Miami Street Art, 2+ Square Blocks of Heaven

We have been in Miami for about a month now, before that the Everglades and all sorts of other places around the state since August, and after having a not so great time here adapting to the East Coast attitude.. , I was happy to hear that one of my favorite artist, Sonni, who moved to Miami from Argentina over a year ago, was back to painting walls here in the US! I hinted on facebook that I was in town and he should tell me where I can see his new work and the next day, a clue I did get.

We wanted to see a bit of Miami central, since we are actually in a bit of a suburb, and it just so happened the wall (building actually) was not far from Little Havana. When we arrived at the wall, I expected his piece to be in an abandoned neighbourhood with a few other pieces in the area but I was soo estatic to find that many many other artists had walls there and there were tons of people walking around to watch and take photos. Some artists were quite famous locally and internationally, and many were painting that very day! Live! Meaning, I got to see one of my favorite street artists paint live and get to witness some real technique and see just how hard street art can be – and how dedicated these artist are. This doesn’t happen often (getting to see your favorite artists paint live), as many of you street geeks might know, unless of course you are in some social circle or follow their blog super closely (if they have one and can publicize where they are painting without being arrested) etc.

I just moved from a state (Oregon) where there are people in prison for painting on walls (a Felony EACH PIECE.. so messed up), so to see so many people painting live was just awesome. I havent seen so much street art since I lived in Argentina and just by luck, one of the artists was the same!

Here is Sonni‘s piece, a giant. GIANT boom box, this must be some kind of a record. Save the back wall which had some really great stuff on it, he was painting the entire building. Talk about dedication.. see the huge buckets of paint? Such a great piece!

There were several artists I recognized from Swindle (magazine) and Juxtapoz, but couldn’t for the life of me, remember the names of, I feel like a jerk for not remembering of being able to find them in my copies, so if you know who they are let me know and I’ll add their name and a link to their site. Click to enlarge!

We are only here another week, and this weekend may be our mad dash to the edge of the US, the Florida Keys, then back north for a nice cold winter in the Smokey Mountains haha. Sand to snow, on purpose. There wont be many chances for me to see any great street art for a while so I’m so glad I got to see this.