s. The Bozo Texino monikers were documented by filmmaker Bill Daniel in his 2005 film, Who is Bozo Texino?.
In World War II, an inscription on a wall at the fortress of Verdun was seen as an illustration of the US response twice in a generation to the wrongs of the Old World:
During World War II and for decades after, the phrase "Kilroy was here" with an accompanying illustration was widespread throughout the world, due to its use by American troops and ultimately filtering into American popular culture. Shortly after the death of Charlie Parker (nicknamed "Yardbird" or "Bird"), graffiti began appearing around New York with the words "Bird Lives".
Modern graffiti art has its origins with young people in 1960s and 70s in New York City and Philadelphia. Tags were the first form of stylised contemporary graffiti. Eventually, throw-ups and pieces evolved with the desire to create larger art. Writers used spray paint and other kind of materials to leave tags or to create images on the sides subway trains. and eventually moved into the city after the NYC metro began to buy new trains and paint over graffiti.
While the art had many advocates and appreciators—including the cultural critic Norman Mailer—others, including New York City mayor Ed Koch, considered it to be defacement of public property, and saw it as a form of public blight. The ‘taggers’ called what they did ‘writing’—though an important 1974 essay by Mailer referred to it using the term ‘graffiti.’
Contemporary graffiti style has been heavily influenced by hip hop culture and the myriad international styles derived from Philadelphia and New York City Subway graffiti; however, there are many other traditions of notable graffiti in the twentieth century. Graffiti have long appeared on building walls, in latrines, railroad boxcars, subways, and bridges.
An early graffito outside of New York or Philadelphia was the inscription in London reading "Clapton is God" in reference to the guitarist Eric Clapton. Creating the cult of the guitar hero, the phrase was spray-painted by an admirer on a wall in an Islington, north London in the autumn of 1967. The graffito was captured in a photograph, in which a dog is urinating on the wall.
Films like Style Wars in the 80s depicting famous writers such as Skeme, Dondi, MinOne, and ZEPHYR reinforced graffiti's role within New York's emerging hip-hop culture. Although many officers of the New York City Police Department found this film to be controversial, Style Wars is still recognized as the most prolific film representation of what was going on within the young hip hop culture of the early 1980s. Fab 5 Freddy and Futura 2000 took hip hop graffiti to Paris and London as part of the New York City Rap Tour in 1983
Commercialization and entrance into mainstream pop culture
Main article: Commercial graffiti
With the popularity and legitimization of graffiti has come a level of commercialization. In 2001, computer giant IBM launched an advertising campaign in Chicago and San Francisco which involved people spray painting on sidewalks a peace symbol, a heart, and a penguin (Linux mascot), to represent "Peace, Love, and Linux." IBM paid Chicago and San Francisco collectively US$120,000 for punitive damages and clean-up costs.
In 2005, a similar ad campaign was launched by Sony and executed by its advertising agency in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Miami, to market its handheld PSP gaming system. In this campaign, taking notice of the legal problems of the IBM campaign, Sony paid building owners for the rights to paint on their buildings "a collection of dizzy-eyed urban kids playing with the PSP as if it were a skateboard, a paddle, or a rocking horse".
Tristan Manco wrote that Brazil "boasts a unique and particularly rich, graffiti scene ... [earning] it an international reputation as the place to go for artistic inspiration". Graffiti "flourishes in every conceivable space in Brazil's cities". Artistic parallels "are often drawn between the energy of São Paulo today and 1970s New York". The "sprawling metropolis", of São Paulo has "become the new shrine to graffiti"; Manco alludes to "poverty and unemployment ... [and] the epic struggles and conditions of the country's marginalised peoples", and to "Brazil's chronic poverty", as the main engines that "have fuelled a vibrant graffiti culture". In world terms, Brazil has "one of the most uneven distributions of income. Laws and taxes change frequently". Such factors, Manco argues, contribute to a very fluid society, riven with those economic divisions and social tensions that underpin and feed the "folkloric vandalism and an urban sport for the disenfranchised", that is South American graffiti art.
Prominent Brazilian writers include Os Gêmeos, Boleta, Nunca, Nina, Speto, Tikka, and T.Freak. Their artistic success and involvement in commercial design ventures has highlighted divisions within the Brazilian graffiti community between adherents of the cruder transgressive form of pichação and the more conventionally artistic values of the practitioners of grafite.
Graffiti in the Middle East has emerged slowly, with taggers operating in Egypt, Lebanon, the Gulf countries like Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates, Israel, and in Iran. The major Iranian newspaper Hamshahri has published two articles on illegal writers in the city with photographic coverage of Iranian artist A1one's works on Tehran walls. Tokyo-based design magazine, PingMag, has interviewed A1one and featured photographs of his work. The Israeli West Bank barrier has become a site for graffiti, reminiscent in this sense of the Berlin Wall. Many writers in Israel come from other places around the globe, such as JUIF from Los Angeles and DEVIONE from London. The religious reference "נ נח נחמ נחמן מאומן" ("Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman") is commonly seen in graffiti around Israel.
