The Wall Project: The Wynwood Walls, Miami

"Sunday-musings: inside a snow paperweight, watching it cancel out light, sound, color, movement..."

I tweeted the above yesterday, staring outside my apartment window as the snow gaily danced and whirled about while blanketing the world white and whiter. Watching snow fall is undeniably a beautiful experience yet I am not a particular admirer of its aftermath, as in how it blanks out the world and renders it so austere and stark. I realised I have as a result become color-starved, my eyes constantly searching out for vivid splashes of color amid this monochrome landscape. In fact,  come to think of it, the winter has infiltrated even the clothes that I wear or the vegetables that I cook. They mirror the season's icy hued-palette: gray sweaters and dusty pink blouses or coldly colored deep purple and green eggplants and courgettes, like the depths of a winter pond.

Having escaped the heart of the Pittsburgh winter to Florida recently, I can't tell you how much I enjoyed basking in the sunlight or endlessly staring into the blueness of the skies before losing myself in Miami's sunny, colorful streets: the pistachio-and raspberry trimmed Art Deco hotels, cobalt blue art-installations silhouetted against the vivid blue sky, cheerfully-hued beach dresses studding boutiques, and last but certainly not the least, the color fest that was Wynwood Art district.

As soon as you enter the space of the Wynwood Art district, it's akin to walking around an open air art gallery, which constantly demands your attention and engagement with the surroundings. We encountered  funky boutiques and shops, incredible array of wall-art, unusual sights such as a pair of shoes entwined in the electric wires, as if someone casually tossed them into the air and they got entangled there, and a eclectic bunch of people watching art and in turn, being watched and watching others. At a coffee-shop, as we sat around a tree which had a tire festooned with lights and sparrows shared table-space with us, snacking on pie crumbs, I noticed a group arguing about art, a man rapidly filling one page after another of his sketch book, and two women comparing each other's shoes: glittery flats and lepoard-print loafers. The air of the place was as colorful as its temporary guests and environment.

We strolled around the district and then encountered The Wynwood Walls, which brings together one of the greatest collections of street art; it's filled with iridiscently hued and painted walls, doors, and intriguing examples of giant boulders covered with knitted art. Needless to say, it presented the perfect confluence of walls, street art, and above all, color for me: a visual feast, indeed...and I could not stop admiring and photographing it all. 

And with that, I shall say no more and let these walls speak for themselves....

Stripes and Shadows: A wall outside an art gallery

Color-maze: a wall at the Wynwood Walls

Exit: an intriguing faux flower wall installation at Wynwood Walls

Eyed: one of the multiple examples of spectacular wall art

Glasses on a Diet: A funky wall

Have you ever visited a place which you have found instantly energising and inspirational?