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How do you vandalize vandalism?

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Hang on Studio Wall
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With Sarah, Phil, Ellen, Rose the dentist, and the granddaughter whose name I forget.

Robert Jones, NAPA

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I confess that I am not one of the legions of Banksy admirers - we need not run through the reasons.  I notice that one of his latest pieces on a wall in Islington - he sprayed green paint on a wall behind a heavily-pruned tree, with a stencil of a woman with some sort of spray equipment next to it; the wall plaster was not in good shape, so the image was by its nature temporary. Now someone has "vandalized" it, with white paint.  Graffiti'd graffiti .... how is the one act creative, while the addition of white paint is destructive?  True, the second attempt doesn't actually say anything; while all sorts of gibberish has been written about the Banksy "original" (not by him: by his sycophants).  But in aesthetic terms, it wouldn't matter a damn' if the thing were painted over, the tree uprooted - it's an elderly cherry, which sadly have limited life-spans - or the ghastly building on which the work was displayed bulldozed.  Banksy's identity is supposed to be a secret - it adds to his mystique.  He did pull a very novel and amusing trick on the absurdities of the art world in his self-destroying print a while ago.  Apart from that, though - I don't CARE who he is; izzitart - don't know!  But I still don't care, until he pops down here to the Isle of Wight and puts his work on my wall, so I can flog it.

Norrette Moore

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I think if the tree was completely cut down I could understand the tree was past its sell by date, Robert.  But I've noticed my own local councillors sending out their unskilled gardeners who chop and damage. Taking the chain saw in a horizontal sweep, like it was a privet hedge (which I have btw, must be over 60 years old now). The white paint is in effect "cancelling" Bansky in my view.  Why did they cut the sycamore gap tree down?  It's weird out there, especially if you see the responses on say Chris Packham's twitter account.  It started with Trump, dunno where it will end. N. ( tree-hugger) ;-)
With Sarah, Phil, Ellen, Rose the dentist, and the granddaughter whose name I forget.

Robert Jones, NAPA

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I have it on good authority that privet is immortal.  Many have wished to kill it: but it shoots up again: whenever anyone says "that's not a very natural green" I refer them to privet, as naturally unnatural.   There was nothing very natural about Banksy's green either - but that, for all I know, may have been part of his point. 

Norrette Moore

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Apparently his green was to match the local authority green on some of their signs. But yes, unreal.
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Martin Cooke

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Like much of his output, Banksy's first day of spring tree mural is creative genius, humorous, uplifting and -- guess what, even popular -- and unlike graffiti no doubt involved a lot of careful planning.
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Paul (Dixie) Dean

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Just a penny worth for  the tree  , cutting back is on way of stimulating the  tree into growth and it work most times but you do need to leave enough to regrow . Probably a unskilled workman to.d to give it a good pruning and used a five food chainsaw. As to Banksy I’d rather see his work on a wall than most of the rubbish  we see , it often brightens up a dull old building. 

Tanja G.

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This reminds me of a little story my mother told me. When she was often in India (for work), she met a seamstress. She told her how terrible it was to sew jeans for the “Westerners” on a piecework basis. She had to “break” it, cut holes in it and fray it, i.e. destroy it completely. First she has to sew the pants, then destroy them. In India people are happy when a pair of trousers is "whole" for as long as possible... We can look for a deeper meaning behind the white color, whoever likes it, whoever it makes happy :)

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