Why I write graffiti. (A small epiphany I had once upon a time)

Without a doubt the start of my graffiti career entailed wanting to fit in somewhere (I was pretty young). It wasn't the sole reason, but on a sub-concious level that was definately a big part of the appeal.

And while I grew older and realised writers ( at least in my city) are for the most part a horrible group which consisted of the exact kind of people I did not want to be around (both in terms of the physical and mental), I think on a more sub conciouse level that want for acceptance stuck but in a different form.

As I got more active, I did the things I imagine most writers to do. I got off on fame. I liked it when people knew who I was. And before anyone knew who I was, I was driven by the fact that I wanted my prescence to be felt. I got jelous when other writers did things and at the time I thought my jelousy was being outletted positively because I responded to that feeling with a friendly competiveness.

After using the above as a driving force for my stuff for what feels like a long time ( though compared to lots is no time at all), I've come to realise its a ridiculouse thing for a person of any self reflection to do. When one paints for regonition, those efforts are clearly made for the esteem of other people and if painting takes up a big part of your life, it more or less follows that you are living your life for the sake of other people. Think about that carefully, living YOUR life for others. Its just a stupid thing to do. And I think its true of most people who aim to actively participate in any sub culture. At least based on my limited experience

I should add these feelings where never really clear to me. At the time it never really occured that fame was my goal. I just kept telling myself to get amongst it all. Anyway...

I guess the obviouse question is, " If this is how you feel, why the fuck are you still writing silent bob?! Well, after a little while I just had the urge to paint things. Not as a forum to be heard, but just for the sake of pushing myself from out of my comfort zone and for the sake of being excited about something. Theres a sort of pleasurable discomfort in graffiti ( i.e. feeling scared but doing it anyway) as well as an aesthetic pleasure that I enjoy. An now I'm extremely sleepy so I'll leave it there.

But I should point out that getting hyped about graffiti in your own little mental world is very different to tagging something and saying to yourself "yeah all these people are going to see that shit" ..

anyway I'm going to bed, sorry about the length. Discuss

Wow.........that was good......really! I likeded it! It's really true....

i love seeing my name up. on the way to the store, on the freeway, on a garbage can, i don't care. it makes me feel tingly inside ;)

Could life ever bee sane again?

We all have our reasons, we all have a diffrent view of graffiti.

my views on it have changed over the years. i think from the start most are just out to be accepted in something outsider, and fame is dirty bitch.

i have more to add ... but im out for now ... more tomorrow.

Nothing beats that feeling of accomplishment when you've just hit up a spot that isn't chill at all with something that turned out just the way you wanted it to without being caught. As you walk away you're just saying to yourself, "Yeah! I just did that. What a rush! I'm gonna go paint something else." I'm not saying that's my reason for graffiti, I'm just saying that that is a rewarding thing about it.

Originally posted by CrazyLazy

Nothing beats that feeling of accomplishment when you've just hit up a spot that isn't chill at all with something that turned out just the way you wanted it to without being caught. As you walk away you're just saying to yourself, "Yeah! I just did that. What a rush! I'm gonna go paint something else." I'm not saying that's my reason for graffiti, I'm just saying that that is a rewarding thing about it.

Shit..if im getting a hype ass spot that I know I'm gonna be like damn "I'M HOT". I mean everyone knows when your out there using tactics and risking everything on the line. Then..I know mother fuckers are gonna see me up..thats word.

At first I got into it for writing on shit. But now I just like to liven up shit. The only way society let's you become an artist is if you go to art school. I like to prove that wrong and rub it in thier faces that a teenage kid with a can of spraypaint is doing more than what they paid $20,000 tuition to do. I don't like most writers because they just bomb for a few months and then just quit, But I'd think those aren't real writers. I also don't mind seeing shit I've done like a few years ago and lauging. And thinking of how much my graf has improved.

Originally posted by ODS-1

At first I got into it for writing on shit. But now I just like to liven up shit. The only way society let's you become an artist is if you go to art school. I like to prove that wrong and rub it in thier faces that a teenage kid with a can of spraypaint is doing more than what they paid $20,000 tuition to do. I don't like most writers because they just bomb for a few months and then just quit, But I'd think those aren't real writers. I also don't mind seeing shit I've done like a few years ago and lauging. And thinking of how much my graf has improved.

I feel you on this one. People are always so into putting you down for what you do cause they think its trash when really us writters can produce better art than poeple who do go to school for it. I do this for me- cause I love the rush when I hit up a spot that others will see.

Yet at the same time I do it for others too. The reason ---- To prove others wrong - to show them that my form of art is and can be good enough-- equal to those who go to school for it. Man, we learn this from the streets - experiance- practice- persistance. It is just too bad that there is not a place for it in the world. I have been doing this for 5 years now and the first day I started I knew this was for me even though others thought it was the worst thing I could ever do. The feeling I had the first time I did this, I still get it now cause this is what I do. Maybe it will never be accepted but that does not mean I will stop cause others put me down. This is part of my life now -- thats just the way it is.

