For this year’s theme of “New World of Independent Cinema” two local artists led walking tour exploring a hidden history of Ann Arbor through the concept of “patina,” the beautiful residue of time left on architectural surfaces. A substantial and varied group of 37 came this morning (I stumbled down there just in time for the 11am start). Our patinologists Timothy and Andrea took us down Tripper’s Alley, the graffitied walkway you pass through if you go out the back exit to the Michigan Theater.
They noted this spot as maybe the most photographed place in A2 and went through a little history. Graffiti supposedly started in the 1980s and then a big mural covered everything in 1991 (read side note about this below if you’re curious). Slowly new paint strokes, sprayed tags, and stencil art covered up the mural. Andrea gave us interesting scientific background on gum as we marveled at the dotted colors of the gum wall, and Tim told us all about “Killroy was here.” Tim and Andrea did an excellent job at engaging a large group and inspiring them to notice beautiful details of the cityscape that to some passersby may seem like annoying signs of neglect or decay. Tim pointed out his appreciation for spots where the city attempted to cover up graffiti but never get the color of the paint quite right, leaving a “cubist style” patina behind. I also appreciated Andrea's disclaimer for their stretch to connect patinas with chocolate at the end of the tour, since we ended with a free sample at Schakolad. A visitor asked them their names and Tim responded that their names were, "Pat Patina and Tina Patina"--good one. Anyway, the chocolate conclusion was some sort of a chemical connection that I couldn’t quite grasp, especially since chocolate in my belly was all I could quite think of at that point in the morning on an empty stomach.
Side note about Tripper’s Alley: The mural, much to the dismay of local artists and graffiti aficionados, covered the creations of hundreds of people in order to display a sort of paint-by-numbers style mural by one artist who wasn’t even an Ann Arbor resident. I've got inside info on the two people who were the first to deface the mural one very cold February night. They grabbed a can of white paint, which they had planned to splash against the walls of the mural, but since it had unexpectedly frozen they ended up smearing gobs of it over an image of a newscaster on a TV and some other random places on the massive mural. They broke the seal so that soon after local artists began covering it again.