Graffiti at Evergreen Brickworks in Toronto
Donning our cranky costumes of logic and cause-and-effect, we may flatly deny it. But this planet, our home, is all about roundness and things coming round.
Some parts of cities are too rectangular and solid. Young men go to these places and put the curves back with the arc of their skateboards and the sprawl of their graffiti.
Anne Herbert, Peace and Love and Noticing the Details
I first learned of Anne Herbert through The Improvised Life – anne herbert’s wise + teeny meditations.
Herbert was a writer and editor of CoEvolution Quarterly, a magazine of The Whole Earth Catalog in the 80’s. She wrote a blog called Peace and Love and Noticing the Details from July 2005 until June 2012.
And then, nothing. She just stopped. And there is no record as to what she’s doing now. It’s a mystery.
Her writing is contemplative, thoughtful, and tells it like it is. I have unending gratitude and appreciation that her work is still available online and I re-visit it regularly.
More
A post by Kevin Kelly on Anne Herbert
What do Abstract Expressionism and Graffiti have in Common?
Note: The image above came from the Evergreen Brickworks in Toronto. It used to be a factory for making bricks. While sitting empty for many years, it became covered with graffiti. In being restored as a place that hosts a farmers’ market, garden market, and teaches about sustainable living, it was decided to leave the graffiti on most of the walls in the building. The building is often used as a movie set and for parties and conferences.
Kim, thanks to this posting I have been discovering Anne Herbert’s wonderful wisdom. What a gift she is! I feel so close to her way of being in the world, her words are like twinkling streams meandering inside of me, bringing simplicity and light wherever they flow.
I know that I shall return to the links you give here to be nourished by their simplicity and philosophy.
Today, I shall meditate on this: “Do less; have less; be more”. Just perfect for where I am in my life now!
Thank you for sharing such lovely things!
As usual, I forget to talk about your image … as the words have filled me up leaving little space for the visual!
I am not a Graffiti fan as much of it defaces so many buildings, but I am beginning to see that there is something deeper there, like an explosion of energy which needs to express itself. A wake-up call demanding our attention, reminding us to look around us and to see things in a different light.
The Graffiti you show above does not go unnoticed in the urban jungle of the big city.
Such rich, rich colors with so much depth. Thanks for the introduction to Anne Herbert.