If you are interested in graffiti art and want to learn graffiti properly, then you may be interested in gaining some ammunition in it’s defence for when you are challenged by authorities etc etc.
Writing graffiti is not new. Despite what anyone may say about the younger generation – they cannot be blamed for graffiti… or should I say credited with graffiti! The roots lie way way back, as far back as even the ancient Egyptians who would put markings on monuments. The word itself comes from the Italian word “grafficar” which means scratchings, markings, messages written by painting or scribbling and there is even evidence of markings having been found on the walls in Pompeii.
The modern birth of the art came in the 1960′s when it became popular to tag your name and street number wherever you felt it should be. First culprit? A young Greek boy named Demetrius who, living uptown of Harlem, saw another kid doing it and decided to copy… lots and lots of times… all over! He ended with a job as a delivery boy and covered large areas of town… and left his mark everywhere. He was even
the subject of an article in the New York Times, ensuring his fame and writing his name in the history books of graffiti.
From this point on everyone wanted to learn graffiti and the walls and streetcars were soon covered with increasingly complex and refined tags – modern graffiti was born.
So… you are doing nothing new or revolutionary. Just make sure that your graffiti is done well and not just a scrawled tag. Everyone needs to work to get up but it won’t happen if you just make a holy mess everywhere – make it good. It is usually just all the toy tags that get people annoyed – you will be surprised how many regular people actually love having good piece in their area.
Town Halls these days are changing their ideas about graffiti… about time! Many of them are actually paying street artists to paint the walls. Some graffers are in favour of this and some not. Admittedly it keeps the streets alive and keeps the art out there, but many are not fans of paid graffiti. For many writers it takes away the whole idea and makes the art commercial. But, if you are good at your work and you are offered a good sum to put up a piece that will run for a long time then it is not easy to turn it down! (and you will be running no risk of massacre either!)
This split in attitude will always be present… it is the difference between the street artists and the street graffers and writers. There is a difference – although it is not always easy to see the fine line. But there is room for all – the streets are their world and there are plenty of streets!
There is no doubt that well executed graffiti is definitely an art form and a very popular one at that. It is a means of expression which is relayed directly onto the streets and each piece has a purpose and a meaning. They are our streets and we want to be creative, we want to be seen and we want to write a piece that’ll keep burning – it’s what we want to do and YES IT’S WHAT WE DO!
So – Let’s learn graffiti and produce works of art.
