What's wrong with graffiti...
On the left is a picture of what is known as 'tags'. This is what people see in towns and villages and look at it with digust. What they don't realise is that the person doing the tag is someone who is new to graffiti and wants to get better and they usually think this is the way to do it.
Although people think it is wrong to start graffiti because it looks bad, there really is a lot more to it. the tag is a signature, but the respect comes from the 'bomb', the large piece that has taken time and effort and everyone with creativity in them can see has quality. No one can pick up a spray can and do a mural in one day, it takes time and a lot of practice and this has to start somewhere.
In the graffiti world, if your tag doesn't look very good then someone better will come along and go over it, basically telling you to try harder. Of course this can cause trouble, graffiti has always had a reputation of being connected to gangs, but it is also a big community with people looking out at who is showing the most potential and who will be the new 'king ' or 'queen'.
At the end of the day, graffiti is illegal and that will never be something a graffiti artist can deny. The thing to remember is if you see something that's in an illegal place but still looks really nice, that artist has spent a long time getting as good as they are and perhaps behind closed doors they could be an amazing artist with work in a gallery or has a really good job, but needs to still be creative.
The problem is for the rest of the people who want to get as good, what are the options? There are very few legal places to paint and there are so few people who want to change that.
I guess what I'm trying to say is in this photo there is a lot more to these words than a simple scribble on the wall with a pen by a troubled teenager or drunken yob acting stupid. It could be someone who has the love for graffiti/ street art and has a passion for expressing themselves.
A tag is seen as ugly by most people, but to the graffiti artist it tells a lot. Looking at it they can analyse the type of style and who are this persons influences and sometimes where they might come from. They will also look at whether the name really stands out and looks good, and if that tag stays with them for the rest of the day, then maybe they will keep spotting it and that person's name is remembered.
The most important thing for me is that graffiti is all about the different opinions people have, Its important that some people hate it and want to cover it over. If everyone agreed how the world should look, then it would be a boring place, nothing would change and there would be nothing for us to get excited about. It's having a voice and its saying you can make your mark with your big building and your big bridge, but don't forget I want to be heard too and I want you to remember I am there... and that's graffiti!
To help me with my own work I found two walls in Cambridgeshire where I am allowed to paint without getting into trouble. One is at a bridge in Cambridge and the other is on a playing field pavilion in a small town called Melbourn.
The bridge is great because people from all over come to paint there and no one minds if you are just starting out and want to have a go, but it does mean that your work is never there for very long.
I heard about the pavilion permission wall from other graffiti writers I met from Cambridge and Alfreshco. What it means is that the Council have allowed artists to come and paint on the walls. Because of this there have been some really famous graffiti names sometimes, but then other times it is people just starting out.
After doing a few pieces there myself I decided to see if we could get a permission wall in our own village. From talking to my advisor we agreed that the best way was to see what the local community would think. As a result I decided to send a letter to them to see if they would be interested in supporting a permission wall. I got in contact with the parish newspaper who really wanted to help, so I wrote the letter and got it printed in the January 2014 edition:
After that I got in contact with the Parish Council, to see whether they would be interested, they weren't! They didn't hear what I said about the benefits of a wall and were more worried about the kind of people it would attract.
Despite this, I was contacted by a woman who lives in the village who is a trustee of a local charity called Girton Town Charity. They give small grants to people who they think it might benefit. She came to the youth club and asked me about the letter. I told her about the Arts Award and she really wanted to help, so she suggested that I write to the charity asking for the thing that would help me the most with this award. I decided to ask for a camera as taking photos of your work is the only way to remember it, with other artists going over it really quickly.
The second letter was my application to the charity, who after a long consideration granted me the money. I now have the camera and use it all the time to document my own work and take photos of work that inspires me.