"Ginger Beard" sounds like a pirate, or maybe a red-haired chippie doing human-shield work for a closeted so and so.
The mark of Ginger Beard — whoever that is — is spreading through the South Wedge like white plastic lawn chairs spreading through suburban summers.
GB has been plastering the Wedge with wheat paste posters of varying sizes and imagery, all featuring his or her handle or "tag." One poster has Abraham Lincoln with a red beard, and another has the name "Ginger Beard" written over a shield. There are more styles out there, too.
GB's handiwork is visible on the walls of Wedge buildings, street posts, under at least one bridge, and reportedly even the resilient South Wedge cheese statue got hit (the cheese survived a brief kidnapping in 2010).
Wheat paste is a form of street art and is apparently a fairly new addition to Rochester's graffiti scene. It's an adhesive made by mixing flour into boiling water.
Chris Jones, co-president of the Business Association of the South Wedge Area, says graffiti isn't a big problem in the Wedge, though she says the neighborhood does sometimes see a spike when school is out.
A different kind of street art is coming to the Wedge this summer when as many as 15 Wedge walls will be used for the Wall\Therapy initiative. Artists create large murals as a way to inspire and "rehabilitate" the community, according to the Wall\Therapy website.
"We're thrilled about it," Jones says. "We're going to give them as many walls as we can."
She says the Wall\Therapy art should serve as a deterrent for other, less-desirable graffiti.
UPDATE: Ginger Beard has been in the Susan B. Anthony neighborhood, too, according to a reader.
And North Winton Village neighbors Tweeted about their own graffiti experience. They've got a "Smokey" poster by Ginger Beard on N. Winton near the RR bridge:
@roccitynews What's interesting about the Smokey the Bear poster is that it is placed over bad graffiti and admonishes the "artist".
— North Winton Village (@NorthWinton) March 20, 2013