posted
My city has recently decided to dedicate over forty (that's right kids, I said forty) thousand dollars to repair and restore a wall job of a giant Coca-Cola bottle in the old part of town. This graphic has somehow been elevated to the lofty status of art and consequently is taking on the air of nostalgic folk art.
Did they hire any locals for the project? No.
Did they consider that it is little more than an advertisement for a product that doesn't need the free advertising? No.
Did they consider replacing it with a mural (a la Danville et al.) that might have the added benefit of sprucing up the downtown area and reinforce their stated goal of putting more art in public places? No.
Now, in all fairness, the pictorial was well done and is part (albeit the dominant part) of a sign for a defunct deli, but when I saw the newspaper article about the project and the amount of money that, in my opinion, could have been been better spent, well... this rant is the result of my outrage.
Business is hard enough these days.
It just riles me.
-------------------- Brian Oliver Paxton Signs Fort Collins, CO paxton@peakpeak.com www.paxtonsignsofcolorado.com Posts: 237 | From: ft. collins, colorado,usa | Registered: Mar 2001
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posted
Coca Cola signs used to be EVERYWHERE. It made it hard to get people to pay for a sign when all they had to do was put in a Coke machine and they would get a free sign, maybe even the whole side of their bulding painted.
You would think they could get Coke to foot the bill for this one
-------------------- George Perkins Millington,TN. goatwell@bigriver.net
"I started out with nothing and still have most of it left"
posted
I can remember in my early years in the billboard shop there was a local lady artist in a nearby town that got a 10k commission from the city council to do a historical mural,...at that time we could not believe what the paper read,because it was about four times our going rate for a job that size,...well it seems she knew nothing about actually the actual process of painting the wall and far too much about the politics of art and convincing the locals of her capabilities,...time passed and three months into the job the local city council wanted to know why after three months she only had less than a quarter of the job done,...well she found a wall painter from our shop out on location one day and asked him for help,.....well he told her we could get it done within a week if she had a layout, to which she became incensed and stated that she had a masters degree in fine art and there was no way as she had been working daily for over three months and she had done less than a fourth of the job,...well he asked for her layout and a $1000 deposit and guaranteed he could get it done the next week,and that if we did there would be another $1500 due or we would refund her money, weather permitting,.... well we went out and rigged a swing stage the next monday morning and finished up the next day,..well while we were setting up she tried to tell us how to do the job at hand and our guy promptly told her that if we didn't match her artwork exactly she could tell us how but until we were done ,....leave us to our job,...She almost had a fit when we started using rollers and three inch brushes and was amazed at how we had drawings just the right scale and how everything worked out right in so short a time span,....seems she had been chipping away at the wall with a 3/4" fitch and trying to get it done with that being her largest brush,..we finished the mural for her in a day and a half, collected the money,..and the next time that town wanted a mural they were referred to us by the building owner whom we painted a couple of signs for after we finished up with her part of the job,....go figure,...your tax dollars at work,....
[ June 08, 2010, 05:54 PM: Message edited by: Tim Barrow ]
-------------------- fly low...timi/NC is, Tim Barrow Barrow Art Signs Winston-Salem,NC Posts: 2224 | From: Winston-Salem,NC,USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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Same crap here.....that's why I will never "donate" to a redevelopment agency ever again!
-------------------- John Arnott El Cajon CA 619 596-9989 signgraphics1@aol.com http://www.signgraphics1.com Posts: 1443 | From: El Cajon CA usa | Registered: Dec 1998
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quote: well it seems she knew nothing about actually the actual process of painting the wall and far too much about the politics of art and convincing the locals of her capabilities.
That's it in a nut shell!
-------------------- Si Allen #562 La Mirada, CA. USA
(714) 521-4810
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siallen@dslextreme.com
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Brushasaurus on Chat Posts: 8831 | From: La Mirada, CA, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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