Monday, November 13, 2006

A Thank You to Boise Graffiti Artists


I grew up around "street art." It isn't like I'm from the inner city or anything, but when I was a kid, I used to like to look at graffiti when we would drive across town to church or to see my aunt and my grandma. My favorite example was that building near the junction of I84 and 405. Someone had painted an elaborate piece of art that took up the entire top story of the warehouse, but, after several years of improvement, the city (I guess) had it painted over. I totally understand their decision, but I do miss the painting.

When I worked at Pamplin Music, I got to know the destructive nature of tagging. We had to have the building repainted a few times in my four monthes there to cover the graffiti and discourage more tagging.

Now, it seems that Boise has taggers who have defeated the most difficult problems with their art: in Boise, they have been tagging pieces of paper and then taping them up, that way admirers can take them home and the city can just cut them down. Maybe Boise should start a campaign to provide graffiti artists with giant sticky notes.

Comments:
Hmm..I think I like that idea.
 
It's so pathetic--no one around here has the guts to damage property anymore. What is this town coming to?¡
 
Um... are you kidding me? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. I'm not sure if I am thinking of the same place as you, but there was a building just off of 84 right before the --crap... what's that mall called? You know... "Oregon's Biggest Mall"... crap--LLOYD CENTER! So it was right before the LC exit and it was always covered in graffiti and it was painted over several times and the taggers would always come back.
Good for you Boise. You set that example¡

Oohh! Ty! You're scandalous! The neutrality of your wiki-sarcasm is being disputed... could this be the dirty work of "You Know Who"?!
Can we say that you are Riddled With Controversy?
"Oh... Yeah... That's just Ty (Enter Secret Pen Name Here)... he's all riddled with controversy and what not..."
that'd be so cool... LET'S DO IT!
 
i love grafitti, those people are so talented
 
Hello all, good to see you, especially chloe, who is very popular and doesn't get a chance to comment often.

I too like the look of graffiti, at least when it is good art, but I am suspicious about the negative impact it can have on communities and about the hate that is sometimes hidden in its cryptic design.

Yes, it appears that someone has tagged me as writing from a non-neutral point of view. Obviously a bogus claim, since there is no bias involved in an article that just argues the existence of a non-standard phemenon. I've decided to let the dozen or more people who think that it is in error try to fix it, but the fact of the matter is that these are, for the most part, people who cannot even come up with a cogent explanation of their criticism, and those who can form complete sentences, have either fixed the problems themselves or have had the problems they saw fixed by others. Yet still, controversy exists. I hate stupid people who think that they are geniuses; wait, that might be self-loathing.
 
It seems like there wouldn't be much point to "piece-o-paper graffiti"...I don't like it. Grow a pair graffiti artists in Boise...Grow a pair.
 
Yeah, I've seen that too. There's one on the corner that says "Eat Beef," on a piece of paper, in highly stylized script.
 
hi jeb!

do you remember me?

Julie Gershfield!
 
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