Graffiti has played an important role within the street art scene in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), especially following the events of the Arab Spring of 2011 or the Sudanese Revolution of 2018/19. Graffiti is a tool of expression in the context of conflict in the region, allowing people to raise their voices politically and socially. Famous street artist Banksy has had an important effect in the street art scene in the MENA area, especially in Palestine where some of his works are located in the West Bank barrier and Bethlehem.
There are also a large number of graffiti influences in Southeast Asian countries that mostly come from modern Western culture, such as Malaysia, where graffiti have long been a common sight in Malaysia's capital city, Kuala Lumpur. Since 2010, the country has begun hosting a street festival to encourage all generations and people from all walks of life to enjoy and encourage Malaysian street culture.
The modern-day graffitists can be found with an arsenal of various materials that allow for a successful production of a piece. This includes such techniques as scribing. However, spray paint in aerosol cans is the number one medium for graffiti. From this commodity comes different styles, technique, and abilities to form master works of graffiti. Spray paint can be found at hardware and art stores and comes in virtually every color.
Stencil graffiti is created by cutting out shapes and designs in a stiff material (such as cardboard or subject folders) to form an overall design or image. The stencil is then placed on the "canvas" gently and with quick, easy strokes of the aerosol can, the image begins to appear on the intended surface.
Some of the first examples were created in 1981 by artists Blek le Rat in Paris, in 1982 by Jef Aerosol in Tours (France); by 1985 stencils had appeared in other cities including New York City, Sydney, and Melbourne, where they were documented by American photographer Charles Gatewood and Australian photographer Rennie Ellis
Tagging is the practice of someone spray-painting "their name, initial or logo onto a public surface" in a handstyle unique to the writer. Tags were the first form of modern graffiti.
Modern graffiti art often incorporates additional arts and technologies. For example, Graffiti Research Lab has encouraged the use of projected images and magnetic light-emitting diodes (throwies) as new media for graffitists. yarnbombing is another recent form of graffiti. Yarnbombers occasionally target previous graffiti for modification, which had been avoided among the majority of graffitists.
Theories on the use of graffiti by avant-garde artists have a history dating back at least to the Asger Jorn, who in 1962 painting declared in a graffiti-like gesture "the avant-garde won't give up"
Many contemporary analysts and even art critics have begun to see artistic value in some graffiti and to recognize it as a form of public art. According to many art researchers, particularly in the Netherlands and in Los Angeles, that type of public art is, in fact an effective tool of social emancipation or, in the achievement of a political goal
In times of conflict, such murals have offered a means of communication and self-expression for members of these socially, ethnically, or racially divided communities, and have proven themselves as effective tools in establishing dialog and thus, of addressing cleavages in the long run. The Berlin Wall was also extensively covered by graffiti reflecting social pressures relating to the oppressive Soviet rule over the GDR.
Many artists involved with graffiti are also concerned with the similar activity of stenciling. Essentially, this entails stenciling a print of one or more colors using spray-paint. Recognized while exhibiting and publishing several of her coloured stencils and paintings portraying the Sri Lankan Civil War and urban Britain in the early 2000s, graffitists Mathangi Arulpragasam, aka M.I.A., has also become known for integrating her imagery of political violence into her music videos for singles "Galang" and "Bucky Done Gun", and her cover art. Stickers of her artwork also often appear around places such as London in Brick Lane, stuck to lamp posts and street signs, she having become a muse for other graffitists and painters worldwide in cities including Seville.
Graffitist believes that art should be on display for everyone in the public eye or in plain sight, not hidden away in a museum or a gallery. Art should color the streets, not the inside of some building. Graffiti is a form of art that cannot be owned or bought. It does not last forever, it is temporary, yet one of a kind. It is a form of self promotion for the artist that can be displayed anywhere form sidewalks, roofs, subways, building wall, etc. Art to them is for everyone and should be showed to everyone for free.
Graffiti is a way of communicating and a way of expressing what one feels in the moment. It is both art and a functional thing that can warn people of something or inform people of something. However, graffiti is to some people a form of art, but to some a form of vandalism. And many graffitists choose to protect their identities and remain anonymous or to hinder prosecution.
With the commercialization of graffiti (and hip hop in general), in most cases, even with legally painted "graffiti" art, graffitists tend to choose anonymity. This may be attributed to various reasons or a combination of reasons. Graffiti still remains the one of four hip hop elements that is not considered "performance art" despite the image of the "singing and dancing star" that sells hip hop culture to the mainstream. Being a graphic form of art, it might also be said that many graffitists still fall in the category of the introverted archetypal artist.
