dedicated to  Brums hard working and often underestimated Graffiti/Street artists.

Whether you interested in old school graf, sticker kings and queens or just the general art scene around Birmingham this is the place for you.  Join me as I travel across the City noting the newest work as it happens!

Meanwhile, 6/8 Kafe have got work by Golden Boy, Lisk Bot and Miss150 adorning their walls until 19 November.

I am not an incredible photographer but I aim to fairly attractively show what’s happening on Birmingham’s streets, mostly in Digbeth. I’m also a Landscape Architecture student and knitter of toys and vandalism.

Where were you painting in those days?

Back then you couldn’t afford a train ticket; you’d get a coach down to Bristol with a bag of paint. Because I worked for Walsall Youth Arts, there were only three sites supported by the local authorities in the country; Barton Hill, Selly Oak and Walsall. The one in Walsall was called The Paddock, which was a sunken foundation for a block of flats. So we came up with the idea to take it over and develop it as a painting site on submission of all this bureaucracy. I became the caretaker of the place, so journeys to Bristol and Selly Oak became the backbone of my graffiti world.

There’s not a lot in Birmingham (yet?), but someone’s added three views of this:

This cool little video was spotted by Urbanfly. Made in celebration of Ninja Tune‘s 20th anniversary, they’ve taken over Shoreditch with the help of graffiti artist CHU who’s from Birmingham.

I spotted this in Forward, the lightly reprehensible propaganda rag that Birmingham City Council foists upon unsuspecting folk every once in a while. The general gist is that graffiti is great in the right place; bad in the wrong place. I paraphrase, so before taking issue with that you’d best read the original here (PDF). Anyway, there’s apparently a fund for getting rid of naughty graffiti, it’s a great success, etc and blah.

On the other hand, of course, Birmingham is a canvas – see canvasbirmingham.com for proof. That’ll be the difference between literal and metaphorical right there.

However, none of that is the point. I was pondering about how council folk can encourage what you might call ‘edgy and alternative elements’ of their city. Other places are known for the quality of their street art – name your own names there. Do they set out to foster that kind of thing? Is it included in glossy brochures selling their city? How did that happen?

In other news, this made me laugh like a drain.

You’ll also see designs/illustrations for nights at the Rainbow and if you see half a skateboard tied to a lamppost then chances are that’s AS1 too.

This here wall is a recent edition to Digbeth’s landscape and was done with Tempo33:

Covering walls in public places can’t be easy, but apparently (and here’s a tip):

no-one sees past a high vis jacket and a purposeful look….

Sounds like the Writing on the Wall event at The Rep the other night went well – it even created some amusing fuss on the event page’s comments thread.

There’s more Aerosol Arabic action at Bullring this weekend, with Mohammed Ali creating a big mural in the shopping centre.

There’s an online interactive element to this one – he’ll be taking suggestions from Twitter users for words, phrases, thoughts or whatever to influence his piece. Just tweet @lifefeelsbetter during the day.

After a fair amount of globetrotting, Mohammed Ali seems to be doing a fair bit more in his home city at the moment – there’s a snippet of him doing a bus tour of Birmingham mural’s from Midlands Today here too.

Mohammed Ali is holding an evening of live graffiti-art and poetry in The REP’s soon-to-be-demolished workshop (Kate Beatty’s photos of which you can see here) on 21 January 2010. Tickets available from The Rep.

Jonzi D is directing the event with Dreadlock Alien, (the superb) Zena Edwards and Amir Sulaiman performing new poetry.

After the performance itself you can pop into the workshop to see the graffiti on:

• Fri 22 Jan 4.30pm – 6.30pm
• Sat 23 Jan 12.00 – 2.00pm
• Tue 26 Jan 4.30 – 6.30pm

Apparently there are a few things happening in the workshop area before it’s knocked down. At this stage I have no more info than that. I’d go and investigate but right now there’s a cinnamon bun calling to me.