Street Art ––a celebration of life, portraying a cantaloupe of possibilities shared without restrictions, an exploration into deeper reflections around specifics that matter––political, social, cultural, presented to people to appreciate, ponder . . . It’s a personal creative- statement on any stand or just a craft to attract the eyes with an intention to voice a message or simply to beautify the surroundings.
Walls
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A café wall painting to allure customers in Georgetown, D.C.
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A painted wall of a bike renting store in Georgetown D.C.
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| A painted wall in the historical Church Street, Vienna Town center (greater D.C.).This wall-painting portraying a steam-engine train (invented in 1804) tries to create a nostalgic reflection of the past era. |
A strip mall close to our house has used colorful paintings depicting regular life to cover the rear walls of stores and restaurants that face the adjacent parking lot.
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| Strip mall wall |
Each time I step on the sidewalk, the paintings catch my eyes. We don’t have high rise apartment complexes in our neighborhood. The mayor and the town council are very committed to keep our locality picturesque. Every 3rd Friday of the month she (mayor) walks with residents to discuss matters of common interest. Everyone is invited.
Sidewalks and manhole covers - this trend is noticeable on the sidewalk, around our park.
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| A manhole with sunflower motifs. |
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| A manhole artistically covered with images of aqua lives. |
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A manhole artistically displaying images of banana leaves and a frog.
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Benches and chairs - a series of beautiful hand painted chairs have popped up all over my neighborhood. It has become trendy-attractive and inviting, labor of art . . .
Nuzhat -- so happy you decided to share your photos - and nice ones they are! I love street art myself and have a bunch of photos too -- maybe soon they will appear on these pages! Keep it going! Myra
ReplyDeleteThanks for the lovely pictures! Georgetown looks lively, less stodgy and less “governmental”. Looks like Izara is a bonny beautiful girl . Sree
ReplyDeleteIt would seem that Banksy has competition in Georgetown, a town that loves itself.
ReplyDeleteYour comment about the Mayor and Council doing a walk-about 'surgery' every third Friday is perhaps a major part of the answer. What a good idea, and one which UNICEF would do well to encourage, don't you think ?
Beautiful! Love the benches and the colored manholes! Good ideas for our dull city in Britany
ReplyDeleteNuzhat, it’s always nice to have art around your town, glad you shared these photos with us. I was in Albuquerque a few days ago and spent a nice day with Neill and Beth.
ReplyDeleteNaturally, Meena and Sara came
up in conversation. Neill spoke very highly of your important contributions to both series. I was reading his book on the plane while coming home. It was fascinating to read how you all brought it together so creatively. Congratulations for bringing both of these animated series to fruition. Bill Hetzer
Hello Bill,
ReplyDeleteLovely to hear from you. Thanks for your comments. Thanks to all readers for their comments.
Yes––Meena and Sara . . . the projects were possible as we had great partnerships with UNICEF country offices, Governments, NGOs, private sectors and the communities (girls, boys, service providers, etc). Looking back, I feel so humbled. But we missed the opportunity of establishing a Meena Foundation. Both Dr Yunus (Grameen Bank) and Fazle Hasan Abed (Head of Brac) were willing to partner with UNICEF on this vision. We missed the opportunity––our agency had cold feet . . .
By the way, Meena is still going strong in Bangladesh through the education system, media and strong pirating (ha ha ha). Meena still appeals!