Banksy is one of the world's most notorious and popular street artists who continues to remain faceless in today's society. He is known for his political, anti-war stencil art mainly in Bristol, England, but his work may be seen anywhere from Los Angeles to Palestine. In the UK, Banksy is the most recognizable icon for this cultural artistic movement and keeps his identity a secret to avoid arrest. Much of Banksy's artwork may be seen around the streets of London and surrounding suburbs, although he has painted pictures throughout the world, including the Middle East, where he has painted on Israel's controversial West Bank barrier with satirical images of life on the other side. One depicted a hole in the wall with an idyllic beach, while another shows a mountain landscape on the other side. A number of exhibitions also have taken place since 2000, and recent works of art have fetched vast sums of money. Banksy's art is a prime example of the classic controversy: vandalism vs. art. Art supporters endorse his work distributed in urban areas as pieces of art and some councils, such as Bristol and Islington, have officially protected them, while officials of other areas have deemed his work to be vandalism and have removed it.
Pixnit is another artist who chooses to keep her identity from the general public. Her work focuses on beauty and design aspects of graffiti as opposed to Banksy's anti-government shock value. Her paintings are often of flower designs above shops and stores in her local urban area of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Some store owners endorse her work and encourage others to do similar work as well. "One of the pieces was left up above Steve's Kitchen, because it looks pretty awesome"- Erin Scott, the manager of New England Comics in Allston, Massachusetts.
Graffiti artists may become offended if photographs of their art are published in a commercial context without their permission. In March 2020, the Finnish graffiti artist Psyke expressed his displeasure at the newspaper Ilta-Sanomat publishing a photograph of a Peugeot 208 in an article about new cars, with his graffiti prominently shown on the background. The artist claims he does not want his art being used in commercial context, not even if he were to receive compensation.
Territorial graffiti marks urban neighborhoods with tags and logos to differentiate certain groups from others. These images are meant to show outsiders a stern look at whose turf is whose. The subject matter of gang-related graffiti consists of cryptic symbols and initials strictly fashioned with unique calligraphies. Gang members use graffiti to designate membership throughout the gang, to differentiate rivals and associates and, most commonly, to mark borders which are both territorial and ideological.
Graffiti has been used as a means of advertising both legally and illegally. Bronx-based TATS CRU has made a name for themselves doing legal advertising campaigns for companies such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Toyota, and MTV. In the UK, Covent Garden's Boxfresh used stencil images of a Zapatista revolutionary in the hopes that cross referencing would promote their store.
Smirnoff hired artists to use reverse graffiti (the use of high pressure hoses to clean dirty surfaces to leave a clean image in the surrounding dirt) to increase awareness of their product.
Graffiti often has a reputation as part of a subculture that rebels against authority, although the considerations of the practitioners often diverge and can relate to a wide range of attitudes. It can express a political practice and can form just one tool in an array of resistance techniques. One early example includes the anarcho-punk band Crass, who conducted a campaign of stenciling anti-war, anarchist, feminist, and anti-consumerist messages throughout the London Underground system during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In Amsterdam graffiti was a major part of the punk scene. The city was covered with names such as "De Zoot", "Vendex", and "Dr Rat". To document the graffiti a punk magazine was started that was called Gallery Anus. So when hip hop came to Europe in the early 1980s there was already a vibrant graffiti culture.
The student protests and general strike of May 1968 saw Paris bedecked in revolutionary, anarchistic, and situationist slogans such as L'ennui est contre-révolutionnaire ("Boredom is counterrevolutionary") and Lisez moins, vivez plus ("Read less, live more"). While not exhaustive, the graffiti gave a sense of the 'millenarian' and rebellious spirit, tempered with a good deal of verbal wit, of the strikers.
I think graffiti writing is a way of defining what our generation is like. Excuse the French, we're not a bunch of p---- artists. Traditionally artists have been considered soft and mellow people, a little bit kooky. Maybe we're a little bit more like pirates that way. We defend our territory, whatever space we steal to paint on, we defend it fiercely.
The developments of graffiti art which took place in art galleries and colleges as well as "on the street" or "underground", contributed to the resurfacing in the 1990s of a far more overtly politicized art form in the subvertising, culture jamming, or tactical media movements. These movements or styles tend to classify the artists by their relationship to their social and economic contexts, since, in most countries, graffiti art remains illegal in many forms except when using non-permanent paint. Since the 1990s with the rise of Street Art, a growing number of artists are switching to non-permanent paints and non-traditional forms of painting.
Contemporary practitioners, accordingly, have varied and often conflicting practices. Some individuals, such as Alexander Brener, have used the medium to politicize other art forms, and have used the prison sentences enforced on them as a means of further protest. The practices of anonymous groups and individuals also vary widely, and practitioners by no means always agree with each other's practices. For example, the anti-capitalist art group the Space Hijackers did a piece in 2004 about the contradiction between the capitalistic elements of Banksy and his use of political imagery.
Berlin human rights activist Irmela Mensah-Schramm has received global media attention and numerous awards for her 35-year campaign of effacing neo-Nazi and other right-wing extremist graffiti throughout Germany, often by altering hate speech in humorous ways.
