Sketchbook Friday: Street Artist Shaman

I helped start the Creative Community Coalition in Portland, Maine after the city started cracking down on street artists by attempting to impose ridiculous restrictions. Many of the restrictions included mandatory registration, booth size requirements, minimun proximity to businesses and banning street artists from certain parts and sidewalk widths. Protect Portland's Creative Community on Facebook has been gathering many supporters of our issue and we have been to many city hall meetings fighting this issue. We are currently meeting members of city hall and talking to businesses in the area about the issue. During the last city hall hearing I drew the street artist shaman on my notes. I figured he was artistically summoned to help us spiritually cleanse during the period of time when the city hall completely ignored over 60 testimonies from artists and supporters from the community. We have been gaining steam ever since. The local newspaper even took our side recently and posted a very positive article about our group:

Abbeth Russell, William Hessian, Marrion Ladd, Asher Platts

Each Friday at noon I scan in one new sketch or drawing from one of my many sketchbooks. Many times my sketches are ideas for larger projects that you might find on my fine art website William Hessian dot com, or as projects right here on my Bearded Bunny art blog. If you enjoy these sketches make sure to also see my Favorite 20 sketches from 2011 or go back and check out all of the sketchbook friday posts.

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Portland Paste: Tomato Bombs

Updated (7/15): Scroll down to see the new photos and the link to the news paper article about the tomato project.

I have been so excited to return to Portland, Maine. It is a city filled with energy, activism, farmers, artists, compassion, and collaboration. One of the groups I was really excited to see is the mysterious Portland Paste. When I left Maine last year, a little over a year ago, the group was doing a series of wheat pasting and I wrote a blog about it.

When I first got back into town, just a few days ago, I found this:

The little card explained that it was a free tomato plant for everyone. Anyone can help grow it and anyone can eat its tomatoes. With the interesting face on the bucket and my love for guerrilla gardening projects and street art, I was more than a little excited. I saw two more of these while driving back to my house, and I had to find out more about it. I immediately checked the two Facebook pages: Portland Paste and Portland Paste

I found some photos of some of the other tomato plants. There must be well over a dozen in downtown Portland right now according to people discussing which ones they have seen all over town. Pictures keep popping up on the facebook pages and I will try to add all the pictures I collect on this post.

The other exciting thing about this tomato bomb guerrilla garden project is that it is kind of a scavenger hunt. I have spent, and will spend more time wandering around the town and hopping out of my car trying to take pictures of these plants. I am trying to figure out how many their are and where they are all posted. The one in the photo above is only a few blocks from my house, but actually quite far away from downtown, which makes me wonder how far out the tomatoes are showing up.

Either way, this is a neat project. I hope it provides a lot of tomatoes to people in the community and invites people to think about how easy it is to plant tomatoes. I look forward to finding more plants and posting more photos!

After posting this post the Portland Press Herald wrote an article about the mysterious tomato plants and they even mentioned this blog post in reference. You can read the tomato bomb in portland maine article. I also have been continuing my search of the hidden plants. I have been walking all over town, and also using the newspaper article to help locate a few of the plants. Check out some of the photos: