m@adie

Transitory in Nature

time, time, it’s so sublime
well they say it’s non-existent
but it’s playing with my mind
[Climbing -- The Meat Puppets]

I’ve uploaded another batch of photos, some of Montreal, but most of graffiti found along the Main. Outside of being interesting and sometimes beautiful, I think my fascination with graffiti is largely due to it’s transitory nature. While all graffiti (and murals) will fade and disappear in time, some of it seems to get wiped out without anyone (the royal anyone) even noticing…

  In March 2004 I took the photo to the top left; it was located on the north wall of a parking lot found on the west side of St Laurent (across the street from a booze can that I’d been to once or twice in my mid 20s — also taken by time). Apparently a building has now been built in it’s place, and my favorite quirky piece of graffiti is visible no more (I took the photo to the right earlier today). This is probably a sign that I should look up more often… change often comes as a shock to me because it’s complete by the time I notice.

  If you look at the photo to the bottom left, you’ll see a process of change that I did notice… of course I can’t remember what was there before they started the white washing. This photo is of the north side of the storage building located along the railroad tracks just above Bernard in Mile End; I’ll have to check in on it in the next couple of weeks to see their final product.

Hopefully this graffiti photo project of mine will have enough continuity to more broadly document the effects of time… of course it would help if I took note as to where each photo was taken but…