Ellie's Blog

Graffiti Park, also known as Hope Outdoor Gallery, is located at 1100 Baylor Street, Austin Texas. It lives up to Austin’s motto, ‘Keep Austin Weird’. The ever-changing concrete walls of this graffiti gallery overwhelm you with modern art. Sure, you’ll find a random tag here and there, but this place has vividly detailed graffiti, from a Pikachu to a gangster giraffe.

It’s not much of a park (more like an abandoned yard), but it has space and a lovely view of a castle-looking building behind it. The park is apparently a public space that is open to any and all graffiti artists who want to make their mark on Austin, and it is a safe haven for them to create without the threat of the law.

As you browse all of the graffiti, you kind of feel like you’re being swallowed whole by the extremeness of the variety of colors and masterpieces on the walls.

This is my favorite place in Austin, mostly because I’m artsy, and have a thing for graffiti.

Your footsteps echo off the jet-black stone walls. You stare straight ahead, afraid to look back. Every dozen steps you stop suddenly, listening for voices, movement, anything. But then you go back to walking down the narrow tunnel, afraid how far down you are. You long for a flashlight. You can’t see where you’re going, only focusing on that dim light that seems to be moving, just barely out of your grasp. The walls are damp. There are small puddles that get your feet dirty, but that doesn’t matter. The cave is getting darker.

You are running now. The darkness is looming, and you don’t want to find out what happens if it catches up to you. You turn a corner, then another, and another. You can almost taste the light, you are getting closer and closer. Finally, as the tunnel is getting narrower and narrower… You catch up.

You blink and instinctively raise an arm to defend yourself. As your eyes adjust to the cruel glare, you look around. There is an enormous lake, an island in the middle. A rickety boat with splintery oars is beached a foot from the black water. You get in the boat and start paddling towards the island. The dark water seems thicker than actual water, like blood.

You have reached the island now, and hopped out of the boat. You look around the island, it’s bigger than you expected. Stalactites and stalagmites around the edges look like teeth and the cave in the island is the throat. You move towards the dark path and, with wind pushing you back, make your way to the tunnel. It looks just like the entrance, but much shorter. You come to a small room. A dark crimson rug, a blood red throne with a scarlet cloth draped on it, a black organ, but what is the must curious about the room is the papers scattered across the floor. On closer inspection, they look like sheet music, crumpled.

You quickly loose interest in these papers and walk to the throne. The dark red seat looms over you. It looks so grand, it’s a wonder why someone would just abandon it. The lit candles on the cave walls flicker, and for a moment, you think you see a shape, sitting on the throne. Sudden wind whips your clothes, and the candles blow out.

In the sheer darkness, you can see only one thing. The scarlet cloth that was on the throne almost seems glowing. You reach for it, feel its soft fabric. You spread it out on the grand seat, seeing that it is not, in fact, a scrap piece of cloth, but a cape. You notice a white object on the throne, under the cape. A mask. You turn back to the cape, puzzled. Why would anyone leave these fine things here?

The roaring wind is all you hear now. Whipping the cape in your hands, almost as if it’s playing tug-of-war, the wind is almost knocking you over.

Your strength gives out, and the wind takes the cape and blows it into the lake.

You turn back to the mask, and it almost looks like it is laughing at you.

Photo credit- Photo Credit: silkway via Compfight cc