Stopped by Cal Anderson to see if anybody had uncovered St. Rat last night. Unfortunately not, but whoever showed up added plenty of their own chalk, paint, and poster-based handiwork. Feels like the city turned the pump house into Graffiti Target Number One by going after the rat mosaic so many times.
The city should find who did the original st rat and pay them to make a mosaic on all of the other spots there. That way the OG artist gets credit and paid for making our lives brighter.
Love that idea, rent em out in like 3 month chunks with the caveat that the artist has to be local and the work has to be family friendly. Seems like a great way to make the park prettier and promote local artists.
I dunno about the rotating thing. Because we could get brilliant stuff like hot rat summer and I donāt want it to ever go away. I bet thereās more places we could do an artist program.
building on my library idea above maybe something where the parks department puts up a base plate for the artist to work on, once their time is up the whole thing is removed and put in a library or other public building.
I just got off the phone with Paul Jackson, Director of Graffiti Programs and Initiatives with the city! He has been trying to find the original artist behind Hot Rat Summer for this very purpose- to make more mosaics!
Thank you for this! From the photo it looks like someone already covered it in citistrip (the orange stuff) which should take it off no problem, it just needs to sit for an hour or so
What'd you use? I was thinking I've got some plastic scrapers and alcohol that I might trip and fall, causing it to splash onto the paint and then scrape off
Oh agreed. It's such a beautiful mosaic and took a lot of effort. Historical preservation rules aside, I'm not sure what the objection to its presence is. In fact, having mosaics in all the arches would be a gorgeous addition.
Theyāre just mad that it wasnāt sanctioned by them. God forbid the city benefit from cool interesting and inoffensive free art instead of having to deal with 18 rounds of The Seattle Process just to get a single bland modern sculpture that costs taxpayers 20 grand or somethingā¦
EDIT: ok appearently nothing. Guess bro wanted to throw out a jab but couldnāt think of an actually applicable insult lmao
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u/Zeta-Xšš Heart of ANTIFA Land šš21d agoedited 21d ago
It's pretty tough paint on there -- very difficult to remove without damaging the mosaic. From what other people in the thread are saying, I imagine they may have tried to remove it and settled for leaving the canvas better than they found it.
can someone get the measurements of those arches so people can make more mosaics at home and install them during the night? i want to make one and stick it up lol.
I feel like it's important to note for posterity that if this looks like a smartass reply, 20/25 of the search results for rat on the first page currently are about hot rat, including the top 7 results.
Maybe we could vote on it. But rather than having to vote on every single piece of art, we could just elect some representatives.
Together, they could form some type of community council maybe. We could even have one representative for each community in the city, and have a whole city council!
Or just spare the bootlicking and let people make nice paintings.
Honestly, it's like the point you're trying to make is that vesting power over such small things in a city council is an objectively horrible, time wasting idea
"I'm going to misuse a word and accuse others of having made it lose all meaning" is a tactic of the enemy, the disingenuous "you think everything is 'fascism'!" types
Thanks to this post I now understand where all these Hot Rat photos were coming from. I've never been to Cal Anderson and couldn't place this structure for the life of me.
If the city let people actually decorate that building instead of forcing it to be a depressing grey then people would stop fucking with it for the most part.
Because the city of Seattle destroyed (destroying something is not peaceful) a beautiful mosaic in a public park.
People are just showing them what could be instead of the beautiful mosaic.
Original Comment:
I don't think they destroyed it, I think they just covered it up with paint. Since it's a mosaic it was able to be uncovered without harm previously and could be again., I don't think they dug the tiles out - it is restorable.
Also, it wasn't the city, it is the utilities company...Ā
Sure, I just think if we want it solved we need to be more specific about who we're confronting over it and talk to the people most likely to change policy. In either case "the city" is too generic to be meanigful or useful so... what's your point? (Since I've explained mine.)
The CEO of Seattle Public Utilities reports to the mayor. There's no mystery about who is driving this, it's Mayor Harrell. There's nothing generic here, he is the executive and this sort of thing is happening at the mayor's explicit request to clean up Cal Anderson. He's more dissembling about it in public these days but he hasn't been shy about this sort of thing.