In Serbian capital, Belgrade, the graffiti depicting a uniformed former general of Serb army and war criminal, convicted at ICTY for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide and ethnic cleansing in Bosnian War, Ratko Mladić, appeared in a military salute alongside the words "General, thank to your mother". Aleks Eror, Berlin-based journalist, explains how "veneration of historical and wartime figures" through street art is not a new phenomenon in the region of former Yugoslavia, and that "in most cases is firmly focused on the future, rather than retelling the past". Eror is not only analyst pointing to danger of such an expressions for the region's future. In a long expose on the subject of Bosnian genocide denial, at Balkan Diskurs magazine and multimedia platform website, Kristina Gadže and Taylor Whitsell referred to these experiences as a young generations' "cultural heritage", in which young are being exposed to celebration and affirmation of war-criminals as part of their "formal education" and "inheritance".
There are numerous examples of genocide denial through celebration and affirmation of war criminals throughout the region of Western Balkans inhabited by Serbs using this form of artistic expression. Several more of these graffiti are found in Serbian capital, and many more across Serbia and Bosnian and Herzegovinian administrative entity, Republika Srpska, which is the ethnic Serbian majority enclave. Critics point that Serbia as a state, is willing to defend the mural of convicted war criminal, and have no intention to react on cases of genocide denial, noting that Interior Minister of Serbia, Aleksandar Vulin decision to ban any gathering with an intent to remove the mural, with the deployment of riot police, sends the message of "tacit endorsement". Consequently, on 9 November 2021, Serbian heavy police in riot gear, with graffiti creators and their supporters, blocked the access to the mural to prevent human rights groups and other activists to paint over it and mark the International Day Against Fascism and Antisemitism in that way, and even arrested two civic activist for throwing eggs at the graffiti.
Graffiti may also be used as an offensive expression. This form of graffiti may be difficult to identify, as it is mostly removed by the local authority (as councils which have adopted strategies of criminalization also strive to remove graffiti quickly). Therefore, existing racist graffiti is mostly more subtle and at first sight, not easily recognized as "racist". It can then be understood only if one knows the relevant "local code" (social, historical, political, temporal, and spatial), which is seen as heteroglot and thus a 'unique set of conditions' in a cultural context.
A spatial code for example, could be that there is a certain youth group in an area that is engaging heavily in racist activities. So, for residents (knowing the local code), a graffiti containing only the name or abbreviation of this gang already is a racist expression, reminding the offended people of their gang activities. Also a graffiti is in most cases, the herald of more serious criminal activity to come. A person who does not know these gang activities would not be able to recognize the meaning of this graffiti. Also if a tag of this youth group or gang is placed on a building occupied by asylum seekers, for example, its racist character is even stronger.
By making the graffiti less explicit (as adapted to social and legal constraints), these drawings are less likely to be removed, but do not lose their threatening and offensive character.
Elsewhere, activists in Russia have used painted caricatures of local officials with their mouths as potholes, to show their anger about the poor state of the roads. In Manchester, England, a graffitists painted obscene images around potholes, which often resulted in them being repaired within 48 hours.
In the early 1980s, the first art galleries to show graffitists to the public were Fashion Moda in the Bronx, Now Gallery and Fun Gallery, both in the East Village, Manhattan.
A 2006 exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum displayed graffiti as an art form that began in New York's outer boroughs and reached great heights in the early 1980s with the work of Crash, Lee, Daze, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. It displayed 22 works by New York graffitists, including Crash, Daze, and Lady Pink. In an article about the exhibition in the magazine Time Out, curator Charlotta Kotik said that she hoped the exhibition would cause viewers to rethink their assumptions about graffiti.
From the 1970s onwards, Burhan Doğançay photographed urban walls all over the world; these he then archived for use as sources of inspiration for his painterly works. The project today known as "Walls of the World" grew beyond even his own expectations and comprises about 30,000 individual images. It spans a period of 40 years across five continents and 114 countries. In 1982, photographs from this project comprised a one-man exhibition titled "Les murs murmurent, ils crient, ils chantent ..." (The walls whisper, shout and sing ...) at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.
In Australia, art historians have judged some local graffiti of sufficient creative merit to rank them firmly within the arts. Oxford University Press's art history text Australian Painting 1788–2000 concludes with a long discussion of graffiti's key place within contemporary visual culture, including the work of several Australian practitioners.
Between March and April 2009, 150 artists exhibited 300 pieces of graffiti at the Grand Palais in Paris.
Spray paint has many negative environmental effects. The paint contains toxic chemicals, and the can uses volatile hydrocarbon gases to spray the paint onto a surface.
Volatile organic compound (VOC) leads to ground level ozone formation and most of graffiti related emissions are VOCs. A 2010 paper estimates 4,862 tons of VOCs were released in the United States in activities related to graffiti.
In China, Mao Zedong in the 1920s used revolutionary slogans and paintings in public places to galvanize the country's communist movement.
