That's a fantastic story!

I've got one of my own. I love Zen Buddhism and even have a diverse collection of Buddha heads and such, but I don't actively practice it. In 2005 I was living on Oak Street at Broderick Streed in San Francisco and for Burning Man I made stencils and spray-painted tarps with a 2.5 meter squared image of this for our "Buddha Lounge" structure walls. I had some friends help me use marking paint to spray the stencils, and of course there was a 4 foot squared Buddha head, so I painted that too (it's now a piece of art in a bar in Gerlach Nevada). We painted across the corner at the DMV, but when it came to the Buddha head, I painted it on both sides - on the sidewalk corners. Then I painted the inversed cutout too. Plus a little extra spray paint (the kind for marking roads permanently) for they eyes was not big extra expense to make the simple Buddha face stand out in glory. So there were 4 Buddha heads symmetrically on the sidewalk corners for a couple years before they put in new rubber corners. I'd like to think they were trying to cover up my graffiti but the new green building across the street was being built that summer (waking me up every day) and that place is more gentrified than ever and I moved to Oakland right after that Burning Man. Considering my talents it's a little surprising that it's the only illegal graffiti I've ever done (though, more of a side effect of sloppy spay-painting, with a flourish - no flat lawns close by, I mean, besides the famous one down the street). A few years ago I tried to convince people in my neighbourhood to let me do murals - for free, in a theme to brand and beautify our little corner of Windsor - but no takers. But that's another story. In Oakland I was far more free to do fun stuff ant there were a lot of artists there too. I designed this Sofa Logo for the South Of Fruitvale Artists group we organized. I miss that place the most, by a smidge, of all my many adventures.