Graffiti - the Incurable Disease (thankfully)
KAI1, young graffiti artist, U.S. made joins the editorial staff at Art as Authority (we just keep getting better and better) with his first essay on the present state of graffiti and its incurable future. We welcome KAI and look forward to a long and painted journey with him. KF
Graffiti has infected hearts and minds throughout the world, whether you love it or hate it we cannot turn back now. Wherever there is a blank wall and a kid (or adult) with a can of paint graffiti will emerge. Graffiti is a manifestation of the build up of feelings and oppressions brewing inside of all human beings. The participants on the illegal side of the graffiti contest bridge all barriers including race, class, age and gender. The people who are cleaning up graffiti are not as varied – they are usually middle aged folks who don’t understand why the kids keep writing on their walls. But the real actors in the game of graffiti can be anyone.
If you look carefully enough you are just as apt to see a forty year old married man with children putting up hand styles as you are a fresh faced and promiscuous twenty something girl hitting trains or bombing the streets. There are the trust fund kids whose parents give them allowances and apartments in Manhattan. There are the truly skuzzy train hopping degenerates who would never even think of paying for paint because they steal it, just like they steal everything else. The dude who has the most ups in town might go home to sleep under 300 thread count sheets or he might be outside the corner store panhandling for money to buy a forty ounce.
The real question is: “What compels all of these different people in society to write, draw, paint, scribe, and etch their nom de plumes on walls, trains, trucks, windows, vans, or any other surface within reach?” One could argue that graffiti itself is not artistic. Many graffiti writers would concur with this, citing that good graffiti is all about raw destruction. Anyone can grab a marker and write their name on a wall. Most people that I’ve spoken with have at least one or two memories of doing graffiti at some point in their life. Graffiti doesn’t consume the majority of us, but it really gets the ones it’s able to get its sticky grip around. Minutes turn to hours, hours to days, and days to years. New sets of letters come and go, there is not end point, and there is an infinite possibility of combinations.
While most people don’t find the quick scrawls and signatures placed helter skelter across the urban and suburban sprawl aesthetically pleasing these are the backbone of the culture. If you don’t have good hand styles you are nothing, simply an imitator, a toy, a wannabe. When a writer learns to tag he starts to understand the concept of letters in graffiti. With much practice the neophyte will soon master the thousands of almost invisible intricacies of what makes letters dope. After having a handle on this basic area of graff they can continue to evolve their style in to something more complex. Even the most square of citizens seems to be intrigued by intricate full color wild style pieces. They can appreciate the craftsmanship and the flow and color in the letters. They may not be able to see the letters themselves in the piece of graffiti but they still can appreciate it. It is most sad that this same public can not appreciate the quintessential element of graffiti – the tag – due to their close-mindedness or ignorance.
The all inclusive nature of graffiti is what I find most intriguing. Anyone can paint graffiti but some spend there lives obsessed with it while some are slightly annoyed by having to paint it over on their wall. It is my contention that any act of graffiti is an inherently artistic act. Even if the tagger possesses no skill or understanding of the craft they are still adding to the ever changing landscape. Graffiti looks at the world as a giant canvas begging for worldwide collaboration. No matter how minuscule a simple tag is in the grand scheme of things it still must mean something. Even if the creator is unaware it conveys ideas at once moral, political, and social. Once thousands of these ideas are stacked up one only was to literally read the writing on the walls.
Most young writers think graffiti is simply a big FUCK YOU to the government, pure individualism and anarchy. If only graffiti were as simple as letting the world know you were once here. The actual motivations of graffiti writers are usually more complex and sadly also more often then not influenced by ego.
It used to be that a spray can was picked up at around ten or twelve and that a person’s vandalism career would be over before the writer was out of high school. The dense network of a few train lines in a few neighboring cities of yesteryear has been replaced by an expansive interpretation of graffiti. Writers now crave world wide fame as opposed to only neighborhood glory. Pictures of graffiti in a Podunk town can be posted online for the world to see within seconds.