I dont know why I write...its just my steez. Fuck that art shit I wanna strait vandalize, ya smell me? If you wanna do art, by a canvas. If ya wanna do graff grab a can and hit the streets. Niggahs know.

I would have to say that most graffiti artists do not use commonly the true power our art holds.

by pushing a fake name and destroying the boundries of letterfrom a new art was born, some near 30 years later many artists have come and gone but not much more than that has changed. the abstraction of letterfrom has hit new heights with the addition of new people and 3D styles in the 90's, but it still remains a subversive art by and for fellow artists. (the world has felt the impact, ie advertising and commerical art has a street feel now)

We are risking everything by putting our asses in harms way to go out and create this art, when the only people who understand are those who are or were a part of this subculture. (including the vandal squads)

I dont think thats worth it, I am not going to risk putting my ass in jail to impress a group of people i dont know, and who dont make an impact on my life.

However that is not to say the need to deface/destroy is not still running deep in my veins. I just need something bigger than my fake name, something more, something even the general public will grow or learn from.

this is a powerful from of expression, and a huge part of my life i just need to feel the balance of risk is in my favor. If I only impact a small group of people, its not .... if I can grab the attention of a bigger slice of the population I feel it is.

I need to add when i was younger and just starting out i dont think i could have understood my curent perspective, much less adopted it had someone else shared it with me.

Yeah-- sometimes the risk you do take is not worth it -- but we do it anyway. If everyone thought the risk was too high then the graffiti scene would die. Yes I am only 1 out of millions who do it but I dont do it cause millions of others do ---- I do it cause I want to -- cause its inside of me because if it wasnt I would have died out of it a long time ago and it would have just been a phase in my life-- but it lives on.

blah i didnt feel like reading that. no disrespect im just at work, moping. hopefuilly this has something to do with the thread. i do graffiti because it is in my blood. i have been doing it all my life. i am officially obsessed and/or an addict. although i live a "regular" life. i. e. job, wifey, etc. whatever, fuck this. i love graffiti and nothing can stop me. ive risked my life but i dont go out of my way to do so, and in my eyes the risks arent shit, bottom line to everyone else, its just graffiti, cops too.

tsk tsk tsk.

I do graffiti because it gives me leverage to meet hot asian art chicks in SF.

Naw, seriously, i just dig it. It's a rush, it allows me to meet and connect with other hyper-creative types you normally wouldn't come into contact with through other means. It's a way of venting my frustration I have with institutions I can't strike back at through more direct means. Graffiti is an altogher unique cultural phenominon that has existed for thousands of years and has a spirit and drive all its own that stands independent of other activities that stand on the fringes of society.

Graffiti gives me a smug sense of satisfaction when I walk around my Athlete dominated school. I see these assholes swagger this way and that way bragging about the big game and kicking so and so's ass, etc... and I think to myself

"Ever run through the mission at four in the morning with a bag full of paint getting chased by cholos?"

"Ever paint a rooftop as the sun comes up illuminating the San Francisco skyline in a thousand shades of vermillion orange and red as you finish the outline on a character crafted with the handstrokes only a writer has?"

You know, shit like that. The rush, the excitement, the fame, the adoration of youn guns looking up to you. I love all of it.

ANd yes, I did mean what i said about asian art scenester chicks. Graffiti has a way of helping you work your way into their hearts. just ask my gf! ha

I want to do shit regular working class people will see, not some yuppie bumblefuck on the way to work in his SUV. I remember riding a subway line and seeing regular people looking at shit.

Originally posted by CrazyLazy

Nothing beats that feeling of accomplishment when you've just hit up a spot that isn't chill at all with something that turned out just the way you wanted it to without being caught. As you walk away you're just saying to yourself, "Yeah! I just did that. What a rush! I'm gonna go paint something else." I'm not saying that's my reason for graffiti, I'm just saying that that is a rewarding thing about it.

Yes, that’s good.

But the worst is when you hit the highway and you feel like a moron because the shit you did came out mad wak. I feel like smashing my head into a mirror right now. :(

when i first started at like 13/14 i was only writem my real name cause im in a smaller city so the cops wernt lookin for graf back then, plus the only reason i did it was cause i was bored. but then me and my buddy bubba met verse twsk and when he told me about the actual culture and put me on to the real graff art like the bombings and the pieces and all that shit i was fuckin amazed and by this time i was still only 14/15 so the shit hey said was like revolutionary to me. then i ended up movin and it kinda fadded out of my life like if it was a fad..........

