today we met with an artist named andreas who recently painted a huge black and white rat on the metelkova 6 building. we saw his workshop/living area and he was great about answering our questions. i asked him if he thought that graffiti in metelkova inspired people to tag other parts of ljubljana and he said yes. i asked if i would be able to talk to him at a later time about it as well. one of the mini-articles that i plan to write will be about graffiti in metelkova in terms of its meaning and its effect on people. i am not sure if people tag & decorate other areas of ljubljana because they want to emulate serious artists, get their name out there or cant do anything more elaborate out of fear of getting caught.
andreas mentioned that there are no formal rules for creating art in metelkova but i suppose that it is almost expected that he will add to the art around metelkova since he is an artist-in-residence. he also mentioned that the artists are asked to kindly respect other pieces of art while painting in metelkova. he did say that "nothing special" was underneath where the rat now is. laura commented that she wonders just how an artist can decide whether or not another piece of art is worthy of painting over or not. andreas stated that a lot of the art that is around metelkova has been there for quite some time. i know there is some kind of installation going on in the front of celica at the moment and hopefully we can find out more about it. im glad we are here while something new is being constructed.
later in the day a handful of us went out in search of food. the boys wanted mcdonalds (surprise) so miriam, chelsea and i went to mercator and bought some bananas, bread and yogurt to enjoy at star park. while there, my new friend pixie showed up! i met him at metelkova and learned that he is in a slovenian punk band. we talked for a while about american music and his opinions on how metelkova has changed over the past 5 years. i would also like to write a piece about metelkovas change from a strictly punk area then expanding to a more inclusive, varied space and its pros and cons. i hope to talk with pixie again if i run into him at metelkova but probably will not. oddly enough, he said he had something for me and pulled a cd case out of his bag. he said the cds were of slovenian hardcore bands and i am very excited to listen to it. he also plans to e-mail me to stay in touch and talk about music. before coming on this trip i didnt think i would meet people that would become my friends or that i would plan to stay in touch with anyone. its a nice surprise.
i will now go back to reading stripburger (slovenian comic) and waiting for the installation in celica tonight.
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