Documenting urban art in Boise:
Street Art Cities
Street Art Cities is a global community of people mapping urban art. It’s fascinating to see the evolution of street art- graffiti was once a cause for national uproar in America, but similar to other inner-city artforms like rap and hiphop- has evolved into a global force practically unrecognizable from its roots. At the time I discovered Street Art Cities I was living in Boise, Idaho which had the biggest outdoor gallery in the Pacific Northwest- Freak Alley Gallery. Something to note: Freak Alley appears to be expanding into the next block. I think it’s exciting to see murals pop up, when soon, I hope this entire next block is another vibrant extension of Freak Alley.
I reached out to Street Art Cities because at the time Boise was not on the map. I was green-lighted to begin volunteering and got to work.
I photographed over fifty murals, but wondered- how could I get people to know about this resource? The outdoor gallery draws massive crowds so how do we let them know that one block down, there is more? Or two blocks west, there is something there too? So I designed postcards and reached out to a shop downtown to stock them there.
Postcards were the perfect solution because they could be sent anywhere in the world. And anywhere in the world, there was Street Art Cities.
All postcards have the same back. In an effort to create a sense of uniformity, the same two fonts were used for the front and the back.
I created a character wheatpasting the “place stamp here” for a bit of added dimension. When choosing the art featured on the front, there were a couple important factors that I wanted to keep in mind.
General criteria I wanted for the postcards:
They had to be accessible: murals featured had to be visible to the general public 24/7. I also chose street art that was generally within walking distance of major destinations- like around the corner from popular neighborhood restaurants
They had to be generally unfamilar: Sounds strange, right? But I chose murals that were tucked behind main streets or popular strips on the off chance that these murals would be novel, rather than choose something very familiar like a mural from Freak Alley. This was done in the hopes that it would inspire people to ask- well, what else is in this town?
A screenshot of the map I built of Boise’s urban art for Street Art Cities.