Based on different national conditions, many people believe that China's attitude towards Graffiti is fierce, but in fact, according to Lance Crayon in his film Spray Paint Beijing: Graffiti in the Capital of China, Graffiti is generally accepted in Beijing, with artists not seeing much police interference. Political and religiously sensitive graffiti, however, is not allowed.
In Hong Kong, Tsang Tsou Choi was known as the King of Kowloon for his calligraphy graffiti over many years, in which he claimed ownership of the area. Now some of his work is preserved officially.
In Taiwan, the government has made some concessions to graffitists. Since 2005 they have been allowed to freely display their work along some sections of riverside retaining walls in designated "Graffiti Zones". From 2007, Taipei's department of cultural affairs also began permitting graffiti on fences around major public construction sites. Department head Yong-ping Lee (李永萍) stated, "We will promote graffiti starting with the public sector, and then later in the private sector too. It's our goal to beautify the city with graffiti". The government later helped organize a graffiti contest in Ximending, a popular shopping district. graffitists caught working outside of these designated areas still face fines up to NT$6,000 under a department of environmental protection regulation. However, Taiwanese authorities can be relatively lenient, one veteran police officer stating anonymously, "Unless someone complains about vandalism, we won't get involved. We don't go after it proactively."
In 1993, after several expensive cars in Singapore were spray-painted, the police arrested a student from the Singapore American School, Michael P. Fay, questioned him, and subsequently charged him with vandalism. Fay pleaded guilty to vandalizing a car in addition to stealing road signs. Under the 1966 Vandalism Act of Singapore, originally passed to curb the spread of communist graffiti in Singapore, the court sentenced him to four months in jail, a fine of S$3,500 (US$2,233), and a caning. The New York Times ran several editorials and op-eds that condemned the punishment and called on the American public to flood the Singaporean embassy with protests. Although the Singapore government received many calls for clemency, Fay's caning took place in Singapore on 5 May 1994. Fay had originally received a sentence of six strokes of the cane, but the presiding president of Singapore, Ong Teng Cheong, agreed to reduce his caning sentence to four lashes.
In South Korea, Park Jung-soo was fined two million South Korean won by the Seoul Central District Court for spray-painting a rat on posters of the G-20 Summit a few days before the event in November 2011. Park alleged that the initial in "G-20" sounds like the Korean word for "rat", but Korean government prosecutors alleged that Park was making a derogatory statement about the president of South Korea, Lee Myung-bak, the host of the summit. This case led to public outcry and debate on the lack of government tolerance and in support of freedom of expression. The court ruled that the painting, "an ominous creature like a rat" amounts to "an organized criminal activity" and upheld the fine while denying the prosecution's request for imprisonment for Park.
In Europe, community cleaning squads have responded to graffiti, in some cases with reckless abandon, as when in 1992 in France a local Scout group, attempting to remove modern graffiti, damaged two prehistoric paintings of bison in the Cave of Mayrière supérieure near the French village of Bruniquel in Tarn-et-Garonne, earning them the 1992 Ig Nobel Prize in archeology.
In September 2006, the European Parliament directed the European Commission to create urban environment policies to prevent and eliminate dirt, litter, graffiti, animal excrement, and excessive noise from domestic and vehicular music systems in European cities, along with other concerns over urban life.
In Budapest, Hungary, both a city-backed movement called I Love Budapest and a special police division tackle the problem, including the provision of approved areas.
The Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 became Britain's latest anti-graffiti legislation. In August 2004, the Keep Britain Tidy campaign issued a press release calling for zero tolerance of graffiti and supporting proposals such as issuing "on the spot" fines to graffiti offenders and banning the sale of aerosol paint to anyone under the age of 16. The press release also condemned the use of graffiti images in advertising and in music videos, arguing that real-world experience of graffiti stood far removed from its often-portrayed "cool" or "edgy'" image.
To back the campaign, 123 Members of Parliament (MPs) (including then Prime Minister Tony Blair), signed a charter which stated: "Graffiti is not art, it's crime. On behalf of my constituents, I will do all I can to rid our community of this problem."
In the UK, city councils have the power to take action against the owner of any property that has been defaced under the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 (as amended by the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005) or, in certain cases, the Highways Act. This is often used against owners of property that are complacent in allowing protective boards to be defaced so long as the property is not damaged.
In July 2008, a conspiracy charge was used to convict graffitists for the first time. After a three-month police surveillance operation, nine members of the DPM crew were convicted of conspiracy to commit criminal damage costing at least £1 million. Five of them received prison sentences, ranging from eighteen months to two years. The unprecedented scale of the investigation and the severity of the sentences rekindled public debate over whether graffiti should be considered art or crime.
Some councils, like those of Stroud and Loerrach, provide approved areas in the town where graffitists can showcase their talents, including underpasses, car parks, and walls that might otherwise prove a target for the "spray and run".