Fame in graffiti can be vague and elusive. When a graffiti writer speaks of being famous it only means recognition within their esoteric subculture. Extreme fame, or superstar status, almost invariably comes at a high price. It seems that the more you are up the more people are jealous and will hate on you. The occasional writer will also sometimes obtain fame within mainstream society usually when working with a very bold and readable letter style that can easily be decrypted by the untrained eye. This is usually even more detrimental as it will give the police a good name to throw around as they try to find you. While this public recognition has allowed a few artists entrance into the upper echelon where you actually get paid to do art they are few and far between.
In recent times graffiti writers usually have careers starting as teenagers and bridging into their twenties. The vast systems of freight trains have united those in the suburbs or small cities. Freights allow them to paint pieces that will be seen by a wide audience while in contrast even the most prolific destruction of their own town would be noticed by relatively few. Writers in larger places often tend to disagree with this interpretation and view street bombing as the true hard core interpretation of graffiti. They are right in the sense that freight trains are often easier to paint than the streets although graffiti on trains carries high penalties if one is caught.
While the question of what makes an aesthetically pleasing piece of graffiti is open for interpretation and comes down to individual preference the key focus is on letters. “Letter purists” think that the toughness and stylishness of the letter forms themselves is most important while the “Techies” value technique and cleanliness over the actual substance of the letters themselves. While it is true that many writers are able to achieve a balance between these two elements of graffiti many never fully master both. Many people think that graffiti should not be pretty, that its core value is to be used as an element of warfare and destruction. Some writers consider themselves artists and some consider themselves anarchists.
Any true graffiti writer will tell you that the key component to graffiti is the letters themselves. Primitive characters were introduced at the onset of graffiti and while they continue to evolve with graffiti becoming all the more complex they are still only the icing on the cake. The fact that letters are the meat and potatoes of graffiti is a point of contention between the artists and mainstream society. Characters and figures are more easily recognizable and therefore not as alienating and isolating to the average Joe. The fact that the general public simply cannot see the letters is what really repulses them. No one wants to be the one who doesn’t get the joke. The fact that the publics’ ignorance to the art form precipitates their hatred of it is really quite sad. The fact that people state graffiti is not an art because of this reason is downright ridiculous. The fact that typography, calligraphy, and graphic design are recognized as legitimate art forms should cosign the fact that graffiti needs to be recognized right up there with them. I would even go so far to say that the typography of graffiti is decades ahead of other letter based art forms simply due to the fact of the massive proliferation of writers working to advance their art and get their names up. This constant evolution feeds the graffiti machine and causes new styles to be developed daily. You will often hear a certain graffiti writer refer to a bit of a piece as being in such and such writer’s style. The sheer number of fonts and letter styles absorbed and reworked within any given graffiti writers typographical lexicon is amazing.
Another testament to the fact that graffiti has a permanent foothold in society is its proliferation within advertising. The advertisement designers co-opted a legitimate art form off of the streets and used it to give their products a hip or cool light. Now that generations of graffiti writers have passed many of these writers have found themselves jobs in advertising or graphic design and they continue to carry on there rich folk art tradition through mainstream conduits. The dance like motions of graffiti is captured on television in music videos and advertisements. Graffiti is beamed to millions of people on the internet. Graffiti is like an incurable virus, we cannot stop it from replicating.
Comments
The real question is: “What compels all of these different people in society to write, draw, paint, scribe, and etch their nom de plumes on walls, trains, trucks, windows, vans, or any other surface within reach?
