Local News & Love
Red Line D.C. has lots to be thankful for. Besides the awesome turnout at Salon Contra, there has also been strong support of our project online. Since its launch 4 days ago, our Indiegogo campaign has raised $575. Fundraising for The Red Line D.C. Project has been encouraged by word of mouth, with loyal fans and Red line enthusiasts promoting and re-posting our links on Facebook and Twitter.
The timeliness of our project has also made it a hot topic in the blogosphere. The ArtsDesk column of the Washington City Paper offered a little pre-Contra publicity. And yesterday’s TBD post put the spotlight on our efforts to give context to all the recent and coming changes on the Red line.
We’re grateful for all the community support and media coverage. As our 6/15 event approaches, let’s keep the momentum going and our energy up!
Read All About It …
August 2011: Wall between Brookland-CUA & Fort Totten metro stations before being painted by MuralsDC.
As a fitting farewell to our summer of graffiti, this week’s issue of the Washington City Paper featured a cover story on the city’s complicated relationship with legal murals and unsanctioned art. Writer Jonna McKone included some familiar names to the fray: Cory Stowers, art director of Words, Beats & Life, Inc.; artist Tim Conlon; and writer FAME — all of whom have been interviewed or involved in Red Line D.C.‘s development in some way, shape or form. (The documentary was given a quick shout-out, too. Woot! Woot!) Before reporting out the WCP article, entitled “Tagging Rights,” McKone did a similar story for WAMU that followed FAME as he hit the line. Both pieces of reporting point to the odd positioning of graffiti culture in D.C., and elsewhere, as more street art finds its way into classrooms, galleries and public art exhibits.
The cultural and artistic tensions that McKone discusses directly inform our work for this project. As MuralsDC adds color to more legal walls around the city, including those along the red line, the significance of these open displays of art becomes increasingly difficult to frame. Is the red line just an old relic of underground art legends, a low-stakes territory for little-known, newbie writers or a transitional place seeing “progress” through public artworks? Clearly, there’s still lots for us to mull over at Red Line D.C. Though, our minds are fixed on a spring/summer release for the documentary, we remain open to the myriad of possibilities for our project. The growing interest in graffiti culture and resulting media attention pushes us to ask: What will Red Line D.C. contribute to the discussion? McKone leaves much room for questioning, as well. She writes, “As the graffiti bubble grows bigger and bigger, its contradictions are being painted in vivid color.” And its with this vast, contradicting color palette in mind, that we set off to paint our own picture …
What do you think? Listen to McKone’s WAMU story, take a gander at the City Paper article and be sure to let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