Graffiti Tunnel, University of Sydney at Camperdown (2009)
In an effort to reduce vandalism, many cities in Australia have designated walls or areas exclusively for use by graffitists. One early example is the "Graffiti Tunnel" located at the Camperdown Campus of the University of Sydney, which is available for use by any student at the university to tag, advertise, poster, and paint. Advocates of this idea suggest that this discourages petty vandalism yet encourages artists to take their time and produce great art, without worry of being caught or arrested for vandalism or trespassing.[108][109] Others disagree with this approach, arguing that the presence of legal graffiti walls does not demonstrably reduce illegal graffiti elsewhere. Some local government areas throughout Australia have introduced "anti-graffiti squads", who clean graffiti in the area, and such crews as BCW (Buffers Can't Win) have taken steps to keep one step ahead of local graffiti cleaners.
Many state governments have banned the sale or possession of spray paint to those under the age of 18 (age of majority). However, a number of local governments in Victoria have taken steps to recognize the cultural heritage value of some examples of graffiti, such as prominent political graffiti. Tough new graffiti laws have been introduced in Australia with fines of up to A$26,000 and two years in prison.
Melbourne is a prominent graffiti city of Australia with many of its lanes being tourist attractions, such as Hosier Lane in particular, a popular destination for photographers, wedding photography, and backdrops for corporate print advertising. The Lonely Planet travel guide cites Melbourne's street as a major attraction. All forms of graffiti, including sticker art, poster, stencil art, and wheatpasting, can be found in many places throughout the city. Prominent street art precincts include; Fitzroy, Collingwood, Northcote, Brunswick, St. Kilda, and the CBD, where stencil and sticker art is prominent. As one moves farther away from the city, mostly along suburban train lines, graffiti tags become more prominent. Many international artists such as Banksy have left their work in Melbourne and in early 2008 a perspex screen was installed to prevent a Banksy stencil art piece from being destroyed, it has survived since 2003 through the respect of local street artists avoiding posting over it, although it has recently had paint tipped over it.
In February 2008 Helen Clark, the New Zealand prime minister at that time, announced a government crackdown on tagging and other forms of graffiti vandalism, describing it as a destructive crime representing an invasion of public and private property. New legislation subsequently adopted included a ban on the sale of paint spray cans to persons under 18 and increases in maximum fines for the offence from NZ$200 to NZ$2,000 or extended community service. The issue of tagging become a widely debated one following an incident in Auckland during January 2008 in which a middle-aged property owner stabbed one of two teenage taggers to death and was subsequently convicted of manslaughter.
Graffiti databases have increased in the past decade because they allow vandalism incidents to be fully documented against an offender and help the police and prosecution charge and prosecute offenders for multiple counts of vandalism. They also provide law enforcement the ability to rapidly search for an offender's moniker or tag in a simple, effective, and comprehensive way. These systems can also help track costs of damage to a city to help allocate an anti-graffiti budget. The theory is that when an offender is caught putting up graffiti, they are not just charged with one count of vandalism; they can be held accountable for all the other damage for which they are responsible. This has two main benefits for law enforcement. One, it sends a signal to the offenders that their vandalism is being tracked. Two, a city can seek restitution from offenders for all the damage that they have committed, not merely a single incident. These systems give law enforcement personnel real-time, street-level intelligence that allows them not only to focus on the worst graffiti offenders and their damage, but also to monitor potential gang violence that is associated with the graffiti.
Many restrictions of civil gang injunctions are designed to help address and protect the physical environment and limit graffiti. Provisions of gang injunctions include things such as restricting the possession of marker pens, spray paint cans, or other sharp objects capable of defacing private or public property; spray painting, or marking with marker pens, scratching, applying stickers, or otherwise applying graffiti on any public or private property, including, but not limited to the street, alley, residences, block walls, and fences, vehicles or any other real or personal property. Some injunctions contain wording that restricts damaging or vandalizing both public and private property, including but not limited to any vehicle, light fixture, door, fence, wall, gate, window, building, street sign, utility box, telephone box, tree, or power pole.
To help address many of these issues, many local jurisdictions have set up graffiti abatement hotlines, where citizens can call in and report vandalism and have it removed. San Diego's hotline receives more than 5,000 calls per year, in addition to reporting the graffiti, callers can learn more about prevention. One of the complaints about these hotlines is the response time; there is often a lag time between a property owner calling about the graffiti and its removal. The length of delay should be a consideration for any jurisdiction planning on operating a hotline. Local jurisdictions must convince the callers that their complaint of vandalism will be a priority and cleaned off right away. If the jurisdiction does not have the resources to respond to complaints in a timely manner, the value of the hotline diminishes. Crews must be able to respond to individual service calls made to the graffiti hotline as well as focus on cleanup near schools, parks, and major intersections and transit routes to have the biggest impact. Some cities offer a reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of suspects for tagging or graffiti related vandalism. The amount of the reward is based on the information provided, and the action taken.
