No Gum This Side

Photo & Text © 2012 Seattle Daily Photo. All rights reserved.

Since about 1994 when patrons of the Market Theater started adhering coins to the east wall of Post Alley with wads of gum, the gum wall has remained solely along the theater's brick walls. This year the sticky tide has flowed to the west side of the alleyway (and this sign appeared). It would seem there is a rebellion underway. What I find unfortunate is that gum stickers knowingly or unknowingly have defaced the south portion of the free wall where street artists regularly post posters, stickers and large paintings. I wonder how the artists feel about the encroachment, if they mind or not. They certainly can't post over the large gum blobs like they have previous layers of flat street art. You can see (bottom right photo) that the layers of gum on the theater side have grown very thick compared to almost six years ago in this photo I showed you in January 2007, so a clear wall must seem more inviting.