Photo: Thinkstock

One afternoon shortly after I had moved to New York City I witnessed a scene that seemed to be a short, one-man play about the ill affects of graffiti: It was a blazingly hot day, and an elderly man stood in his shirtsleeves scrubbing away at an ugly tag on his bodega's window. Frustrated, he threw his wet rag to the ground and uttered a sound something like a damaged car motor. Poor man! It is for his sake that I am glad that the DIY, anti-establishment spirit of street art has been channeled in less damaging, more lovely ways lately. Delicate books sculptures, for example, or cozy displays of knit-bombing.

Or guerrilla fruit grafting. As the Huffington Post reports, "For the past year, the renegade group has been secretly splicing San Francisco's strictly decorative apple and pear trees with fruit-bearing grafts, causing the city's previously barren trees to become heavy with fresh apples and pears. The group aims to use the city's preexisting trees to provide 'delicious, nutritious fruit for urban residents,' and basically feed anyone who is hungry in the process."  The group's open source code site offers advice on finding graftable trees and tracks how the grafts are going. Okay, so some San Francisco city officials may be symbolically throwing their wet rags to the ground ("The City considers vandalism a serious offense,"  Public Works Director Mohammed Nuru told the Examiner). But really, how upset can anyone be over beautiful, delicious fruit?

Art is Everywhere:
Food Art
Lunch Bag Art
Tree Art