More than bricks

Watching the news this evening the main story dealt with a no-good-punk-kid who was badly injured when climbing inside a grain elevator (what's a grain elevator? this is a grain elevator (LINK)). The grain elevator in question is located in north Minneapolis.

It’s a magnificent structure and focal point for graffiti artists. The smooth concrete walls are heavily sprayed with every color under the sun. Martha and I took a bike ride there last summer to check it out because it looks like one of those places on a demolition list. It had all the traits of an abandoned industrial facility, smell of piss, carpet of beer bottles, homeless people taking shelter, hundreds of golf balls both inside and outside. Golf balls? Martha, being a shrewd logician, deduced that kids were driving golf balls at the building in a competitive window smashing game.

That day was one of the first times I paid attention to and investigated something that has been forgotten by the city. I’ll never forget it.

My pursuit of photography has ingrained in me the adage: carpe diem, seize the day. I’ve been burned many times by my failure to understand the necessity of this thinking. “Sure, I can photograph that tomorrow, the light will be better then… What’s the rush? That old blue car will still be there next weekend… I’ll just go home and get a better lens…” Never happens. The moment is always lost. Beating the odds is rare and rewarding. The University of Minnesota secretly and mercilessly tore down this (LINK) masterpiece of golden brick a few days after we had explored it. Later that month I saw “RIP MGK” sprayed on a wall nearby. Graphic and anonymous remorse for something that was so much more than just stone, glass and steel.

I find it fascinating that people I don’t even know can mirror my thoughts with what they write directly “onto” the surface of the city. A similar incident occurred late in September. It was a warm evening, t-shirt temperature. I wanted to ride my bike forever, pulling energy from my incessant enthusiasm for everything I saw, smelled and heard. I came across a few grain cars down at the train tracks. One of them had a nice piece of graffiti on it. Look what the guy wrote to the right (LINK) of the photo. Maybe you needed to be there too but it was like he was encouraging appreciation of how his work interacted with the rust, colors and the quality of the light given off by the setting sun. Amazing.

If only I could better write the words that explain the world ((LINK), (LINK)) I have discovered. I'll keep trying.