Two murals in our neighborhood have a long history of being covered with graffiti or even accidentally painted over by city crews. State Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson’s legislative assistant, Kari Boiter, is organizing the effort to refurbish the murals on NW 63rd Street (the Aurora Avenue underpass between Green Lake and Phinney Ridge) and the NW 57th Street underpass near Woodland Park Zoo.

Graffiti on the NW 63rd Street underpass earlier this year.

Graffiti on the NW 63rd Street underpass mural two years ago.

Boiter is hosting an informational meeting at 7 p.m. on Sept. 27 at the Phinney Neighborhood Center for anyone interested in helping out.

Seattle Public Utilities is offering free paint and supplies to anyone who wants to help paint out graffiti in their neighborhood. The Summer Paint Out program runs in July and August.

Whether you are a group or an individual, you can tackle graffiti in your neighborhood. The City of Seattle supports volunteers with FREE paint (white-brown-gray), rollers, brushes, scrapers, and gloves.

Sign up online, or call 206-684-7790 for more information.

Supplies can be picked up on the following Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. (registration required first): July 16, July 30, Aug. 6, Aug. 20.

A Phinney Ridge neighbor has decided to take action on the oft-vandalized mural on the North 63rd Street underpass under Aurora Avenue North.

This graffiti showed up in late 2008 on the North 63rd Street underpass.

Kerry Fowler has created a brief, two-question survey on what neighbors think should be done with the mural.

I have created a SurveyMonkey page to take a straw poll on how to proceed – refurbish the current mural, create a new one, or let the city paint it over. The folks from the 46th Street Mural have provided great information on how they accomplished their task and the good news is that there are lots of resources available to us from the city.

Responses are anonymous and no IP addresses are logged.

Seattle’s long-running neighborhood cleanup program, Spring Clean, is back, and hundreds or even thousands of residents will spend April and May painting out graffiti, picking up litter, and cleaning up the city in other ways.

Spring Clean is now in its 25th year. Last year, more than 20,000 volunteer hours were put in.

Spring Clean activities include painting out graffiti, picking up litter and illegally dumped materials, stenciling storm drains, cleaning school yards, removing invasive plants in planting strips and traffic circles, and planting trees.  All projects are conducted on public property.

The City of Seattle supports volunteers with FREE bags, gloves, safety vests, and waste disposal. Spring Clean information, including neighborhood cleanup activities and sign-up packets, is available by calling 206-233-7187 or by visiting www.seattle.gov/util/springclean.

Spring Clean is a partnership between Seattle residents and Seattle Public Utilities, Parks and Recreation, the Department of Neighborhoods, and the Seattle Department of Transportation.

Learn more about Seattle Public Utilities at: www.seattle.gov/util.

It’s the question that always spurs heated conversation. Is graffiti vandalism or art? A recent survey showed Seattle residents are almost evenly divided on the issue. Now, there’s a push to start a photo database to track graffiti and amend the city’s municipal code to include stickers.

With the help of the nonprofit Common Language Project and communications students at the University of Washington, we take a closer look at the graffiti issue through the eyes of the people tracking it, cleaning it up, and making it.

Continue reading “Redefining Seattle graffiti laws is a sticky issue”

Looking for a little more happiness in your life? Cecile Andrews, local author of “Less is More” and “Slow is Beautiful,” will guide you through “Happiness Lessons” from 7-9 p.m. on Tuesday, May 18, at the Phinney Neighborhood Center, 6532 Phinney Ave. N.

In the past few years there has been a great deal of research on the nature of happiness. What are the secrets of happiness? Why is it on the decline? What specific steps can we take for our personal happiness as well as for societal well being? How can Seattle use a Gross National Happiness measurement? To register, call 206 783 2244, $5 donation.

The 85th Street Market on the corner of 8th Avenue Northwest and NW 85th Street now has an ice cream shop.

We are ready with our ice cream shop just in time for summer. We carry 24 different flavors from Dreyr’s . We will serving hand dipped ice cream by scoop, shakes, smoothies, sundae, banana split, root beer float and a lot more.

PlayMatters at 7720 Greenwood Ave. N. is having a summer-long special of $5 for open play time from now through August.

The Phinney Neighborhood Association is looking for volunteers in a number of different areas: PNA Board Members, writers for the quarterly Phinney Ridge Review, copywriters and “information architect” for the PNA’s new website, and volunteers to help run the PNA’s World Cup showings this summer. Email Alex if you’re interested in any of these volunteer opportunities.