When police obtain search warrants in connection with a vandalism investigation, they are often seeking judicial approval to look for items such as cans of spray paint and nozzles from other kinds of aerosol sprays; etching tools, or other sharp or pointed objects, which could be used to etch or scratch glass and other hard surfaces; permanent marking pens, markers, or paint sticks; evidence of membership or affiliation with any gang or tagging crew; paraphernalia including any reference to "(tagger's name)"; any drawings, writing, objects, or graffiti depicting taggers' names, initials, logos, monikers, slogans, or any mention of tagging crew membership; and any newspaper clippings relating to graffiti crime.
Porque esa será siempre nuestra ventana, dónde salimos a los tejados, y la lluvia caía siempre hacia arriba.
Santiago de compostela, 2011.
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Forchtenstein Castle was built in the 13th century as a frontier castle high above the Rosalia hills, and served as a bulwark of the West during the Turkish wars. Owned by the Esterházy family since the early 17th century. Forchtenstein Castle has since then been a "vault" housing the family's major art collections.
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Morven Hills Station is a private property in Central Otago, near Lindis Pass.
The farm's history stretches back to 1858, and it features a massive stone woolshed (c.1880) with a Heritage NZ Cat.1 listing.
A group of buildings near the roadside (S/H 8) dates back over a century. The homestead of the original settler John McLean dates from 1868. There are old stables; two huts (both c.1868, one originally a school, the other a smithy then a store); and a long cookhouse (c.1870), with chimneys at either end.
Digital images from rawpixel's own physical collection of antique chromolithographic plates
Free download under CC Attribution (CC BY 4.0). Please credit the artist and rawpixel.com.
Higher resolutions with no attribution required can be downloaded: www.rawpixel.com/board/427285/rawpixel-original-lithographs
"The tax collectors and the sinners were all seeking the company of Jesus to hear what he had to say, and the Pharisees and the scribes complained. ‘This man’ they said ‘welcomes sinners and eats with them.’ So he spoke this parable to them:
‘A man had two sons. The younger said to his father, “Father, let me have the share of the estate that would come to me.” So the father divided the property between them. A few days later, the younger son got together everything he had and left for a distant country where he squandered his money on a life of debauchery.
‘When he had spent it all, that country experienced a severe famine, and now he began to feel the pinch, so he hired himself out to one of the local inhabitants who put him on his farm to feed the pigs. And he would willingly have filled his belly with the husks the pigs were eating but no one offered him anything. Then he came to his senses and said, “How many of my father’s paid servants have more food than they want, and here am I dying of hunger! I will leave this place and go to my father and say: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you; I no longer deserve to be called your son; treat me as one of your paid servants.” So he left the place and went back to his father.
‘While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was moved with pity. He ran to the boy, clasped him in his arms and kissed him tenderly. Then his son said, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I no longer deserve to be called your son.” But the father said to his servants, “Quick! Bring out the best robe and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the calf we have been fattening, and kill it; we are going to have a feast, a celebration, because this son of mine was dead and has come back to life; he was lost and is found.” And they began to celebrate.
‘Now the elder son was out in the fields, and on his way back, as he drew near the house, he could hear music and dancing. Calling one of the servants he asked what it was all about. “Your brother has come” replied the servant “and your father has killed the calf we had fattened because he has got him back safe and sound.” He was angry then and refused to go in, and his father came out to plead with him; but he answered his father, “Look, all these years I have slaved for you and never once disobeyed your orders, yet you never offered me so much as a kid for me to celebrate with my friends. But, for this son of yours, when he comes back after swallowing up your property – he and his women – you kill the calf we had been fattening.”
‘The father said, “My son, you are with me always and all I have is yours. But it was only right we should celebrate and rejoice, because your brother here was dead and has come to life; he was lost and is found.”’"
– Luke 15:1-3,11-32, which is today's Gospel at Mass (4th Sunday in Lent).
Stained glass of the Prodigal Son from Lille Cathedral.
57 London Road was originally in civilian occupation and named ‘Fairlawns’. The property was requisitioned in 1939 as a new headquarters for No.1 Group of the Royal Observer Corps, who had previously been stationed in rooms above Maidstone Post Office. An operations room was built in the house using the ground floor and basement. Fairlawns was in use throughout the war until stand down. In the 1950s Fairlawns was relegated to being a training centre for the group control at Beckenham (19 Group). In 1961 a new semi-sunk control was built to the rear of Fairlawns with administration located in the house. Beckenham was then relegated to being training centre for 1 Group at Maidstone. The former 19 Group HQ at Dura Den, Park Place, Beckenham was absorbed into No. 1 Group in 1953 but was retained for as a secondary training centre until 1968 In 1976 Fairlawns was renamed Ashmore House in memory of the Corps' founder Major Ashmore. On closure Ashmore House and the bunker behind was sold to a local solicitors.
