More shots of graffiti from around the San Francisco Amoeba Music on Haight Street - including some pics from directly across the street from Amoeba.

On a recent trip to the Haight Street Amoeba, I once again found myself drawn to the outside walls of  Amoeba Music San Francisco - specifically the top part of the wall outside from Haight Street down to the corner of the alley (away from Golden Gate Park) that leads to the parking lot where all that gradually changing wall of graf lays in beautiful, bright colorful wait - including the barred windows with their intricate tags that always remind me of stumbling upon some hieroglyphics in some ancient cave.

Luckily on the day I took these pics - including above - I caught the Amoeba parking lot almost empty - with only one car parked in front of those beloved droopy eyed heads that offer comfort to many an admirer. There will be another set of pics (Part V) posted in a week -  also taken recently and featuring more of the graf around SF Amoeba.







But today I passed a red brick apartment  building with an ugly ole tag rudely scrawled along the side of it - and I thought to myself: I guess homeboy didn't get the memo!

If you've ever checked out the murals on the outside walls of the three Amoeba Music stores (Hollywood, Berkeley, San Francisco) you may have noticed a similarity in styles between all three. That's because the same two artists, Larry Smulian as designer and Brian Blesser as art executor, contributed their art to the outside of all three music stores.  "Larry does all our ad art, and Brian did our murals on the front of Berkeley way back when, and the side of Haight street, and the top of the front of Haight," said Amoeba Music's Marc Weinstein.




Note that these artists contributed to the Ivar side of the Hollywood Amoeba (not the Cahuenga side of building - more on that art and the artist who created it in a later amoeblog) and that they are not responsible for the graffiti art side of the Haight Street store.





 Most of the pics displayed here in this BLOG are from the Haste Street side of the Berkeley Amoeba Music store and are chosen because they are among this blogger's favorites for many reasons including the historical content's significance -  mainly being the fact that they represent the period during the 1960's history of Berkeley's Peoples Park - which is steeped in radical political activism - not to mention that People's Park is directly behind Amoeba Berkeley in the same block bordered by Telegraph & Bowditch and Haste & Dwight.

This is the third and final part in this particular graffiti-outside-Amoeba Music, San Francisco photo gallery. In the future there will be another series of pictures (some new, some not included here, and some of the same pieces from different angles) from outside Amoeba Music, San Francisco.

That next upcoming series will also include some of the graffiti in the immediate surrounding area on Haight Street - such as that parking lot on the corner and the building directly across from Amoeba on the other side of Haight Street.

But for now here are more shots of graf in that alley on that one side of the Amoeba building off Haight Street. As with the other two parts in this series - posted a few days ago - please feel free to add any stories (good or bad) or opinions (pro or con) on graffiti, or the URLS linking to cool graffiti websites, etc.,  in the COMMENTS box (scroll way down) below. Thanks!

                

    After yesterday's AMOEBLOG (the first part of this three part showcase of the graffiiti art outside Amoeba Music on Haight St.) two good comments were posted - both positive/pro graffiti art. Melissa in SF wrote that she is also in favor of graffiti as art but how she'd "wish they'd clean up them big heads in the back...it's all messed up with cheap tags and dirt, and that has been my fave piece forever!" - this in reference to one of the heads captured in the pic to the left here and also below in four pics. I agree with Melissa.  And to me these particular images are just so striking that I literally could stand (or sit) in front of them for hours on end gazing upon their blinding beauty. And truth-be-told I have spent a lot of time doing just that - sitting down for long periods and slowly taking in the street art in front of me.  It's no different than going to a gallery/museum and allowing ample time to fully absorb an art exhibit.  Which reminds me of one time a few years ago downtown San Francisco on opening night for the MoMa for some hot hot show. I wish I could remember exactly what the new about-to-be-unveiled exhibit was. It was one of those really well-publicized and hyped exhibits that everyone was talking about at the time...kinda like the buzz surrounding the ongoing Vivienne Westwood show in SF.  But anyways the point was that it was opening night and there was a huge mob of people (many there to be seen or to simply chug down the complimentary wine and cheese) all queuing up outside.  In fact the line was so long it snaked all the way down Third Street towards Mission and around the corner down this little alley/side street.  But on that side street on that chilly San Francisco evening, as everyone was chatting and looking ahead wishing for the line to move faster, right to their left (behind a wire fence) were all these stunningly beautiful fresh graffiti pieces.  But the people in line, anxious to get inside, all seemed to ignore the street art that (in my opinion at the time) was way better than the exhibit inside.  The point being that street art, like the graffiti that adorns the outside walls of Amoeba SF and across the street from the store too and all around the immediate Haight Street 'hood, is in reality a wonderful public art gallery there to be enjoyed and better still, it never has a cover charge.