JPG: Stories: Photo Essay: A Place Painted

A Place Painted

By Fonda Nelson

24 Oct 2009

I was invited to hang out with some friends in Tacoma. We went to a place I had never been before. This particular street was lined with buildings tall and short, thin and fat, dark and light. You wouldn't really know that the bar was here if it weren't for the blue sign and the techno bass thumping.

The door is open and we climb 20-30 concrete stairs, where the doorman is collecting his pay so that we can sport matching paper bracelets. We order our drinks and make our way to the dance floor.

There are several disco balls hanging from the ceiling. Mirrors line three of the four walls. Barstools are wrapped around the same three walls. The dj is in a hole in the fourth wall with his name flashing in pink on a sign above him. There is dancing, singing, drinking, laughing, talking, touching. Every Race. Male and Female.

We closed the place down. While my friends went out the front door to purchase hotdogs, I went out the back door to start and warm up the car. I walked around to the passenger side to unlock the door for the friend, then noticed graffiti on a wall across the street. So with camera in hand I decided to check it out. There were three buildings that were once either parking garages or office buildings that were completely abandoned and painted over. What once were windows were now holes in the walls with chain link fencing over them. The floors were old wood floors covered with cracked red clay or red cement.

The walls of these three buildings were amazing. Wording, creatures, people, animals, machines. Vivid colors to black and white. I felt like it was all part of movie scene. The artists who painted these walls are so skilled at what they do.