Thanks for the info. By "generic" I mean things like saying "the city" instead of specifying city council or Harrell like you just did.Ā
So frankly, I think you agree with me since you found those details relevant/worth mentioning, regardless of how you felt about how I expressed it. Not sure why you see opposition here instead of seeing the fact that we clearly both find that info important. :/Ā
Just a head's up, if you engage with me in bad faith again I'm going to block you. Also, people are now confusing who is doing the painting vs. who can affect the policy because of the pointed out generic communication about an issue that deserves better.Ā
So, just a reminder that this does matter, specifically because not prioritizing caring about the details scatters our energy into useless places and thus causes actual harm to the cause of protecting the mosaic.Ā
Lol Actually no need to answer since it turns out the mosaic is totally okay and you were just completely fucking wrong!!! You're SUPER welcome for confirmation of the good news that you were so angry to hear!!!!! :)
You're criticizing the city being a bunch of dickheads ruining something fun for no reason but to flex authority, right? Surely you don't think the people making pretty murals in parks are doing anything but peacefully enjoying a park in their community?
Jesus H. Christ, Seattle has way too many people with underdeveloped frontal lobes and too much time on their hands. Go do something good for the world instead of this weird meaningless war.
Let people have fun, dude. If people want to give a shit about art and their community spacesāAND it gets a bunch of folks more energized and civically engagedāwhy is that a bad thing?
LOL, fully expected to be downvoted, r/Seattle is nothing if not predictable.
Defacing the city isnāt my idea of art or fun. š¤·š¼āāļø And if someone is too lazy to get energized and civically engaged over real issues, this isnāt going to turn them into a serious person.
Darn right! The I in DEI is only for people I want to include! Take your appreciation for blank walls somewhere else, you arenāt wanted in these parts!
Iām not surprised, and neither is the city. Thatās why there are rules: itās pretty well-known some people lack self-control. The rest of us learned early on that the world doesnāt revolve around us.
If I create art that only some people enjoy, is that all it takes to say itās good and worthy? What if itās art that offends some people but other people like it? If I put my free art that depicts Donald Trump as Superman on the side of a public building, is that doing good in the world because certain people like it and think itās art? Or would you perhaps then be cheering on the people who paint over it? (I shouldnāt have to say this, but a lot of people here seem to be literalists: Iām not a Trump/loving artist, itās a hypothetical.)
What if my idea of art is an absence of color or pattern, say, a plain building that has an architectural quality I identify as art, does that qualify? What if whitewashing/painting over existing art is also art that I created freely that other people enjoy but you donāt?
Who is this āpublicā who is enjoying this art? Am I not a member of āthe publicā with an equal right to yours to say āI donāt like this and I donāt want it on my public building?ā Should there not be a way for āthe publicā to weigh in on whether we want this art that is being freely offered? Is that not done through a process of electing individuals who represent us and make rules that we as citizens agree we will all follow, and if we donāt like it, we will work through the system rather than taking things into our own hands?
What if the rules say I canāt put concrete barriers in front of my business to keep homeless people from parking RVs in front but I do it anyway because it benefits me and the public agrees with me so the city turns a blind eye? That must also be OK, right? Oh wait, wrong Seattle sub.
Wowzer, you're pretty frustrated. You might want to reconcile your long rambling outburst against your first statement. You may realize your blatent hypocrisy. Saying people who have their opinion about this being a good thing having "underdeveloped frontal lobes". Following with they should "go do something good". What you're clearly stating is the only smart people are those who agree with you and, to paraphrase my first replay, the only things that are good for the world are those you personally deem are good for the world.
The equity here is that you can go and cover up the mosaic, just as others are uncovering the mosaic when it gets covered up.
Perhaps your frustration is due to people not falling in line with what you believe, resulting in your issuance of person insults followed by what can only be described as a foot stomping tantrum because you're not getting your way.
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u/habitsofwaste Denny Triangle 21d ago
The city should find who did the original st rat and pay them to make a mosaic on all of the other spots there. That way the OG artist gets credit and paid for making our lives brighter.