viz.

My favorite genre of graffiti is work that comments on its immediate surroundings. In east Austin, this type of graffiti tends to refer to the seemingly unending gentrification of neighborhoods further and further out. Remember the fancy convenience stores I mentioned last time? Ones where you can buy $6 ice cream sandwiches? The image above is a defunct gas station that appears to have been purchased recently, so I think we can all imagine what's coming next. This graffiti artist—in their own, special, nostalgia-soaked way—wants to encourage visitors to the area to be critical of this expansion. See also: the time Hillside Farmacy's sign was edited to read "Hipster Farmacy." 

As effective and important as it is to point out the community-destroying tendencies of new developments, it can get a little old: it's certainly a lament we hear often enough in this town. So I'm also drawn to graffiti that points out something unexpected or unnoticed in its particular locale. Take, for example, the gem above from the alley at 21st and Guad. I pass by this most days, and it makes me laugh pretty much every time. It refers to something a) palpable, b) not usually mentioned, c) gross, and d) ubiquitous in this central Texas roaming feline-palooza. It's also a comment on the ephemerality and dynamic quality of urban environments that graffiti is conscious of and participates in. Of course, like most things, it could also refer to a strain of weed. But I say the arrow suggests otherwise.  

Image courtesy of Rhiannon Goad

Here, finally, is an image that appeared on my Instagram feed last week. It's another version of annotative graffiti, but one with a bit more depth than "Cat piss." "Dont open / dead inside" is cryptic, poetic, and kind of hilarious. It's also (as a friend had to point out to me) taken from The Walking Dead, which makes it all the more referential, but slightly less creative.