{"id":5654,"date":"2022-08-28T00:01:41","date_gmt":"2022-08-28T06:01:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=5654"},"modified":"2022-08-27T13:19:51","modified_gmt":"2022-08-27T19:19:51","slug":"7-imps-7-kicks-809-featuring-theodore-taylor-iii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=5654","title":{"rendered":"7-Imp\u2019s 7 Kicks #809: Featuring Theodore Taylor III"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n“Mom and Dad were so excited, moving from one end of the country to the other to trade our fast, busy city life for a small, quiet one far away. I wasn’t feeling it.” This \u2014 the opening spread of Theodore Taylor III’s<\/a><\/strong> Off the Wall<\/a><\/strong><\/em> (Roaring Book), coming to shelves in October \u2014 depicts the narrator, looking out the car window at a sign that says: “BUFFINTON Population 80, 723.” In speech-bubble dialogue, we read the child’s response: “Meh.” <\/p>\n

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Sam (the publisher’s description of the book genders her as a girl) feels like an outsider in her new city \u2014 and even at school: “I was ready to take the first spacecraft home.” But one day she spots graffiti on the side of a building, and she is moved by it. She describes it as being like “a language from another planet that only I could understand.” A passerby gives Sam some side-eye, who stands there in awe and says, “WOW.” A construction worker stands with his hands on his hips, glaring at the wall. Clearly, the graffiti is not welcome. But it reminds Sam of home, “loud and energetic.” She even dreams of graffiti that night. <\/p>\n

The next day, Sam’s cousin, Lincoln, visits. Sam is excited to show Lincoln the graffit but is bummed to see it’s been painted over. But Lincoln knows that “graffiti is hiding everywhere” \u2014 street signs, moving vans, murals, freight trains, and more. The two spend the day exploring tags. The freight train, Sam thinks, is “like an art gallery in motion.” Even better, Sam is thrilled to discover on the way home an abandoned factory inside which artists are paintings on the walls: “We had stepped into another world.” She watches the artists, who each work in distinctive styles. When Sam asks a girl about the space, she learns that the town had given the buildling to artists for painting. Sam gets her own spray can and a mask and \u2014 “PSSSST!!” \u2014 makes her mark, finally feeling at home. <\/p>\n

In a detailed closing note (“Graffiti is a sign of life”), Taylor (who lives in Richmond, Virginia) writes about how he became, as a kid, interested in graffiti, “the craft that is inspiring, mysterious, and, yes, often illegal,” noting that he himself is not a graffiti artist. His interest in urban environments and culture grew as he aged, and he often photographed abandoned structures and the graffit adorning it. He writes about a family trip to Italy and noticing the “ancient graffiti left on walls by everyday people” and writes about cities that make space for urban art, though it is often erased: “Despite community urges to buff away graffiti, this form of art continues to act as a voice for those who feel they don’t have one.” He includes a note about the 2020 racial protests and the efforts in Richmond (former capital of the Confederate States of America) to remove the symbols of oppression<\/strong><\/em><\/a> in the form of Confederate statues. He tells a moving story about how many were defaced with graffiti and how \u2014 in the end, after the statues were removed \u2014 “only the graffiti-covered pedestals remained.” <\/p>\n

Taylor’s energetic artwork, in a palette dominated by purples and gleaming golds, captures graffiti art \u2014 and the artists behind it \u2014 with abundant reverence. This is a story about finding oneself; finding community; embracing one’s misfit-ness (“It’s okay to be a little off the wall,” we see on a final spread, and it is, fittingly, styled to look like a tag); and making space for art that gives voice to those who are marginalized. Here are some spreads so that you can see some of it for yourself. …
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“That night my dreams were full of graffiti, as if someone in town was trying to send me a message \u2014 and it was my job to find out who.”<\/em>
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“He knew graffiti was hiding everywhere. Tags in the alley, stickers on street signs, stencils on the corner, throw-ups on moving vans,
murals in parking lots reaching high into the sky.”<\/em>
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“Inside we discovered dozens of artists painting every inch of the building’s walls.
We had stepped into another world.”<\/em>
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\nOFF THE WALL. Copyright \u00a9 2022 by Theodore Taylor III. llustrations reproduced by permission of the publisher, Roaring Brook Press, New York.<\/em> <\/p>\n

* * * Jules’s Kicks * * *<\/strong><\/font>
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Note for any new readers: 7-Imp\u2019s 7 Kicks is a weekly meeting ground for taking some time to reflect on Seven(ish) Exceptionally Fabulous, Beautiful, Interesting, Hilarious, or Otherwise Positive Noteworthy Things from the past week, whether book-related or not, that happened to you. New kickers are always welcome.<\/p>\n

1)<\/strong><\/font> A four-mile walk with a friend … <\/p>\n

1\u00bd)<\/strong><\/font> … and spotting (up close) a heron in the water in the late-afternoon sunlight. <\/p>\n

2)<\/strong><\/font> This entry about stuttering<\/strong><\/a> \u2014 and “your willingness to listen” \u2014 in filmmaker James Robinson’s NYT<\/em> Opinion Video series that profiles people with disabilities. <\/p>\n

3)<\/strong><\/font> The James Marshall Lectures<\/a><\/strong>, now available at the University of Connecticut. <\/p>\n

4)<\/strong><\/font> This tweet made me laugh for about five minutes straight:
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For a split second I thought something had gone terribly, biblically wrong with my cat pic.twitter.com\/YQWONLs0hm<\/a><\/p>\n

— Eli Keren (@EliArieh) August 26, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n