The Seattle Times reports today that the city is removing more graffiti that has sprung up on the oft-tagged underpass mural near Woodland Park Zoo.

The Seattle Center Foundation is looking for your memories of the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair for its upcoming 50th anniversary in 2012. “The Next Fifty” celebration includes an online time capsule. You can submit an image, story, video or audio file from the fair until May 21, and you’ll automatically be entered to win a Heritage Package (annual family passes to the Pacific Science Center, Seattle Center Monorail, and the Space Needle – a $2,400 value).

Artist John Osgood and his wife, Michelle, who own Greenwood art gallery Bherd Studios, hate graffiti in their neighborhood, even though John’s artistic style is inspired by the streets.

“It’s all about permission,” Michelle says of the difference between graffiti and urban art. “With tagging, people are just putting their name up and laying claim to a territory, seeing how many times they can do something.”

John says taggers have avoided the long mural on the safety fence next to Taproot Theatre out of what he considers respect. (John was one of three artists who created the mural after the Eleanor Roosevelt Building was destroyed in the Oct. 23 arson.)

John Osgood, Zach Bohnenkamp and Kevin “Sensei23″ Sullivan created this mural next to Taproot Theatre on North 85th Street. It was unveiled on Dec. 31, 2009, and has not been hit by taggers.

However, they did tag his painting on the outside back door of nearby Neptune Coffee. John says it’s because he added his studio’s name on that painting.

“When you put a mural up and it’s an artistic mural and it doesn’t have any names on it…people seem to respect it,” Michelle explains. “But as soon as you add a name, like a crew name, it gets tagged up.”

Artist John Osgood created this painting on the back door of Neptune Coffee. It was hit by taggers as soon as he added his studio name in the bottom right corner.

Graffiti has been a hot topic in our neighborhood and around the city lately. The Seattle Times published an in-depth feature on citywide graffiti Monday, with links to several neighborhood news partner websites (including PhinneyWood) for a micro-level look at the issue.

A few months ago, after PhinneyWood readers sent in numerous tips about fresh graffiti in the neighborhood, PhinneyWood created an interactive Graffiti Map on our home page, where people can report graffiti on public or private property, and find links to report it to the city. Once you’ve noticed that the graffiti has been cleaned up, you can go back in and mark that on the map.

John says most taggers are in their teens or early 20’s and are bored, and he definitely sees an increase in graffiti when the weather is nice and school is out. Many people automatically think that graffiti may be related to gangs, but he says that’s usually not the case. It’s just someone looking for attention.

“The person who does tagging has a crafty mind of ‘how can I not get caught?’” he says.

He and Bohnenkamp are currently working with teens at the Youngstown Cultural Arts Center in West Seattle’s Delridge neighborhood to create murals. He hopes that by encouraging young kids and teens to channel their artistic creativity into something productive, it can help reduce graffiti.

“I went in with a few ideas, then I had the kids sort of pick what they wanted to do,” he says. “Corralling kids to work on something is not easy. I had to make it fun and show them that it’s a sense of pride.”

This is the first mural created by students in Youngstown Cultural Center’s All Access after school program, with the help of artists John Osgood and Zach Bohnenkamp of Seattle Mural Art.

He says parents and schools always encourage art at a young age, but then seem to give up in middle school or high school because they don’t think it’s as important as other academic areas, leaving artistic kids with no outlet.

“I was always drawing,” John says of his childhood. “My parents were at the studio last night for our show, and my dad was telling people about their kids, ‘If he starts drawing and you see that he’s into it, just let him go.’”

John’s wife agrees. “There’s a whole creativity that we lose” as we get older, Michelle says. “Keeping in touch with art or music connects with something different in your brain.”

Looking at John’s artwork, one might assume he has a history of graffiti when he was younger, but that’s not the case.

“John’s background isn’t in the streets,” Michelle says. “His artwork is inspired by street art and graffiti.”

“What I’m doing is I’m trying to make a job (out of art),” John says. “The stuff that I do, the tagger or graffiti artist will like it.”

Besides his art that he sells at Bherd (pronounced “be heard,”) John creates quite a few works on commission, and also helps stage homes for sale with his art.

Michelle and John Osgood inside their Greenwood art gallery, Bherd Studios.

