Last month I posted pictures of street-art created by Uliveandyouburn out of traffic pylons…
It seems that Raleigh, NC police have filed charges against the artist, even though officials from the construction company which unwittingly supplied his materials have stated that they greatly enjoyed his work.
article is Here
“Hamlin Associates, the construction company whose barrels were turned into a monster, doesn’t want to press charges.
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“We’ve had a fair amount of vandalism, but never anyone turn it into art,” Company President Steven Hussey said. “I actually thought it was pretty neat.”
Hussey said the value of the publicity his company has received is well above the $365 cost of the traffic barrels that Carnevale used.
“It’s been positive publicity for us,” he said. “If we’d known he’d do that good of a work, we’d have given him the barrels.”
Carnevale said he’s weighing Hussey’s offer to reconstruct the monster for the company’s offices in Climax, N.C., possibly for pay. Meanwhile, at least three Facebook support groups have formed to support Carnevale, including “Don’t Charge Joseph Carnevale,” boasting more than 800 members.”
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As a fan of both street art and urban exploration who has done my share of dodging police and security-guards in my younger days I’ve gotta say that I really appreciate Uliveandyouburn’s work. I personally have a hate-on for the types who scrawl messy tags on shop doors or scratch their names into windows. Street art and graffiti should improve its settings rather than detracting from them, and there’s plenty of awesome and clever stuff out there.
The Raleigh PD should drop this case. If this case does work its way to court, then the only other acceptable option should be for the City of Raleigh to give this guy a community service term working with road and highway safety to design more pieces like this. After all, he seems to have made more people slow down in construction zones as a result of his streetart creations than any pylons or warning signs ever did.
Oh, and check out MaksWerks on Etsy!
The Swap Box Project 