Why the proscribed domain for so free an act? There's a world out there, and I'm curious to know why it doesn't get hit: plants and trees; clouds (though skywriting: why not modify clouds?); rivers, lakes, and oceans (by pouring dye -- or maybe oil -- artistically: I once read that the Windansea locals would pour green dye in the lineup to make the surf more photogenic); why not whales or cows; or better still, actual people (run up to them, hold them down, paint them, then vamoose); tatoo fairies who visit people in their sleep?; or haircut fairies (Josephine K. woke up one morning to find she had turned into a mohawk); or painting the town red (ever hear about the artist who became mayor of the Albanian capital and had all the buildings painted bright colors as a civic project?); paint your wagon!; satellite billboards in space; legible galaxies; and then (to move from grand to mi-nute) why not nanograffiti? or invisible graffiti? or better yet invisible graffiti that only glows green when the headlights hit it?; which then leads to boudoir tatoos, or ultraviolet ones; and legible ozone holes; and fake video hits of airforceone; or guerilla ads on TV... how to nationally broadcast a tag -- splattered pixels across Seinfeld reruns -- jus what would the technology be? perhaps drugs that induce hallucinatory tags: can I tag a blade of grass? can I tag a priest in Mass? can I tag a goat in heat? can I tag some eggs and meat? Is makeup tagging? And if not why not and since when? do taggers ever tag their own stuff? like their refrig? or a beer can? how come my mac doesn't have a Wildstyle font? or did I just never notice it? and what about this? and This? and THIS? All of it? Is that OK? or tagging kittens? or personal checks? or tax forms? or for signatures? is that legal? and what about sandcastles? and carving initials in a tree trunk? or sticking a flag in the ground and saying "it's mine!"... are flags the same as tags? seems like it. so why not sew a tag? and then wear it? why write one word? or a name? why not tag out a whole short story on a long long wall? Or pour paint over the whole earth? and do it again? or use blood? are there any ultrastar piss taggers? eat asparagus for that good green...
Finallly, whatever became of the San Diego freeway tagger, who hit 52 for years, but who seems to have retired?; urban runoff consciousness? I wonder.
Posted by: Richard Gleaves | octobre 19, 2006 11:39 PM
I took the liberty of posting the following email conversation between Richard Gleaves and myself, with his suggestion, in response to KAI's posting. Join in if you like. KF
KF: Hey nice response to KAI's article, liked the stream of conscience rhythm - fun and direct.
RG: Literary tag was what I felt as typed. For me graffiti is essentially human alas: beautiful but deeply flawed in some fundamental ways. The flaws would be addressed nicely if the practice could be shifted into the context of multiplayer net games
like World Of Warcraft - if they'd allow people to sign up for the games with tagger avatars then they would have endless virtual worlds with endless virtual walls to tag, and all the social perqs of the practice (e.g. social recognition) would still be in place, but with none of the public space / environmental consequences of spraying shit all over the natural world (shades of Soylent Green: "It's chemicals! Paint is chemicals!"
Only thing this idea doesn't address is how to translate the physicality of tag painting into the electronic medium.... giant wall-sized input tablets with digital spraycan mice?
I'm not just free-associating with this, Im serious: figure out how to implement it and it could revolutionize the tagging practice world-wide, and maybe even art-making in general. Get all those online dwarves and elves and warriors, and repurpose them as artists(at least the few crazy ones who WANT to) in virtual worlds of their
own making.
KF: When I look at graffiti, I guess my feeling is to what degree or perspective, you believe an artistic endeavor is outweighing any environmental, social, political or human comfort? level. To what degree is it harmful? or has a negative impact on the psyche of the individual? - graffiti has long been accused of creating insecurity within the community, which is of course not true. A lot of modern architecture, even public sculpture a la Serra has disturbed and interrupted more than one's habitual pathway or route to work. My point is that the individual is hardly ever considered in these circonstances. You could say the same for a lot of graffiti, but believe it or not, they do have a code of ethics that a majority of them respect. I guess I've always felt that graffiti takes art to the streets where it has managed to survive and thrive. I much prefer seeing "beautiful" painted freeway underpasses than ugly grey dirty concrete. My fear would be to institutionalize or safeguard graffiti, squester it off into its own little world where it wouldn't "offend" anyone. I would even argue that this is what we have done with art - and this gets back to what you've said before - about confining artwork to the gallery and museum walls. It's a loss.
When I look at graffiti, I guess my feeling is to what degree or perspective, you believe an artistic endeavor is outweighing any environmental, social, political or human comfort? level. To what degree is it harmful?
RG: Visual art in the form of object-making (and I count image-making as part of object-making, as opposed to, say, singing or dance or storytelling) is from a strict environmental perspective arguably a harmful practice and in fact symbolic of all that is wrong with our current culture, which worships material objects, and has allowed said worship to displace non-material-based values and practices. In other words, aside from their conventional goal of inducing unconventional mental states in the observer, art objects are objects for objects' sake, which is the essence of material waste.
