Sour Grapes - issue 4, 2014

issue 4, 2014

Hello,

I just read your article, 9.8.2013 [“Reykjavík’s War on Street Art”], about the street art in Reykjavik.

A year or two ago, I travelled with my son to Iceland. I felt a particular connection to the people and land of Iceland. This manifested itself, in part, in my interest in the statues & art, particularly the graffiti. I took pictures of these, and am including some in a poetry book I will be self-publishing soon. You can download my present draft at:

http://www.merryclarkster.net/without-rhyme-or-reason.html

If there is any fund which has been created to help support street art in Reykjavik, I would like to donate what meager profit I reap from my poetry book. Please let me know if a fund exists. I hope to self-publish on Espresso Books Machines in the next few weeks.

Thanks,

Merry Clarkster

“Graffiti–Thou art democracy”

Hæ Merry,

We’re big fans of Reykjavík’s street art and are delighted that you’d like to help support it. We don’t know of a specific fund which promotes local graffiti, but we mentioned your idea to Hitt Húsið, Reykjavík’s local youth organization. They’ve run youth programs led by local graffiti artists in the past and would be very pleased to receive any donations for the purpose of offering similar street art programming in the future. You can contact them at hitthusid@hitthusid.is.

A lot of fantastic Rvk street art has gone the way of the Great Auk (read: it was huge and beautiful, but now is gone) since we published the article you read and appreciated, but if you ever want to look back at some great bygone art for inspiration, check out Grapevine’s street art walking tour map: http://goo.gl/8QS6Dr. You can also see new pieces on the Facebook page Graffiti Reykjavik: facebook.com/GraffitiReykjavik

Artistically,

The Grapevine

From Andrew Munz in Wyoming, USA, via Facebook:

Your logo sneaked its way into our newspaper in Wyoming.

Andrew, this is a most unexpected and absolutely delightful bit of transcontinental shout-outry. We are raising a toast to you and your fellow Wyomans as we speak (even though its only 2:30 on a Tuesday here). Skál!

It’s just so weird that the one random Wyoming town that I live in now carries a liquor from the one random place in the world I’ll be moving in 30 days. I’m actually moving to Akureyri to be a whale watching guide (not random at all…), so I’m enjoying the happenstance.

This is all extremely weird and awesomely not-random. (From Wyoman to Whale Guide, huh?) One of those “wow—it’s such a small world!” things, except that the world is totally huge and that is why things like this are always really surprising. (We should qualify and say that it’s a totally huge world except in Iceland—Iceland is a legitimately small world all in itself…you’ll see.)

Anyway, góða ferð and velkominn in advance!

The Grapevine