By John A. Barry And Bill Carmel
E-mail John A. Barry And Bill Carmel
About this blog: John Barry is the creator of trAction Painting, a process/performance genre in which he applies paint to large surfaces with bicycles, roller skates, and other wheeled conveyances. With Bill Carmel and other associates, he has bro...
(More)About this blog: John Barry is the creator of trAction Painting, a process/performance genre in which he applies paint to large surfaces with bicycles, roller skates, and other wheeled conveyances. With Bill Carmel and other associates, he has brought trAction Painting events to local schools and summer camps. He also creates visual puns. His works are included in several private collections. John has authored/coauthored a dozen books, including Technobabble and Sunburst: The Ascent of Sun Microsystems. John can be contacted at
[email protected] or 925-918-7882.
Bill Carmel has 35 years' experience as a professional artist. His fine art paintings, sculptures, and designs are included in private, corporate, and public art collections in the United States, Europe, and Australia. After teaching at Humboldt State University and Southern Illinois University, he returned to the Bay Area, where he remains active in the arts by serving as a co-curator for the Lamorinda Arts Council's Orinda Gallery and by exhibiting throughout the Bay Area. Bill reviews exhibits at SFMOMA, the De Young and Palace of Fine Arts museums, and other Bay Area exhibition venues. Bill can be contacted at
[email protected]
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Graffiti: the word conjures images of urban blight, tagging, spray paint, non-color-matched swaths of painted patchwork rolled on to cover up the offending tags. But partway up the Remington Loop Trail in Las Trampas, two large sans serif uppercase white letters stand out against carefully graded ochre gravel on the side of a hill. Constructed of nailed-down fabric, the letters withstood 50 mph gusts ripping through Las Trampas on February 6. This work of agrarian graffiti appears to have been completed recently.
The two letters are
TF and apparently don't stand for "tutti frutti," "too far," or "Town fatheads"?uh, "fathers." Speculation is that the letter pair was constructed by high school students and represents, as the Urban Dictionary puts it:
urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=tf
Regardless of the letters' meaning, their creators employed skill and dexterity to affix them to the hill. They had to schlep in the materials, grade the hillside, line off the letters, and nail them down?all without getting caught.
On a very small scale, this work is reminiscent of that of Christo, who wrapped the Reichstag in fabric and created Running Fence in Marin County. Christo had permission for his massive projects. One assumes that the TFers did not and completed their work on the sly?like any good graffiti artist.
I'm guessing these letters won't last long?done in either by the elements or authorities of some agency.
As to this blog entry: that's finished.
