If you read about graffiti in a historical context, it’s generally presented as being primal and aggressive. I find that true about graffiti in any fashion. The action grows out of a deep-rooted urge to make ones own mark on history. By participating in the writing on the wall we create a dialogue among us. A public message board we can all contribute to. In this way, graffiti unites us. Whether initializing the process by doing the graffiti, or completing the project by looking at it, taking it all in, and reacting to it. Some reactions prove to be quite hasty.

I often wonder what an outsider might think of it, my graffiti, but then I remind myself I don’t care and do it anyway. In fact most of the conversations I’ve had with the non-sympathizers are usually sung to the same tune. That being, “Don’t get me wrong, I really dig the ‘nice stuff’ they can do with a spray can, but I absolutely hate tags.” That’s like saying athletes shouldn’t train.

I really believe that most of the people who are offended by the graffiti words have yet to grasp why those lines are there. They are there out of a repressed need to communicate. They are there as a direct result of life in the modern city, an environment so choked with visual information. Graffiti is the public language of the street, an ever-changing wiki and a breath of discontent. These lines are urban life clearing its throat. They are there for you and me or for no one at all. Street art demands very little and has given so much, for better or for worse. 

Now as I write these words, I need to come clean. First, don’t sit there thinking you know about graffiti, or street art because of a book you read at McNally, or some documentary you watched, or heard someone with experience talk about it, or you read it on a blog, because you don’t. I hate hearing people try to relate to me about graffiti when I know they are just kissing ass. “Yeah I went out last night and put up a sticker” Whoopty doo. You have no idea what it’s like. With the intranet and media of every kind, graffiti has become accepted everywhere but the very place it belongs. The street. The more I see graffiti in the media, on clothing and advertisements, the less I want to do it.

The whole reason I was drawn to graffiti is the exact same reason one may be drawn to a small puff of green moss on the edge of the rock of attention. Or the natural oxidization of steel - the bright orange squiggles running along the surface as though rain has always been a painter. As a young sponge, graffiti appeared to me a secret art, one that coincides with existence. I knew only a few people that did it, and in the early days really didn’t know it was they who were doing it. Imagine finding out your best bud has super powers. I believed graffiti to be a simulcast of beauty, true unadulterated expression smashing against raw perspectives. I still do. The more street art grows into a commercial buzzword, the less inclined I am to run out and paint paste nail hang or stick.

I feel torn. 

At a very young age, I was taught that writing on the walls is wrong. I never understood why, and probably never will. My mother would scream if she found marker or crayon scribbled near the baseboard. I remember while seeing Empire Strikes Back at the Metropolitan Theatre, I was caught writing my name behind one of the curtains on the second floor balcony. I can still feel how the ballpoint pen rolled on the antique wallpaper. It was an erasable pen so I was able to remove it, however the action of erasing also destroyed the layer of antique wallpaper that housed my signature - a sort of bittersweet effect to the retribution. That event will always stand out in my mind. Not because of the illegality of the action, but more so the willingness I possessed to do such a thing.

I suppose my “mark” was still left behind, but it was less specific. Somehow it feels the same with all the grey “buff marks” or blurred lines of baking soda blasts that are ruminants of graffiti removal. A history still exists below. Generally this course of action creates a surface less appealing than some “squiggly lines”. I like those lines. I like looking at them, I like trying to discover what they say, and I like the fact they magically appear where once there was not. It’s not what the lines physically spell that is important, more so the suggestion that the person that did this has chosen to share it with you. They’ve done so with out any external mediation. It’s fascinating to think of the motivation it takes a human being to do such a thing, to “deface” - an impulsive sporadic change to a visual surface. 

The world has never really been a stranger to public mark making. History proves graffiti to be human nature. A primal action rooted deep in our subconscious. Never has a civilization existed without some form of graffiti. The only thing that has changed throughout history is our perception of it. Lately the blanket term graffiti is dissolving and more specific terminology now applies to the dynamic breadth of the street art happening today. People have taken graffiti to another level. Artists are making elaborate paintings and pasting them in public venues. Stickers, stencils, adhesive installations, posters, spray paint, bucket paint, prefabs, dolls, ribbons, shoes, chalk drawings, magnets, shrines, frozen clothes, performances/happenings, light art, and sound attacks. In it’s abandonment, graffiti has become a very complex art form and not all of these artists are waiting for you to come see their work in a gallery Their exhibition is in the street and usually at the artist’s discretion. Bypassing all hierarchical constraints of the gallery system, a contemporary street artist makes their work happen free of charge. That’s amazing.