That said, I'm still making things, but at least not giant carved redwood tikis (all roads in this kind of discussion lead ultimately to rationalization, alas), and optimally prefer to use abandoned materials (viz dog hair and aquarium pumps and coat hangers, but not plexi tubes or toy buses or cans of spray paint.).
Now there's an idea: assemblages made from used tagger spray cans.
Graffiti has long been accused of creating insecurity within the community, which is of course not true. A lot of modern architecture, even public sculpture a la Serra has disturbed and interrupted more than one's habitual pathway or route to work.
RG: That was something I kept bumping into while free-associating my way through my original AasA response, typing faster than I could contemplate: namely, that the practice is not distinct from but rather adjacent to or even coincident with a ton of other accepted cultural practices, therefore implying that the stigma on graffiti proper is an arbitrary cultural convention.
I'm old enough to remember as a kid that surfing was an outlaw activity that was allegedly done only by lowlifes (a key plotpoint in Gidget, even, with the bohemian beach bum Moondoggie turning out to be a closet airline pilot). As a teenager my brother-in-law (the same age as me) was never allowed to learn to surf by his straight-arrow parents, precisely because of this.
But believe it or not, they do have a code of ethics that a majority of them respect.
RG: I didn't know about this, and would like to learn more. Somebody must have written by now an extended description of the practice.
The most mind-blowing images in the High And Low art show catalog (from the MOMA-originated show of the early 90's) are Henry Chalfant's panoramic photos of tagged trains in NYC. He specialized in documenting the work in the 80's heyday, so maybe he's done something along these lines.
I guess I've always felt that graffiti takes art to the streets where it has managed to survive and thrive. I much prefer seeing "beautiful" painted freeway underpasses than ugly grey dirty concrete.
RG: Ah , but this begs a huge huge question (and another of my favorites): how much art is too much art? (My original survey to be posted shortly on AasA). That's my major concern with both conventional and graffiti art... I'd argue that it *needs* that sequestration (somebody on the Drawing Club site posted an essay making the same claim) to preserve its ability to impress upon one's senses. In other words, too much great art everywhere will cause people's eyes to habituate and therefore tune out and ultimately lose the emotional response we live for as art viewers.
Seen this way, graffiti ultimately retains its power only by being successfully repressed to a certain degree, for if it were not, it would be everywhere and thus, perceptually, nowhere (like the gray concrete).
I would even argue that this is what we have done with art - and this gets back to what you've said before - about confining artwork to the gallery and museum walls. It's a loss.
RG: See point above. The question being, exactly how much art should be visible -- in both public and private spaces -- to maximize its perceptual effect. Not enough is starvation, too much is dilution, but how to determine the optimum?
Posted by: Kevin Freitas | octobre 23, 2006 02:53 PM
In other words, too much great art everywhere will cause people's eyes to habituate and therefore tune out and ultimately lose the emotional response we live for as art viewers.
Richard, I think it's a pretty interesting logic to follow, but I believe KAI addressed this in his opening paragraph as to graffiti crossing virtually all race, gender and culture(s) -which I think is its inherent strength and ability to adapt and constantly innovate - and the self-imposed sanctity of the act itself in certain specified areas and on certain structures. (it's like those wonderful shark fins on a '57 Oldsmobile, graffiti just seems to go better on trains and underpasses) While too much of a good thing -whatever your passion, drug or vice - may be a bad thing, I don't believe (much like in the galleries) there is a risk of too much good art (inside or outside) Before I forget, the many sites I've visted over the years have been suprisingly "green," not a bomb in site - I assume they recycle. I think most graffiti artists, writters, anarchists believe, at least the few I've had conversations with, that they are actually "enhancing" the beauty or lack there of the object they're painting. You might argue that since there is no real aesthetic nor user friendly planning for public centers, parks, rest areas, etc. these days - often incorporating poor materials lacking any inherent "beauty" and tend to deterioate rather quickly - concrete being the choice of many; the graffiti artist is actually improving the visual surrounding of his fellow being.
