Friday, November 26, 2004
Anti-Graffiti Vigilante
Our neighborhood is full of graffiti. There are times when I am annoyed by the tags - especially when they are placed over beautiful murals. We have beautiful murals and ugly murals in our neighborhood. Why couldn't they mark over one of the ugly murals instead? In creating my logo for this site, I decided to come up with a tag-like version of the text "Sk8RN." I started to analyze the graffiti throughout my neighborhood for ideas. What defines the graffiti as a tag? Is it the letters, the font, the location or all three? I finally came up with the art for my logo. Graffiti really can be art if you look at it through the right set of eyes. Low and behold, a few days after I came up with my design, some wet pavement appeared at the end of my block. My art utensil in hand (a ball-point pen), I drew my design out in swift, confident strokes. I decided I would come back and photograph the image for this site. But when I return two days later, what do I find? Someone scratched out the letters while the cement was still wet, rendering it unrecognizable. I shuffled away from that square of sidewalk feeling dejected and defeated.
A few days later, another wet square of cement popped up on my block. This time I saw my enemy - an old white man with a grey scraggly beard sat guard by the pavement, smoking a cigarette. I must've gone in and out of my apartment a dozen times to find him constantly there. The night grew dim and on my next outing, he was gone. Pen - stored securely in pocket - was pulled swiftly and smoothly out and once again, I scrawled my mark into the yielding medium.
An hour later, I headed back out again, and what do I find? I am foiled again!
I expressed my unbearable frustrations to C and she pointed out:
C: You know, our neighborhood has had our sixth gang-related gun-shooting this year just this past week. I think people are at least in part responding to that when they are painting over and scratching out tags.
[big sigh] I guess I'll have to tag a more affluent neighborhood that has less gang activity then, eh?
A few days later, another wet square of cement popped up on my block. This time I saw my enemy - an old white man with a grey scraggly beard sat guard by the pavement, smoking a cigarette. I must've gone in and out of my apartment a dozen times to find him constantly there. The night grew dim and on my next outing, he was gone. Pen - stored securely in pocket - was pulled swiftly and smoothly out and once again, I scrawled my mark into the yielding medium.
An hour later, I headed back out again, and what do I find? I am foiled again!
I expressed my unbearable frustrations to C and she pointed out:
C: You know, our neighborhood has had our sixth gang-related gun-shooting this year just this past week. I think people are at least in part responding to that when they are painting over and scratching out tags.
[big sigh] I guess I'll have to tag a more affluent neighborhood that has less gang activity then, eh?
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