Property Mismanagement

The internet has been abuzz with rumors that Urban Outfitters plans to fully buff Banksy's Crayon Soldier. The group even has its own page on Facebook.

But according to the LAist, Urban Outfitters is telling them that they want to keep the mural, but the property manager has other ideas and want to have the Crayon Soldier colored over.

Here is the statement that Urban Outfitters submitted to LAist

"We love Banksy and have been long-time supporters of his work. Banksy: Wall and Piece has been one of our top 20 books for the past four and a half years. We are proud to have his "Crayola Shooter" mural on our Westwood store and are doing everything in our power to convince the property manager not to touch this important work of art."

We hope this can get resolved in a way that preserves the Crayon Soldier. And while it might get Urban Outfitters off the hot seat for buffing the piece, it just stokes the other rumors that Banksy's hitting the spot at Urban was a reward for selling his book, Wall and Piece.

100,000 Hits - MELROSEandFAIRFAX is a 'Virtual Gallery'

MELROSEandFAIRFAX reached a personal milestone on Monday when we passed 100,000 hits.

I wish my financial portfolio looked like our stats because it is on a straight incline from left to right!

That's the good news, and it just gets better~

The blog started in May, so all the action has happened since then. But really, the hits only began to jump when we started resizing the pictures bigger in December, and 70,000 hits have happened in the last 2 months alone.

Based on hits and web traffic, M&F is the #1 street sticker site in the world, and one of the top 5 street art blogs worldwide. And, the new Banksy yesterday led to our biggest day ever with over 10,000 hits in a single day, so we are well over 113,000 hits now and have our sites set on a million by the end of 2011.

Stats are one thing, but perhaps even more relevant is an idea that we just read on Streetsy about how due to the temporary nature of the material, street art blogs and websites are essentially Virtual Galleries and says that "virtual museums are integral to the preservation and development of street art culture". We had never really thought about it is this light before, but it makes us even more committed to run the best online showcase around!

The success has led to a lot of cool things and we have collaborated with Huffington Post (Twice), AnimalNY, Curbed LA, TheDailyWhat, The Independent Newspaper, LAist, been interviewed news segments and for 2 street art documentaries, and have even been contacted by Paramount about a possible street art movie.

We also have a major book deal in the works with International distribution lined up and some exciting and extremely limited release surprises~

And, at this moment of reaching this little milestone, we want to take this opportunity to say "Thank You" to all of the street artists and fans who have supported the organic growth of this blog, and launched it onto the stage of the world, and reaffirm our pledge to keep putting out the best fresh/new street art from Los Angeles!