I would only add that my impression is that the main difference between a graffiti artist and the fine art artist is this sense of purpose and comraderie, a certain valor. The graffiti artist's work is much more social, public, communal, tribal? and is not the work of the lone solitary artist toiling away in his studio. It is less conceptualized, not any less intelligent, more direct, fresh.
Posted by: Kevin Freitas | octobre 23, 2006 07:25 PM
Congratulations KAI I would like to forward you an outline of a Graf program that can be implimented anywhere. Could you please send me an address I can send it to?
Thanks
Paul Vauchelet
Posted by: Paul Vauchelet | octobre 23, 2006 08:11 PM
“For me graffiti is essentially human alas: beautiful but deeply flawed in some fundamental ways.”
Couldn’t have said it better myself, perhaps it is this paradoxical nature that attracts me to graffiti and also the reason why graffiti is sometimes the only drive I have to keep going in life.
Thanks to Kevin, Paul, and Richard for your comments, you guys said a lot of really thought provoking stuff. I think I tend to forget about the effects graffiti has on outsiders being so totally immersed in the subculture. One negative impact that graffiti has in a world where not every single person has the wherewithal or drive to illegally paint their feelings and thoughts on walls is that it can leave the passive participants feeling force fed. The same way one might feel driving down a scenic stretch of land and being forced to look at a looming billboard. If everyone out there were participating in painting the global canvas then this disenfranchisement might not be as harsh. Perhaps it will take the majority of people to be fully inundated with advertisements before they snap and lash out with the need to put up some imagery or advertisements of their own.
The fact is that there really is a proscribed domain for graffiti. In some ways it feels very structured: i.e. only hit the spots with the most visibility, only paint the trains that don’t get buffed a lot, don’t go over something that is better than what you do, etc. While many graffiti artists are really pushing the envelope I really like a lot of the esoteric facets for graffiti mentioned. I will try to address parallels in the graffiti word to some of the ideas mentioned as well as my thoughts on some of the others.
A great comparison to graffiti is an open ended massive multiplayer online role playing game. The terrain is vast and there is no finish to the game in sight but the participants play with much fervor. Further advancements in graffiti style or technique are like an expansion pack that serves to keep things moving. It’s not about winning it’s about playing the game.
The relationship between graffiti and the world is, in a long term perspective, in its infancy. The techniques of modern day graffiti as we know have been evolving for fifty years tops. Just think about where it might be in another fifty. Writers will be beaming there names and propaganda straight into our brains via the chips that would have already been implanted so that commercials could be beamed directly to us as we walk through the super market. Rebel graffiti artists might blow holes in nature’s beauty to carve their own names. Perhaps someone will level Mount Rushmore and put up a bust of themselves. Or for the less narcissistic a bust of a true American hero – hey what about Dubya? Maybe I’ll be the first to paint the satellite billboards – perhaps I could catch ‘em while they’re still parked on Earth. I really like the idea of legible galaxies and ozone holes. Now were talking about getting your name up big. This brings up a good question: to what point does the end justify the means. Would it be worth it to spell your name out in nuclear bombs if the population wasn't too dead to notice it?
Some more radical ideas mentioned float in the realm of actuality also. Paint the town red – for sure. A group in my town has caught my attention with their very unique form of graffiti. They whitewash legitimate public murals and paintings with a putrid gray house paint. To me this is not the most aesthetically pleasing of renovations but at least I like their spirit. In my humble town the buff jerks themselves used to paint over our legal permission walls in this same way. In essence they were doing graffiti by painting our commissioned murals.
Nano graffiti goes against the primary rule of graffiti which is BIGGER IS BETTER. However I do tend to notice that the smaller you tag the longer it usually stays. So guess there is some potential – it would be cool to have your name on every wall of every block but so small that it would never get gone over. That way maybe you would have to put in some good old detective work to find the beauty in the street. They already make a glow in the dark spray-paint, it’s made by a foreign spray paint company and the name of the paint is poltergeist. Never tried it but sounds like it might be fun. Graffiti and the media is a tricky area of thought. While it would be very cool to broadcast a pixilated tag across a nation I have always enjoyed the fact that graffiti forces you into the realm of the concrete. You can’t deny the actual concrete, while it is comprised of the same atoms as everything else, it can really hold you firm and graffiti would not look as good on a surface more pristine (in my opinion).
