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.