then i moved to vegas and on the way out there i was scetching and it all came back and it intrigued me again and i got back into it in a new city and shit bla blah i know then i ran into all those graffwriters turned whanabes and i was thinking that wasnt what verse had told me graff was and i was dissapointed and i gave it up..... but after the piecing and thebombing and the tags up all over i couldnt get it out of my life and now after all of the bull shit i write because its like a second nature to

me now i love it because ive seen all sides of it and i appreciate it alot more now ... i respect what all the original pioneres did for the upward movement not just of graff but of hip-hop. so at 17 i had an apifany of my own i wanted to live hip-hop with my ears to the dj and emcee,

my eyes on the breakers and my heart and soul on the wall...... in the last eight months when i had my apifany i decided to start from scratch

and here i am ............... 2 new name , one for the permision walls and one for the city. this shit is my world!:p i just figured id share my story as well, whether or not you all brand me as toy or whatevey.........

so now i leave it to you liesure, please.... discuss

" I create therefor I am"

graffiti is multi layered just like any science. there are reasons why people do graff which change with time...humans are complex machines that have still to reach their true potential.

this goes hand in hand with our understanding of why we are here on earth...until we understand the full workings of our minds we wont know why we were here.

So...my point is that I couldnt isolate a single reason or even alot of reasons...I do graff and create what i need to create and get out of my brain...its a constant need, I think that most people have in different forms within themselves.

I know that we have created a form of expression within graff that is unlimited in its potential to evolve and change. like a living organism....thats why the govenments of the world are so scared of graff ....they fear its potential to mutate and represent class struggle in times of oppression, or freedom of speech and thought in our times of money access media.

we are ungovernable and intelligent and beyond regulations and taxation and everything designed to control humans for the good of a few in power.

"Those gigantic rolling pages..." Ram ell zee" :king:

the government is afraid of graffiti because of vandalism complaints. they (and i) know that you are not communicating anything but a name you call yourself. the means in which you do it is admirable, but let's not wax poetic about something we both know you do for self pleasure.

graffiti is an incredible thing, but surely nothing more than, at worst, a small cry for recognition from insecure young people, or at best, an attack on the idea of property (physical or intellectual) and an honorable attempt to beautify something as ugly as the city.

but again, if you are communicating something beyond the afforementioned things to the masses, i would like to be informed?

toy

i started writing because i didnt know it would get me in trouble and i thought i was being cool. now its just a rush its a hobby its somethin to do when im bored... i been stressed out by shit around the house and then just bounced on myself and got all my stress out by rockin the shit out of busses. i dunno, if that shit was legal, itd probably just be like playin sports or bein on a dance squad or some shit. just any other activity. but if you look at most writers theyre all pretty fucked up. most of em smoke weed, drink a shitload of booze, steal, fight a lot, do other crimes on the regular, or all of the above. im not sayin that were all hardcore criminals but most graffiti writers are pretty troubled. most of the writers i hang around and know do/did all the shit i just mentioned, slangin dope, doin all sorts of drugs, fightin people, gettin locked up all the time. there aint a lot of leave it to beaver muthafuckas who go out and paint after they come home from their boy scout meetin and shit. but theres really no one answer for this one for me.

also i guess theres an art perspective to this shit too. when you really trip, most of the shit we do is amazing to most people. i remember when i was first startin out and my shit was horrible, people i knew were still like 'oh my god thats so cool.' its satisfying to put up somethin sick, to get better, to look at your old ass gay shit and see how much youve come up, and to basically make somethin thats pleasin to your eye. and plus if i didnt write i couldnt appreciate seein an MSK piece or some shit as much as i do now. or hell even tags and shit.

a lot of times i try to remember what i thought of graffiti before i knew what it was and i just cant, and i cant imagine just walkin away from graffiti anymore. even when i tried to quit, everywhere i walked i was always lookin around and seein who was runnin. i dont want to pass up somethin beautiful like that and just dismiss it as some scribble, even if it is just a tag.

Originally posted by Weapon X

But the worst is when you hit the highway and you feel like a moron because the shit you did came out mad wak. I feel like smashing my head into a mirror right now. :(

Indeed.

i have been trying to define exactly what makes me write for a while now, and i can only really put it down to the fact that i enjoy it. i enjoy the act of applying a medium (whether it be paint, ink, chalk or whatever) to a surface, and the intimate interaction with my surroundings.

like a lot of writers i started out wanting fame or something, which i now look at as being kinda stupid. why the fuck should i bust my ass for the acceptance of others? nowadays, i rarely do pieces, mainly because they usually just frustrate me. i find myself opting for techniques which allow for more spontaneous personal expression. i dont really care what anyone thinks about it, because im still out there having fun.

yo me and hte niggas are posted up in golden gate park near height drinkin our 40s and niggas just sitting around bored

one nigga pulls out a marker and says "lets go rush that 7 bus"

and its on

or niggas posted in the same park at night drinkin 40s and my homie rolls up in the shit bucket with a backpack full of paint hollering about the muni yards and battling some toy ass niggas on lower haight and market

and its on