Wall on Divis 04282012

Truck 04282012

Dan Plasma from Sylvia Toy on Vimeo.

Linden Alley 04272012

tryna function from Sylvia Toy on Vimeo.

Locks Again, Market & Van Ness

Locks Again from Sylvia Toy on Vimeo.

this graffiti fan video includes a previously shot clip of the same installation of locks at Market & Van Ness in San Francisco. in the last week, i realized that there were more locks. yesterday morning, i realized the painting on the locks had become more ornate, with a repeated logo i have come to recognize. i do not know who the artist is, but the work is distinct.

montage on Linden Alley

i have been waiting for three weeks for someone to do something interesting on this fence. it turns out that it took all the graffitists and taggers on the block together to create some cool looking shit.

Face on Laguna 04132012

Face on Laguna 04132012

i m h o

two weeks ago, i was late for work because a video was taking so long to compress. i was late for work, so when i saw two wonderful new line drawings on the north wall of the Franklin Garage, i had to pass up shooting them until the next morning. the Franklin Garage is friendly to street painting, so i wasn't afraid they'd paint over it. so, the next morning, i had just pulled out the Flip Mino when i saw that somebody had scribbled over the drawings - not even tagged them, just scribbled like two-year olds. i am only a fan and the politics of street art are none of my business. but deleting somebody else's work is deleting somebody else's work in my humble opinion, whether it's the City, a property owner or just a person with bad manners and a Sharpie who's in a bad mood.

- sylvia

this post is shared with Do You Want To Buy My Brain.

Madonna (still from 'Our Lady of the Golden Automatics'), circa late February-March 2012

I shot video of this painting while my husband were on our way to Market Street Safeway in San Francisco. The Madonna was on a wall in the Lower Haight on Laguna Street where street painting is permitted. My husband came home a few days later and told me the painting was gone. I've lived in America for 60 years and grew up like everyone else with all our culture's ambiguous triangular relationship with religion and censorship. There are plenty of taggers (usually no-talents) who deface, erase and paint over serious artists' work. The paint job over the Madonna was an institutional color - that means it was an official act of censorship. That makes me sad.

Locks 04102012

Locks 04102012 from Sylvia Toy on Vimeo.

Shoe Painting, Market Street 04012012

Shoe Painting, Market Street 04012012 from Sylvia Toy on Vimeo.

would never have shot this - on first sight it just looks messy. but in one of my past lives, i was a painter (rather, tried to be) and cleaned a LOT of brushes. and i realized that this "painter" probably sacrificed a pair of shoes to make this OIL painting on the sidewalk. intent is 9/10ths of process, in my book.

Hayes Street, 04072012

Slapocalypse 2012 @ Chopsticks: Urban Art Space

Drawing, Franklin & Page 04022012

'Breakn Da Bank'

i think this was signed - so sorry that it is difficult to read what i think is branding in whitish letters near the bottom of the middle section ...