Osgood and Bohnenkamp’s urban art was recently recognized on an international scale. The pair were selected to show their art at Upfest, the Urban Paint Festival in Bristol, UK, in early June. Of the 200 street artists and muralists chosen for the largest urban arts festival in Europe, one-third are from Bristol, one-third from the rest of the United Kingdom, and one-third from the rest of the world. The duo are raising money for their travel expenses in part by selling these limited edition prints.

John says he would love to see a large “free wall” set up in a local park where kids can create temporary art. He says that would cut down on graffiti and give kids permission to be creative without being destructive. Someone could take pictures and document the changes on a website, so that the art lives on, at least digitally. He cites Redmond’s free wall at a skate park. “It’s been a great outlet for kids,” he says. “What a great place to have kids experiment and learn how to use spray paint. You have to learn how to hold it and how to hold your body.”

The Osgoods and others in the neighborhood are working with the Greenwood-Phinney Chamber of Commerce on a coordinated graffiti paint-out effort. Since private property owners need to give their permission for someone else to paint out graffiti, they’re hoping the Chamber can get advance permission from neighborhood business owners to paint out graffiti as soon as it pops up.

“We want to get kids involved. We’re not going to ask questions like ‘Are you a tagger? If so you can’t be involved.’” Michelle says. “We’d love to have kids be involved in a paint-out. We just want positive reinforcement.”

We’ve written about graffiti in our area a couple times now, including a recent spate in late December. And we’ve added a page telling you how to report it to the city and track it on a public map in a crowdsourcing experiment.

We are now working with the Seattle Times and its news partners on a graffiti-related piece, so we’re putting some questions out to you: What are your thoughts on graffiti in Greenwood and Phinney Ridge? Where are the trouble spots? Is graffiti becoming a growing problem? What can be done to stop taggers?

Post your thoughts in comments below or email us at tips@phinneywood.com.

[Photo courtesy Artman1951]

We’ve added a link in the left column to make it easier to find our graffiti map experiment. After some feedback from the city, here’s what we’re suggesting you do:

Report graffiti to city officials here, then put a mark on our graffiti map, noting in your comment that you’ve reported it to the city. By doing this, others will know it’s been reported and will be able to note when it’s cleaned up.

If you have ideas for other uses of this type of map, please post a comment.

A recent story about a start-up called SeeClickFix.com got us thinking about how we could use a service like theirs as a catalyst to help highlight and address community issues.

The recent spate of graffiti sparked the idea of creating a map that could be used to report graffiti sightings. If we can get decent information here, perhaps city officials and property owners will be motivated to more quickly take steps to clean up these signs of vandalism.

You can see the map here. If you see graffiti, mark down the address and enter it on the map. If you have a photo, even better. You’ll also find information on the page for reporting graffiti to the city, which we encourage you to do as well to be proactive and ensure the city is aware of it.

You can comment on reports, or mark them as closed once the graffiti is removed.

If you’re so motivated, please check it out. While this isn’t the biggest issue facing our neighborhoods, do you think this approach is at least worth trying? Have any ideas for improving on it, or for other ways we might be able to use something like this? You can post comments below, or you can always send us e-mail at tips@phinneywood.com. Thanks for being a part of PhinneyWood!

We’ve received several emails from artman1951 about a rash of graffiti along Greenwood Avenue. He says the graffiti escalated since schools went on holiday break. He says the graffiti has shown up on the sides of Greenwood Hardware, Fiber Gallery, Strut, the Masonic Lodge, the building housing Moonphoto, a condo building, even a fire hydrant.

He sent a number of pictures of graffiti – many from a specific tagger spelling out “KLASP.” We’re hesitant to publish the photos because the last time we did, a number of people commented that the publicity is exactly what taggers want.

Do you think taggers actually read sites like PhinneyWood to see if their tags are making them famous? Should we publish the photos? Would a parent see a tag and realize it’s their child’s handiwork and punish them?

He also sent us a photo of a graffiti removal service truck parked out front of the Fiber Gallery yesterday, ready to get rid of the tags.

The colorful mural in the 57th St. underpass has been hit by taggers again.

PhinneyWood reader JM sent us these photos.

Last year, taggers hit the same mural near the zoo, and the city accidently painted over it, sparking a neighborhood controversy. Cleaning crews with a high-tech sprayer were able to revive the mural to its living color.

This is what a section of the mural looked liked before the new wave of graffiti. (Thank you JM for sending us the photos.)