I also want to mention that hallucinatory drugs have and will continue to influence the scripts of many writers. Now if someone could only come up with a batch of LSD that causes the user to see only my name written on everything they glance at. You can certainly tag a blade of grass if you have a Pilot marker small enough, I might have even tagged a few trees myself. You could also tag a priest very easily but sadly graffiti on humans is almost solely reserved for bums and sleeping friends. The pseudo graffiti artist Banksy can’t really paint letters to save his life but he has been known to paint a few cows (Google it – shit is kinda sad really, poor cows). Your computers probably do have a graffiti font; they are available, although the letters are nothing short of crap. Any font designers want to offer me a deal? Anyone who wants to tag their name on a personal check and send it to me is more than welcome to.
I’m also glad that the question if writers tag on their own property was brought up. The answer is almost undoubtedly yes. You are likely to find my bedroom bombed harder than any corner of the city. We write incessantly and any thing that has a surface is not safe. We foolishly tattoo our monikers on our body, the one place that they are safe from the buff. After loosing so many soldiers to battle it is good to know that you have one that is permanent and will always be up unless the cynicism of old age and regret of youth causes laser removal. We also wear our art on our clothes and sometimes we’re lucky enough to sell the t shirts at high end boutiques for 75 bucks a pop – yeah. Metal Man Ed makes some real cool assemblages out of used spray cans.
The name that you write the majority of the time can be picked out yourself or given to you by someone else but it certainly doesn’t limit you. A real writer can draw every letter of the alphabet. Revs in New York has set out to write his life story (literally) by scrawling verse on walls in underground train tunnels. The idea of an art or graffiti art critical mass is something that I think about a lot. I think that even if everyone in the world picked up a paintbrush or spray can that the percentage of quality art would not change. Most people are not going to be talented so what we would see is a mass rise of bad painting but the rate of good painting would stay the same. I prefer bad paintings to good ones so it would certainly make my outlook on the world more beautiful.
“When I look at graffiti, I guess my feeling is to what degree or perspective, you believe an artistic endeavor is outweighing any environmental, social, political or human comfort level? To what degree is it harmful? Or has a negative impact on the psyche of the individual?”
This question hits particularly close to home for me. Why am I risking my ass to put up imagery that the majority of the public despises? That’s really a hard question and I don’t have an answer. The only thing I can relate it to is doing something for a higher good or purpose. Faith. Perhaps it is just my indoctrination within the culture that causes me to have these righteous feelings, perhaps it is something larger. Would you club the last baby seal alive to death for peace on earth? Would you burn up a Picasso painting in the quest for true art? Would you pour acid on your face so that others could see you internal beauty?
I always told everyone that if I ever got rich or famous that I would buy up a bunch of old masters oil paintings and do forced collaborations with them. This would almost certainly ruin there value, but perhaps if I was famous enough it would make their value go even higher?
Kevin I do agree with your statement that a key difference between graffiti artists and fine art artists is this sense of purpose and camaraderie, a certain valor. Is the graffiti artist's work is much more social, public, communal, or tribal? Perhaps it is more so - but I think this is less apparent to the graffiti writer engaged in the act. We act as an almost unthinking impetus. Perhaps our scrawls are simply kindling for more advanced minds that can take our subconscious ideas and actually do something with them. Also Paul I would love to see your outline of the graff program. I would be happy to answer any correspondence at kai1st@gmail.com
Posted by: KAI | octobre 26, 2006 11:46 PM
Great writing KAI! Love it..., looking forward to more!
Posted by: Kevin Freitas | octobre 28, 2006 02:48 PM
Yp wat up kai...we never meet but ive painted in tucson in some spots u been...lil town and wat not. ive seen alot of ur work...yoiur sik yo, got a crazy ass fressh style. keep them coming..
