Save Self Expression

So this weekend I was in Ann Arbor for my Dad and my Sister's birthdays, though in hindsight I feel guilty about spending barely a half day with them. A friend and I walked around downtown for a while and she showed me this alleyway that was just filled with graffiti. It was a brilliant surprise, walking amongst this street you've traveled a million times before, and discovering this little niche of beauty that you didn't even know existed. Somehow though, I seem to think I've been there before, when I was small, maybe 3 or 4. I don't know why, there was just something familiar about it.


Anyways, the space was great, sort of a brick lined hallway with out a roof. The amalgamation of several buildings being placed right to the allowable set back, leaving this space. Aside from the context which makes graffiti so poignant to begin with (self expression, passage of ideas, counter culture, etc...) the site was intriguing by it's hidden locale within the century old college town. What really got me though, was the condition on this given day. The walls and ground were covered in a sheet of ice. It had snowed the night before and the temperature was up around 30 allowing the snow to melt and refreeze. There is something compelling about this place, surely concidered dirty by the middle aged and elite, wrapped up in a clean sheet of ice. It's as if it had been covered in a sheet of cellophane, protected, encased, sterilized. Also, the fact that it was wrapped by Nature somehow adds a layer of complexity to this condition. It's like Earth was trying to preserve our self expression. If you wanted to remove the graffiti, or paint over it, you would have to chisel through this sheet of ice first. Its as if Nature was standing up for all the individuals that might be judged by the comments on this wall. Whether what they had to say was important, significant, or even thought provoking didn't matter. Every voice was guarded by this sheet of pure H2O. A place where the homeless sleep, filled with radiator fans, and broken windows somehow purified by the winter.