Silly Pink Bunnies and Love in the Lower Haight.
In October of 2010 the long wall on the corner of Haight and Laguna that surrounds a series of buildings that once housed the UC extension campus became a mural collective. Called “Love in the Lower Haight,” the mural stretches 100 feet up Haight Street from Laguna Street and 75 feet on Laguna. The mural is granted for at least one year with the possibility of a longer extension.
An estimated 12 local artists worked on it, while an additional component let residents add their personal touch to the project.
Information about the piece above took me a while to round up, I first went to the artist’s – Jeremy Fish- blog and this is what I read:
“my gang, THE SILLY PINK BUNNIES, is celebrating 20 years of being a mean gang this year. coincidentally 2011 is the year of the rabbit. this statue and mural is a tribute to the the gang and our history in the lower haight. viva la bunnies! see you this easter.”
But then I found an explanation –
“[the gang] is basically it’s an inside joke that just got carried and carried and carried. For me, it’s just the fascination of taking nothing and making it into something, and also watching peoples desire to be involved in something. It’s fascinating for me to watch grown adults gravitate towards something that’s kind of stupid… I’m also fascinated by watching something I created grow into something that I’m not even farming anymore. To see stickers in places that you have never even been when you go there, or to talk to a friend that just got back from South Africa and said he saw a Silly Pink Bunnies sticker in the subway. You know, I’m like, ‘how the [expletive] did something go from being so dumb to something so big?'”
I love the concept he describes, while the silly pink bunny in the photo above, probably leaves many different emotions with different people, the concept that he talks about is truly what art is about.
