Dusk to Liepzig

Hang in there, there's a point to this novella...

I belong to an organisation called Couch Surfing and I've had over 50 people from all over the world through my house in the past 6 months. Every now and again, someone, or two, will stay for an extended period.
In April I had two (disturbingly mature!) 19 year old German girls in their 'gap year' come to stay who ended up sleeping on my lounge floor until last week (4 months!).
Because they were living in my lounge where I edit, they found out about my little secret (The Street Said) and became quite excited by it. At that time I had just got a decent collection of Dusk images and was posting them. Sarah, in particular, fell in love and was gobsmacked that someone would go to this trouble of creating such exquisite creatures then put them up in the street.

From then on the girls kept an eye out and told me of stuff I might not have seen. They noticed every new sticker or paste up that was added to my personal collection and were getting to know about the writers and artists vicariously and would ask after them.

One of the gorgeous things Sarah and Theresa would do is leave little notes and drawings around the house for me and when they were leaving, they drew a page with everything they were going to miss about living here, they also left little playing cards tucked all over the house with things written on them that I might miss about them.
In short - our relationship was mutually creative and enriching and I had a bedroom wall full of reminders of them.

Theresa went home early but Sarah stayed on for a bit longer.
While she was here by herself, we talked about the future and what we would like to do. She had always been drawn to Film and had won an award with a short film she and a friend made. She was fairly sure she was going back to study to become a Director.

In the week before she left, I was on the lookout for the perfect gift for her but everything seemed so touristy or trite - nothing could say how much it meant to have her here and how much I believed in her and her future.

On one particularly wet morning, I walked past the (above) Dusk girl on Ghuznee St, just along from Lefties, and noticed she had started peeling away. As I stood in my office overlooking her forlornly flapping in the wind and rain, I couldn't bare the thought of her falling apart so later, as I left work, in full view of the GP walking past, I meticulously prised her off. As I rolled her up, I suddenly realised that I had the present I had been looking for for Sarah and striding home, swallowing back tears, I marveled at the significance and symbolism of this 'wall full of reminder' that I was about to give to her. I also hoped desperately that when I eventually told K (Dusk's creator) the story, she would get it.

Over the next few nights I had the soggy, smelly Dusk unrolled over my bed with my hot-water-blanket on, trying to dry her out - having to roll her up carefully each morning before I went to work so Sarah wouldn't see her.

Finally - I couldn't wait any longer and gave Dusk to Sarah. She was beside herself speechless and couldn't believe that the character she had walked past so many times and been affected by was now right there in her hands. She went on to admit that her time in New Zealand had been profoundly life changing and that, now, Dusk would always represent this time. And by the way she carefully laid her out, then came home the next day with a cardboard tube to send her home to Liepzig in, I could tell she meant it.

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I told you this story (not as eloquently and poetically as I would have liked) to share why I do this. Because it's a trip being into graffiti.
I have graf friends now, who I didn't have 6 months ago, who I couldn't imagine not being in my life and because of the very nature of graffiti's ever changing palette, our life is one big adventure where the layers of complexity and meaning are too intricate to describe.

One of the first lessons I learned many years ago when I started curating was that if I didn't like a piece, it was because I didn't understand it yet. I realised it was about developing a relationship with it.

So - just like what the tatty, faded but devastatingly beautiful Dusk means to Sarah (and what I'm sure she had to have meant to K - I hope I find out), who knows what any of the pieces we see means to the person who took the time and effort to put them up. Sometimes I have to remind myself that the throw up I'm taking an image of might have been a personal best for the writer, or that it might have taken them weeks to get the courage to put it up and it helps me to appreciate every throwie, paste up, sticker, stencil or burner I see...

Sarah's contribution to the Left Bank the night before she left New Zealand