I showed up at the flower place today where I did my "awesome" mural to talk to the owner. He said..."I've got four comments on the mural and one of them was good. Everybody liked it but they didn't think the piece fit into the image of the store. In peticular the God is Awesome part I mean I'm a christian too everybody at this store is a christian it's just I've worked hard for this store and your mural will cost us business. People found God is Awesome offensive and they were christians too. I mean you expect to see that kind of thing in a church but not on a wall. So I gotta get that thing off the wall on saturday."
I get the whole thing but one thing I just can't understand is how God is Awesome is more offensive to christians than the swear words that were there before. Three people (some or all of which were christian) came off the street and complained that a generic message of God is Awesome was offensive. I didn't say Jesus is the only way and everybody else is going to hell. G-O-D is more offensive than *-*-*-*. That's a sign of the times and it's sad. We as christians gotta work hard at our public image and not just sit back and think everything's Ok because really, people hate us, they hate our message and they want to sterilize us... Only in the church they say...
Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. John 3:20
6 comments:
It is so weird and I don't understand it, but the main thing is that it's just sad. Try not to let yourself carry an offense either! Your work is great .. it's between them and Someone else...
Thanks Shona. You're right, I gotta calm down a tad. I shouldn't be so proud, I did it for God and if God wants to use it for 7 years or just a day than it's none of my business. I kinda just wish that we lived in a more religious-friendly envronment. Or that it was atheists who complained.
P.S. I'm changed he blog later and took out the swear words.
Being a guy, I'm rather keen to offer suggestions and try to help "fix" it. My apologies ahead of time...
Your visual art often requires a bit of thought to see properly. The lettering in particular can take a bit to understand correctly. Maybe you should do something similar with the messages as well.
For example, "Change" or "New Man" could be themes. Put a subtle reference to a verse in the corner and let people make the connection. In the case of this particular store, "growth" or "beauty" might be good themes.
Not to say blatant messages are bad. I certainly love 'em. But for certain venues, this approach might work well.
Compromising? What's most important, the medium or the message? Me, I hold compromise as a positive trait, not a negative one. Um, except for when I don't. :)
yeah, I'll never comprimise the message. For me that's what I do it for. The art is cool and that's why I have a blackbook but, when I display my work in a public forum it's the message that's most important. Otherwize the message will be graffiti is cool and personally I want a more significant message than just praising the art form because that's what's gonna happen anyway. Comprimise is a big theme that I've been learning about on this wall. After the owner decided he didn't like it he wanted me to do some flowers over top and kind of hinted at just removing the arrows and the "God is awesome". [sarcasm]I know, we can just change it to "flowers are awesome!" that's the message I want to send to the world [/sarcasm] With the way the owner's (and my own) frame of mind was at the time I didn't really think it was gonna come out with a comprimise that we could both be happy with.
enos, I don't really know if there are other writers on blogspot who blog about graffiti, You're the first one I've met. I've looked a little but haven't got anywhere.
I appreciate that man, for me being a spraypaint artist isn't nessisarily about the act. It's about not limiting my audience to a museum but putting it out on the street so the thugs and the homeless can see it too. It's about doing what I want to do not just giving my talent over to whoever pays for it. When you lose the message and just focus on the art you can easily be swayed by others who do care about thier message and start doing really nice art for pepsi. Which is worse than "death". Style is part of you unless you try to strangle it within it will come out in everything you do. Why put style into it? because people have a tendancy to ignore tags and billboards. Why did stayhigh, taki and those guys in the seventies start doing it bigger, with colours, and with style? cuz it grabs peoples attention. Oh and yeah maybe it's the fumes but when you stand back and look at a big piece that came off so tight not even the buff can take that away.
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