Wednesday 26 November 2008

Am I improving?


So this is my second try at stitch graffiti. It’s a small one on Brick Lane, E1 London. I decided to do it at 1:30am on a Monday morning because no-one would be stupid enough to be up then right? Wrong! There where still some drunken students and some actual authentic drunks and worst of all; there was a guy (who sounded American) who wouldn’t stop watching me do my 'graffiti', asking what my tag name is and how i came up with the idea.I don’t have a name. Why should i? I'm not doing it for cool points Mr.; unlike himself who later couldn’t help but tell me he is a graffiti artist and i should look his name up "smiff with one f". I honestly don’t care about that world I just want to make people think and hopefully see that 'love stinks if you don’t act on it!'

but saying that: I'm really nervous that this man will steal my style. He kept asking how i was doing it, what wool i use, how i came up with the ideas, how i decide on designs and come up with designs etc etc. He saw my little scrap of cross stitch fabric with ideas on (and this one on i was using as a reference) and you could hear the cogs turning in his head. I told him it would be disrespectful if he stole my style but he just smirked.= Smif if you are out there: Please don’t do it! Please don’t steal my style! :(

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Maybe the person in question was just curious about your motivations and maybe the fact that they were so generous by giving you their graffiti name was just a red herring. If you wanted to meet somebody with cheap street fame maybe you should have paid attention to the only "crackhead" across the road that didn't scatter when the police came past, afterall that's the person who sent "smiff" to poke his nose about.

Nobody is going to steal your style, I think it is more likely they wanted to test if you understood that once you put something in the public domain, you don't own it... you failed.

Anonymous said...

and I'm pretty sure he said "put my name up" not "look my name up"

Kakariki said...

yeah with all due respect, it's hardly your style. People have been cross stitching fences before you and will do so after you. This is a good thing! As far as I'm concerned, all fences should have cross stitch on them.

If you think you can copyright street art then you've seriously missed the point of doing street art.

Anonymous said...

kakariki- if you know anyone who does xstitch graffiti on horizonal and vertical grids instead of the only ones ive seen on diagonal (in australia zines) can you let me know where to find there stuff and how to contact them please?

- ive been searching the internet for similar stuff to get ideas from and support and advice from the craftivists but cant find any.

again, confirming my feelings of loneliness :(

Anonymous said...

Ah the elusive square grid fence! The problem with this part of the world is that there aint many of them! I always have a little eye out. The diagonal style grid is heaps harder to work with from a design point of view. The one we did in Newcastle was on a square grid http://radicalcrossstitch.com/2007/10/21/cross-stitching-fences/ There's some nice close up shots that might be useful.

xox

Jane said...

this fear is the 'control freak' in you that you mentioned in an earlier post.
Let it go, free yourself.