With most of my immediate thoughts focused on rock and ice climbing, it is easy to overlook the seeing I do often here in Milwaukee. I recently shot a photo narrative series about my daily bicycle commute, scholarly obligations, and other social activities here in the city, and found it to be a well needed change of pace. I've been spending so much time on the ice climbing images that I needed something to readjust my seeing and understanding of the non-ice world. I started by looking back and photos taken and simply overlooked and under appreciated over the last few months, and found some very exciting shots. A while ago I was biking down strange alleys looking for nook's, crannies, and whatever-else may be out there that I'd never seen before when I found a wonderfully old building. The facade was given a new look by covering the old brick with a fresh veneer of concrete in hopes of concealing its precarious state.
The concrete itself had a rough unfinished look to it, and the building underneath had not stopped crumbling even with the help of the new exterior. The shifting brick underneath was creating small winding cracks through the entire side, something that the building owners tried to further prevent by sealing the cracks. The whole mess seemed backwards to me, but resulted in a most unexpected and honest look at the buildings conditions. Without the new layer of concrete, the "new" cracks would have simply blended in with all the other cracks. Without the sealant, the same cracks maybe would have gone unnoticed altogether. I wasn't sure the logic of the building owners, or if anyone did own the building...
I am going to go ahead and assume this is a just modern street art in the makings.
MATT
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