Fortunately, this past Valentines Day Sylvia tried to surprise me with a Threadless edition Blik surface graphic – Stone Jungle. I say tried because when I pick up a package in the mail room with Blik stickers covering the shipping tube, it’s a sure giveaway of what lies within. Thanks Syl, the wall art is definitely what the apartment was missing! It sure would have been funny if you had followed through with your plans to try and install it yourself before I woke up.

You can’t go wrong with temporary surface graphics

The beauty of vinyl wall graphics is that they are only as permanent as you want them to be. If you ever grow tiresome of looking at the same graphic, or it comes time to move, the graphic can be peeled off without leaving any type of residue or trace. Perfect for your leased apartment, townhouse, or dorm room.

Blik ships the surface graphics in a sturdy cardboard shipping tube with a sticker affixed to the outside reading "paint with stickers". Fitting tagline. Stone Jungle arrived as two large pieces on transfer paper – each half measuring 72" by 20".

Smooth and easy installation, if your wall is perfectly smooth

Judging by the included install tips and short videos found online, the installation should have been a breeze. It wasn’t. There were two reasons which contributed to a difficult install: 1) each graphic was 72" wide, and 2) the walls in the apartment were not perfectly smooth. As hard as we tried, getting the 72" surface graphic to transfer smoothly without one side falling off the wall proved to be a tricky process.

How to simplify the process? Syl recommended I cut the 72" graphic into much more manageable ~12" portions. Installation now involved a high degree of patience and determination that a chopstick wielding master attempting to capture flies would have.

An unconventional installation not documented by Blik but definitely makes the process easier for walls that are not smooth. Check out Blik for some great surface graphics. Some of my favorites are all of the Threadless specials, 8-BIT, and Bamboo.

Video screenshot – Syl & I visit the Seattle Gum Wall at Pike Place Market – View the video (QuickTime required)

For those of you who have never visited Seattle, here’s a little piece of Seattle character which defines this fine city. Having lived in Seattle for over 20 years, I am ashamed to have never seen the "gum wall" until today. The Gum Wall, also known as the Wall of Gum, is a Seattle oddity:

This Gum Wall, also known as the Wall of Gum, is one of the least known (and perhaps the oddest well not quite) attractions of the historic Pike Place Market – known nationally for its fish throwers and as the location of the original Starbucks logo.

It has its beginnings in the early 1990s when theatre patrons waiting in line to buy tickets or attend the theater began placing their gum on the wall. At first people used gum to anchor coins to the wall, but the practice stopped, leaving only the gum on the wall after the coins were taken by some people.

Since then there have been reports of walls of gum created in various communities across the United States. However none of them have gained the fame (actually infamy) of the Gum Wall in Pike Place Market. It continues to grow in popularity and, therefore, in length and width and height.

As the wall has grown, so has the sophistication of the gum art. The next time I visit Seattle I will photograph some of the examples: the Moon Effect, the Art Effect, the Names, the Message, etc. And leave a piece of gum. Or perhaps, more than one piece. A message perhaps?

Germaphobes will surely find themselves rubbing their hands, arms, and faces with Purell hand sanitizer while making their way through Post Alley. For a virtual tour of the Seattle Wall of Gum, check out the VR tour, or, check out this little video clip recorded (QuickTime required or visit YouTube – low resolution) with the Nokia N95. In all honesty, it’s quite disgusting to think of how many different mouths from around the globe each of these pieces of gum originated from.