BEAUTY

When you’re done your outline and start applying that Venice Blue adding some Signal Violet, Purple and Lake Blue with some white and Black then outlining your work with that hot Solar Orange and just going everywhere with your colours is when you find true beauty in colours and aerosol art.

Writing has a lot of different aspects that make it really interesting and appealing. There are many things people do not know about graffiti and do not make an effort to find out, so they ignore the beauty that it can posses. Not appreciating writing because you don’t understand what it’s saying is a poor excuse. There is a lot more then the letters to appreciate because writers take them beyond literacy functions and into the realm of feelings and images.

Style is a big part of writing, your style makes you who you are and makes people recognize you every time you drop something. You develop the ability to find new ideas, new combinations, new movements and new ways advancing your art. It is something that you develop straight from yourself, that’s why it’s worth so much.

What I find remarkable in writers is their sense of imagination. Writing is great imaginative work, this is made evident when looking at a tag all the way to a piece. There are no established or written down rules in writing so no boundaries for imagination. You are sometimes able to see what writers incorporated in their work. How some letters look like a body movement or how the colours he used are the same that are in that popular mint gums add. They take things that they see and twist it to their style.

The way Graffiti screams out to the city and even the world is amazing. The way a piece on a freeway or on a corner store can make so many heads move and think, how so many people can admire good art, even for a glimpse. Writing is able to give someone a voice to express themselves to the world without having his name advertised everywhere. It’s a way of rebelling against our money corrupted society, where if you have no money you are muted out and left behind.

Unjust Callings

I don’t blame people who not appreciate graffiti since the only information they have about it comes from graffiti removal companies, government and several other associations. They mostly try to use scare tactics and strong words to impose their views on it.

I read multiple articles that stated that graffiti can generate fear, crime and intimidate neighborhoods and I fail to see how that is so. Personally, I do not find it more terrifying to walk in a alley covered with graffiti then one without or how a tag on a wall can cause a higher crime rate. They use words with evocative power like “Vandalism” , knowing there is no such crime. The law proscribes malicious mischief, malicious damage, petty damage, littering and the destruction of property but not “vandalism”. The word “vandalism” was linked to graffiti thanks to the press, since they and the politicians knew they had to give the mass appeal a word that evoked much more than what it was. And this is how the press and the commercial world is able to affect one’s perspective or opinion.

Associations like graffiti removal companies want to be able to grow their business and still charge a large amount of money, the authorities know that the influence is too powerful and it has a political impact on society. So like them the National Council to Prevent Delinquency (NCPD) evokes fear to control one’s opinion, even if they do not know much about it themselves. The NCPD stated “Gang graffiti is used to mark gang territory, list members, offer drugs or contraband for sale, or send warnings to rivals. It may include letters, symbols, or numbers known only by gangs and law enforcement”. All these organizations give somewhat the same reasons that are completely false and give writing a bad name. Imagine if someone reads this for the first time, he will be more likely to think of graffiti in negative terms, even though what they are saying is false. That is why our goal is to inform as many people about writing, so they can make their own minds up, without having their thoughts polluted and to make society more aware and therefore more tolerant about this matter.

Twist and Post

Writing belongs on the street. Artists are inspired by the streets not only the graffiti in the  streets but also the billboards, the flyers, the people, the signs and everything in the street inspires them, so they then incorporate these images around there society into there work and take it to another level. Then showing as many people what they have done with it and what they are capable of.             

More and more we are seeing graffiti used in our advertisements, our TV commercials, clothing and elsewhere in our media. It has integrated in our media mostly to target a younger crowd. Even though it sometimes comes in more noticeable or obvious forms, most of the time we are unaware that it was used on an ad, shirt or in the background of a scene, since it’s becoming more and more a part of our everyday life’s. But a lot of big companies abuse their power; they rip off and copy a lot of designs without giving enough recognition or enough money to the artist. So now having writing in our media is a big step forward for the society to try to accept it as a voice of the streets.

It’s a mean of expression in many ways. People in the city go to work then go home, go to work then go home and so on. But while they do so they can see their community at work. There able to see art without having to go to the museum and not every one goes to the museum but a lot more people do pass by that huge intersection everyday. It’s a cheaper and easier way to say what you have to say without having to pay thousands of dollars for advertisement. Be it illegal or not graffiti belongs in the street to send a message across to people.

Thanks

I would like to thank Dominique Perrin for helping me throughout this project.

Thank You