What is this?

So I've been a little slow posting another dispatch from uptown, but I'm almost there. I'm going to be in NYC for a week so it'll be a couple weeks before the next is posted, but there will be some periodic updates from New York. Until then I found this stencil near Callhoun Square in uptown, a little outside of my normal area, but I was drawn to it for some reason. I kind of like the stencil. It's pretty crisp, nice lettering, but I have no clue what it says. Anyone ever seen this tag before or have any idea what this says. I've come up with a couple of ideas, but I don't think they are right...
anyhow, until next time.

January in Uptown

I've ventured out into the frigid Minneapolis air to see what's happening in the neighborhood during the cold months. It took a while, there is a noticeable lack of activity when it's been in the teens with piles of snow everywhere. Anyhow, here is a pile of new street art in the neighborhood.





Here's two angles of mural just off of 26th. You can see the bald old man blowing dandelions in the corner. I posted a picture of that this fall when there was nothing else on the wall, the rainbow skyline and the silhouettes of geese are new to this wall in an alley, not sure who is adding on to this or who sanctioned it, but it's clearly some sanctioned street art. It's well done, a little drab, but I still love the old man in the corner.

I'd been thinking a lot about adding more sanctioned street art to the sight and decided that it's entirely appropriate. It's still street art, and sanctioned street art is just as valuable as non-sanctioned, if not more. It's an important step towards getting rid of the crappy tags and allowing the more artistic sprays and stencils to be a part of the city. So here's one that's been up forever on the backside of Taco Morelos on 26th and Nicollet near Azia.





This isn't that spectacular but I kind of dig it. I think it was just done in marker on the side of a laundromat that burned down on 26th. No tag. No need.





These two stencils are tagged by what I believe is "We In." I have no idea who this is and have never seen his tag in Minneapolis before, but I think these are really great. The color isn't fairly represented on the statue of liberty stencil, it's very subtle but the use of the green sprays behind the statue is great.







I found all three of these under an over hang behind a deli on Nicollet between 25th and 26th. None of them have any tags, but the two stencils are quality and the spray art has a nice cartoony quality to it.





I added these two at the end here as another point of the varying fashions in which street art can appear. Most people would not try to argue that these are "art" in any familiar incarnation, but these are a fashion in which people choose to express themselves that branches out from the capitalistic avenues which are generally open to people. These may not say much, and they may be "graffiti" to some, but it's another way in which people are fighting the notion that there are only conventional limited ways to get your views out. Something like writing "no war" on your garbage can (or someone else's) doesn't really say much literally, and it may not really do much, but if it's meaningful to the "artist" than its a valid form of expression and I chose not to ignore it here.