Grafters: ¡el grupo!
LeAnn Wester Stephenson
It's Grafters day on the blog. And today, I have a whimsical piece by a group of designers and craftsmen with a passion to create and influence the world around them called ¡el grupo!.
This playful piece of street art, entitled Moustache Rides, is a see-saw built for waiting customers at East Austin's El Chilito taco stand. The see-saw was built from discarded phone booths and lined with rhino liner, a covering typically sprayed on truck beds for weather protection. The sunglasses and seat backs are made of wood that is burned using a weatherizing process called "shou sugi ban," which is a process traditionally used on Japanese homes. Sugi is known as Japanese cedar, but it's really more of a cypress and it is burned to resist rot and fire.
This is the first project by, a creative collective recently formed in Austin, Texas, as part of The Pay Phone Revival Project back in November of 2010. They have a blog where you can go for more info and photos about the process.
Great fun and very Grafter-esque!
Photos courtesy Nicolas Rivard, ¡el grupo!, and The Pay Phone Revival Project
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