Maidstone is similar in construction to other semi-sunken group controls, consisting of three levels. The upper level is a surface concrete blockhouse often referred to as an ‘Aztec Temple’. The middle level is partly below ground, mounded over with soil and grassed, the bottom level is completely below grown. Externally the bunker is in excellent condition and well maintained. The grass on top of the mound is regularly mown and the surface blockhouse is painted white. The telescopic aerial mast is still in place alongside the entrance steps and unusually the aerial is also still there on top of the mast. Two other UHF aerials are also still in place on top of an adjacent pole. On top of the mound the FSM and BPI pipes are in the middle and close to them is a metal cover over what might be part of the AWDREY (Atomic Weapon Detection Recognition and Estimation of Yield) equipment consisting of a white metal box mounted at an angle on a square concrete plinth. Several pipes protrude from the mound alongside. At the east end of the mound is the original emergency exit consisting of an ROC post hatch on a raised concrete plinth with a rail around it. The later emergency exit door is at the back of the mound.
The surface blockhouse still has its external ladder giving access to the roof. Here the GZI mounting is to be found on top of one of the ventilation stacks.
At the top of the entrance stairs is a steel blast door giving access to the upper level corridor. There are two rooms on the left, the decontamination room and dressing room; both still contain sinks and water tanks. There are two rooms on the right, the first has a gas tight door and houses a small fan for cooling the plant in the room below, the adjacent room contains a bank of filters. Beyond these rooms is another gas tight wooden door which, together with the entrance door, forms an air lock. Beyond this door stairs to the left lead down to the middle floor and ahead was the winch room. The winch has been removed as has the floor. There are railings just inside the entrance door to stop anyone falling. A hole has been cut into the right hand side wall of the winch room to give access to a large water tank.
At the bottom of the stairs is a dog leg into the main east - west spine corridor. The first room on the right is the ventilation and filtration plant room which is in immaculate condition with all the brass still polished and gleaming. All the plant remains in place including two chiller pumps, the main ventilation fan, two smaller fans, two compressors and the floor standing electrical control cabinet. There is a filing cabinet full of wiring diagrams, instruction books, maintenance logs etc. Although unused for ten years the plant is almost certainly fully operational with the chiller system still charged.
In one corner of the plant room is a separate filter room with it’s own gas tight door. The bank of filters are still in place. At the back of the room two wooden door open into the generator room which is noticeably narrower then the same room in other semi-sunken group controls. The generator and its control equipment is also in excellent condition with 1518 hours on the clock.
The next room on the right is the canteen, accessed along a short corridor. On the right hand side of the corridor is the kitchen which is largely intact with a Creda industrial cooker, Creda grill, hot food heater, stainless steel sink and draining board and stainless steel covered units. There is a sliding glass hatch for serving food. The canteen is now used for storage of old files and retains nothing original apart from wall cabinets at the back with electrical switchgear.
Next door to the canteen is the BT equipment room, again this is now used for the storage of old files but there are two BT wall cabinets on the end wall and the remains of two racks with some wiring looms. Beyond the BT room is an empty store room and stairs down to the lower level. The final two doors on the right lead onto the balcony looking down onto the control room. Nothing is left in the room at all although in the triangulation alcove it still says ‘Triangulation’ on the wall and there is a small shelf with a slot for an FSM and in the ceiling the bottom of the FSM pipe.
There is a gas tight door in the corridor between the two doors onto the balcony with another gas tight door beyond giving access to the emergency exit. These two doors form a second airlock. There is a ladder on the wall up to a short landing and then a second ladder up to the emergency escape hatch. This was replaced in the 1970’s by a stairway with a door on the south side of the mound.
Back in the spine corridor the first door on the left is the sewage ejection room with two compressors and a compressed air receiver just inside the door and two pumps in the sump underneath a metal grille. This plant also looks immaculate. The next two rooms are the male and female toilets which are complete although no longer connected to the mains water supply. The female toilet has a hot water tank, two hand basins, two WC cubicles and a shower. The male toilet is similar with one of the WC cubicles replaced by a urinal. The next two rooms are the male and female dormitories, these are used for the storage of confidential client files and we had no access. The final room on the left is the small officers room which is empty apart from a Tanoy loudspeaker on the wall.
On the bottom level the control room at the bottom of the stairs to the left has been fitted out with Dexion racking and is the main storage area for old files. Nothing from ROC days remains apart from one floor standing display board. The adjacent communications centre is empty. The walls are covered with acoustic tiles and the original tables and chairs are still in place. There are three windows looking into the control room one with a small message hatch beneath one.
The radio room was to the right of the stairs, this has been divided into two rooms, both of which are empty. There is a small store room under the stairs which is also empty.
During the 1990’s numerous ROC items including maps and signs were sold to the Kelvedon Hatch cold war museum. The only remaining signs are fire prevention notices which are screwed to the wall in various rooms.
The owners have no plans to remove any of the remaining equipment and will continue to use the bunker for the storage of redundant files. It is clean and dry throughout and the lighting works in all the rooms.
Talk about a classic....found in Brush,Colorado.
©2011. all images property of Bob Merco. Do not use without my permission.