When I lived in Melbourne and worked in some of the inner suburbs I often saw some amazing graffiti. Some of it I’d classify as Art. Now I differentiate this type of graffiti from the simplistic "tagging" where the person sprays a basic signature multiple times in an area, sometimes over the top of much better work.
Tagged Graffiti Art
Not far from our offices in West End is a heavy transport recovery company. You know, the sort with really big tow trucks. As such, I was pretty surprised to see this sign near the entrance to their business. I’m guessing they’ve had problems with people parking across the driveway.
It just goes to show that even if it's obvious, you sometimes still have to spell it out.
West End has a long history of multiculturalism and artistic creativity. Post Expo'88, Southbank changed significantly from the industrial part of central Brisbane to a trendy new place to be and be seen. This change has been progressively spreading into West End, with trendy new restaurants/cafe's and apartments taking over however you can still find the "old" West End along with artistic outbursts if you look.
I was recently watching a great show called "Kevin McCloud: Slumming It". In it, Kevin investigates a slum in India and discovers that while the people are in squalor, they have far more sense of community and use of common space than we in the west do.
While there doesn't appear to be the available common spaces and subsequent community in most cities, I was really happy to see a Community Garden in my recent wanderings around West End.
Earlier in the year Ephox, after many years in Paddington, moved it's Brisbane office to West End. Whenever I find myself in a new location I like to go for walks around the area to get a feel for it. On a few of these, I came across interesting or amusing things, and so I thought I'd create a new category (West End Wanderings) on my Blog for them.
For the first one, I thought I’d introduce my favorite place to get coffee.