Posted by: Enve | avril 27, 2007 06:36 AM
your graffiti suck realy bad so quit or get better
Posted by: RADEIO | mai 18, 2007 09:08 AM
Your grammar and spelling sux 2 pussy boy, if you see me say that shit to my face and you'll get a mouthful of ink son.
Posted by: KAI | juin 8, 2007 08:18 AM
hey what up guys...... i would like to join a graffiti crew..... i from mexico, and my tag is: flow
Posted by: m.c. flow | juin 27, 2007 05:08 PM
has anybody heard of a zombe from the frisco area
Posted by: cj | juillet 5, 2007 12:56 PM
graffiti is beautifull and it helps me express my self
Posted by: R!SK1 | octobre 15, 2007 09:31 AM
graffitis # 1 on my list.. oh 4 ever graffiti... KRO FMK.. CITY OF ANGELS
Posted by: kyro fmk | octobre 29, 2007 12:56 PM
hey i write hamr 1 no krew. been looking for some down ass writers to maybe start a krew. is there any1 whoe is down. im from los angeles
Posted by: hamr 1 | novembre 1, 2007 01:43 AM
when you said tag blades of grass i laghed because me and rez hit like 200 leaves one day
Posted by: SHOGO | novembre 6, 2007 09:59 PM
hey i write Trane. no crew. Im 16 ive been writeing for almost four years. i like the way you described everything its all realistic and everything you said is true. i give you mad respect!!!
TRANE
Posted by: Trane | novembre 19, 2007 10:32 AM
Im really glad i met kai 1.
He is a really good artist.
His style is all his own.
lots of good times,partying,painting,just having fun, see you soon mofo..
Posted by: cuate one | janvier 3, 2008 12:23 PM
thats art work and its kool
Posted by: lupe | janvier 22, 2008 08:17 PM
hey im MEZOR and i have been writing for two years. im a teen who got into graff because one of my friends showed me it and i was hooked since my first bombing run, 2am under a bridge near my friends house. graffiti has to be one of the purist forms of art. these people that write have knowledge of colors and deffinitly the typography aspect. graffiti is all about the letters. if you dont have a good style then you will never get respected. graff is a way for a kid no one likes at school to be respected by his peers because they dont know who it was. people dont judge writers by who they are, they are judged by there skill.people who think its a way to say you dont control me are wrong most of the time. there are writers that are like that. there toys though. mid aged people who cover up this usually beutiful art work have no appreciation for the artistic aspect. think about the time and sometimes money that was put into a medium sized wild style. when it gets painted over by anti graff squads it is the worst thing in the world.to know that all that time you spent, risking getting caught, was for nothing. graffiti beautifies the dull and run down areas of a city. why take all that beuaty away?
Posted by: mezor1 | février 1, 2008 05:24 PM
graffiti is mad awesome...ma home boy victor is tryin to teach me some new tricks, im from Florida and he is from texas...he is really good, he can do some really kool stuff with graffiti he does it all day at school...
Posted by: violet | février 21, 2008 02:21 PM
hey guys, I'm a student goin' to Parson's School of Design in New York City. I'm developing my thesis for the school and am in search of sources references from artist's like yourselves. Anything insightful about graffiti, especially any epic stories you have about your art, when you write, where you've written, ever been bagged, etc. Anything impacting you have to offer is appreciated, and getting your name up in the city and who knows from there is the benefit of this for the most part. So if you could respond to this with an email to GdogPdidio@gmail.com i'd appreciate it. who knows what this kind of project could mean for graffiti. I dream big. And if artasauthority has anything to add I'd also appreciate that. thanks guys
Posted by: Ryan Riegner | avril 7, 2008 02:39 PM
Why do I need to see the scrawlings of high school duo-tang covers writ large in the urban landscape? I don't.
Posted by: Baron Lemitte | mai 11, 2008 06:46 PM
you talk 2 much boy. graff is just something u do and only the real ass writers make it. u have to be crazy to do it, no second thoughts. create your own style and dont give a fuk if u get caught. L.A. POR VIDA
ATLAS!! all city king
Posted by: base | juin 2, 2008 10:13 PM