Austin artists Angel Quesada and Lannea Brooks were arrested on Saturday, October 24th while painting on a concrete guardrail on Lyons Street in East Austin during Austin’s October graffiti crackdown. The Travis County Attorney’s Office has charged the pair with "Graffiti," a class A misdemeanor which can carry a fine of up to $4,000 and/or a year in jail. They have posted a petition online asking that charges be dropped because of their reputations, and the aesthetic quality and good intentions of their admittedly unofficial artwork.
Austin muralists fight graffiti crackdown
16 comments
Wonderfully magical photographs.
Everett’s eyes see beauty in composition and angles that few others see.
His photo essays leave me wanting to meet the subject artists and be in their studios.
Ron Martino
This is a good blog. The Travis County Attorney’s Office has done good work and by keeping the charges stable they have proved that the Laws are same for everybody. Thanks for this information.
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alex
attorneys
No harm was done, or intended. No one was hurt, nothing was stolen, no one enraged- yet two people face legal consequences. Rules were broken, no doubt about that, but what this situation illustrates is that the rules need to be changed.
Why not encourage them to write a book about their troubles and recoup their losses?
Bad reputations sell, Bill.
Trust me, you’ll never forget having to crap in the middle of a jail cell full of strangers. The time I was there, the toilet in the middle of the room was clogged with bologna sandwiches. A midget put her arm around me and said, ‘Don’t cry.’
She was in jail for unpaid parking tickets. To this day, I don’t know how her feet reached the pedals.
We all have stories.
Some of us tell them better than others do.
I miss you.
I hope that titus has never been arrested.
I need a parka.
Reputations?.’…reputations, and the aesthetic quality and good intentions of their admittedly unofficial artwork.”
I laugh. Out loud.
I should be on the Glasstire payroll. I’m the only unpaid person here.
‘..while painting on a concrete guardrail on Lyons Street in East Austin during Austin’s October graffiti crackdown.’
Who besides me here sees the utter silliness of painting on a concrete guardrail!
What a bunch of Austin pansies.
They risked life and limb to paint that guardrail cowboy, don’t underestimate the valency of the effort. Imagine them sitting around a campfire of tires after the apocalypse regaling the campers of the days when guardrails were signposts in urban culture. I painted an abstract symbol for my name, why…
What Austin (and other cities) need is a streamlined painting permission-granting process, so an artist with a mural idea for public property can get permission in a day or two. If people complain, you can just paint it over and try again! If they like it, you’ve got yourself some nifty public art, woithout spending a dime of tax money!
Both of you must be kidding. God I hope both of you are kidding.
The BLT balance thing was pure gold.
Protect us from what we want, she said.
(Bill, just whose tax dollars pay for the paint to paint over these nifty murals? And what is the hourly wage of the city worker or work release felon that paints over it?) Of course I know it is way WAY less that a single coat of paint spread over a drone flying over Afghanistan. If only I could figure out how to post some of the awful ‘paid for’ images of public art we have here locally, I would. We have some real winners! I wish there were homeland drones to obliterate them. IDEA!!! I should write up a grant proposal and get permission!!!
Bombs Away!!!
For $24.95 you can buy software that can hack the drones and do it yourself. They do it in other defeated winsome countries for Japanese chemistry sets.