Banksy Day!

This Saturday morning, we awoke and came up with a plan of setting out into the city and seeing every Banksy mural. If you don't know about Banksy, here is a link to his website http://www.banksy.co.uk/index.html, so you can go check him out. He is an anonymous street artist who goes by the name of Banksy and is famous for his black and white street art, often with red graffiti lettering near by and a political meaning. His murals originally began springing up in the early 2000's in the UK, but can now be seen many places around the world. I absolutely love his work! I think he is amazing. Anyway, Meghan, Barrett, Corinna and I decided to go on an expedition: 6 Murals, 6 Miles, 6 Hours 6 Courses. We kept great photo documentation, and even kept a Captain's log. We also turned this walking expedition into a progressive picnic, hence the 6 courses. We packed a course for each mural, where we stopped to eat it...lots of food haha. The first one was on Haight St., but when we arrived, we discovered that it had been whitewashed. If you look closely, you can see that it was painted over. From looking it up later, we know this one was a rat (one of his staple images). You can see Barrett, Corinna and Meghan were sad...then it started to rain as we ate our first course of cheese and crackers, sitting down on the steps of a store and then sharing our snack with some homeless hippies near by. Despite the disappointment of the first mural being gone, we did not loose heart and proceeded to pick some dandelions as we passed Buena Vista Park, heading for The Mission. When we finally arrived, after the long walk to from Haight Ashbury to The Mission District, only to discover a blank wall again. This too was on the side of a building and had been whitewashed. We were so depressed we stopped for lunch at the park across the street.

The third mural we found also in The Mission. This one was still there, but had been quite defaced by graffiti. We began to loose hope...

...but then we found a dinosaur mural (not by Banksy) and our persistence was restored.We headed down Mission St., coming to where SOMA and The Mission border each other. There we saw our first pristine Banksy...pretty cool!There were also some koi on the ground near the mural. These are not by Banksy either, but I thought it was a good time to mention that these appear all over the city-there literally must be hundreds. It's really quite fun to be walking along and then stumble upon some more fish at your feet. Have I mentioned I love this place? ;)

As we made our way through SOMA, we passed by my workplace. So, there is The Arc :) The fifth Banksy was also a sucess! A rat on the corner of 13th and Howard.

We were really excited, as you can see... Isn't his style so neat?

All the way in Chinatown, was where the next one was. This one has been preserved by some plastic over top and is on a side St. off of Grant. Pretty cool, no?

We were exhausted by this time and sat down in front of it to enjoy our last course of food. During that time, we had some rather strange encounters. First, we asked some people to take our picture in front of it. The people were going on and on about how this was a Banksy and then when they take our picture, the picture is just of us. Now why would you zoom in on the four of us for a picture where we are clearly crouching down in front of something, especially if you know the significance of that something? Oh well, we got another picture with the mural haha. Some other people that walked up, asked us if this was a Banksy mural. We replied that it was and then one of them says to the other two, "Yeah, guys that is why they are eating in front of it."

"No, we were just hungry" Corinna said.

"Oh, you aren't doing some type of Banksy ritual?" she asked

What the heck is a "Banksy ritual"? Whatever.

A few minutes after that, these British people walked by and their child escaped from their clutches to chase a pigeon, which happened to be at us. Never in my life have I seen a look of pure rage like that on a human face. This little five year old kid looked like he was out for blood as he swung his foot at that pigeon and screamed. All the while, his parents were calling "No, Jimmy! Come back!" I felt sorry for them, but it was hilarious at the same time; especially when Corinna began screaming because the pigeon was coming nearer to where we were sitting on the sidewalk.

Aw, some love from Meghan. :)

What an incredibly fun, yet long day. When we came back home, we all crashed. It was so worth it though. I had also heard that there was a Banksy in North Beach, which we didn't make it to. We looked it up, and sure enough there is. We were all very disappointed we hadn't completed our journey, but at the same time, I don't think any of us could have made it to North Beach after our other six miles. So, one final one to be seen...