Augsburg: setting free the Stitched Schmetterling

Still with me? In the story so far I’m still in Augsburg and have spent six days making art in a giant city-centre fish tank. Missed it? Read previous days here and come back. I’ll wait…

So spending so much time in a big glass fish tank makes a girl long for fresh air. Lucky for me Augsburg has fresh air all over the place and green spaces making even more fresh air in case that runs out. If a city has lungs pumping O2 out to the body of the place, then I reckon Augsburg’s lungs are its beautiful Botanical Gardens.

Joining me on my mission to find Augsburg’s mossy underbelly were two hastily knit floating flutterguys. For the occasion I named them Kleine Blaue (Little Blue) who has unexplained rage, and Kleine Gelbe (Little Yellow) who is a bit of a party animal. Say hello, boys (they have been learning German from a cheesy BBC website which I have badly translated. Gawd bless ya, internets).

"Redest du mit mir?" (Are you talking to me?)

"Clubben gehen?" (Wanna go clubbing?)

On the way we met some of Augsburg’s wildlife:

Rabbit. Rabbit. Rabbitrabbitrabbitrabbit.

A very odd-looking graffiti dog

A fearsome sausage-cheese-salad monster

The walls of the Botanical Garden were guarded by a dangerously huggy grizzly graffiti bear. We managed to slip by him unnoticed while he smothered an unsuspecting graffiti kid.

Put that child down!

Beyond the walls was an island of pollen, petals and plenty of other creatures. Here are a few of the ones we found:

Bees having a pollen party in daylight hours. Shocking.

A mysterious be-scarfed plant pot percher

Lily pads dragged right out of a fairy tale

More partying insects. Don't they have jobs to go to?

A fishy fellow pretending to be a wall ornament

All that calming greenery seemed like the perfect place to leave an angry Stitched Schmetterling. Kleine Blaue was released into the wild. There he proceeded to treat passers by to his tiny threatening tirade.

"Hast du ein Problem?!" (Got a problem?)

"Du gehst mir auf die Nerven..." (You're getting on my nerves)

"Was guckst du?!" (What you looking at?)

Time to head back into the city for some well-earned beer after all that tough lazing around in the sunshine.

On the way back we saw some familiar street art friends:

A crop of my favourite flowers

(A little note on these flowers. During ‘Big Brother’ style interrogation that morning camera-ninja Jürgen burst my bubble by telling me these flowers are copied from a graffiti artist in Barcelona. I have yet to find evidence to back his claim up though. Meddling camera monkey! If this is true I really need to go to Barcelona and make more woolly tributes, no?)

A cobblestone Boring 747. Escaped from the White Room!

Hours and beers later we ended up down a shady backstreet, through several hallways, past a graffiti knitted banister (too dark to take any good pictures of) and into the innards of a rather cool little night club.

There we made music:

Umm... Is it Beyonce's Crazy in Love?

We made art:

Ta dah!

We threw shapes on the dance floor (well some of us did):

Kaja Marie and Keiko hit the dance floor

And one party animal Stitched Schmetterling found his home on the beer-scented nightclub wall:

Zappelbunker! (Nightclub)

Voll cool! (Totally cool)

*hic* (hic)

The last I saw of him he was encouraging people to participate in crazed drinking games. Poor guys. He may look tiny but Kleine Gelbe can drink like an alcoholic camel.

"Saufen bis zum Verlust der Muttersprache!" (Drink until your forget your mothertongue)

2 thoughts on “Augsburg: setting free the Stitched Schmetterling

  1. Queen Laureen

    Poor kleine blaue….anger management classes OR a furry embrace from the huggy grizzly graffiti bear is in order! Bears in Alaska are like that…they empathize with you and only want to hug you to make you feel better! 🙂
    That sausage-cheese-salad monster is daunting…that country truly knows how to plant an innocent sausage into every culinary presentation…I bow to the sausage gods! …and the beer gods…I want to make friends with the beer gods!