Tuesday night I showed up for my usual volunteer gig with Bike Brigade, an organization that pairs volunteer cyclists with community organizations serving vulnerable and isolated people, seniors, healthcare workers and others. My usual job is to deliver 4-5 20 pound bags of fresh produce to people’s homes. Every Tuesday morning they text me a list of names, addresses and phone numbers. Then in the afternoon I use Komoot to make the best route to deliver them all. This almost always results in an interesting ride that takes me to places I wouldn’t otherwise go. In fact, according to wandrer.earth I went on 1.57 kilometres of road I’d never cycled on yesterday.

There’s almost always something interesting on a ride like this. Sometimes it’s just seeing a new neighbourhood, sometimes a pretty street I’ve never been down. Today Komoot routed me down a laneway I hadn’t been down in almost ten years. Since my last visit a number of people had commissioned artists to paint their garage doors.

The graffiti artist culture is an interesting one here. If your garage door or wall is blank, it may be tagged with ugly words or someone’s name. But if you put a mural there, it’s left untouched for years. (Sometimes, though, after a few years it is as if they get sick of seeing it and tag it again in an effort to get a new mural painted). This laneway that serves the back side of houses on two nearby streets, had a number of lovely works of art. I particularly like the other-worldliness of some of the works down this street.

What about you? What’s the public art like in your neck of the woods?