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Graffiti: Art or crime?

Reporter David Wirth talks to the guys who usually use spray paint to get their message out

 

 

Editor’s note: Because most graffiti is illegal, few of those who create it agreed to be interviewed for this article, despite repeated requests over the past several months. Of the two who agreed, one, Pear, died shortly after our interview.

 

Aric “Pear” Southard was every bit your stereotypical artist. He called me before our interview in September to let me know he’d be coming late — his ride was receiving a traffic ticket — and when he showed up, the 35-year-old was sporting a Pink Floyd T-shirt, a mop of dark hair and a laid-back attitude.

 

The difference between Pear and most artists was his choice of canvas.

 

Pear painted on walls.

 

For Pear, graffiti was more than the gangs and territorial markings you’ve read about or seen on the news.

 

Pear saw graffiti as art.

 

“You see it on KSBW (Channel) 8 or you read it in The (Salinas) Californian — ‘Oh, this (stuff’s) getting vandalized. It’s gang writing,’” Pear said. “No, man. There’s certain gang writings on certain places in Salinas. They aren’t tagging all over town. They tag their little corners, their little neighborhoods. Everyone else sees graffiti and they think we’re gangsters and thugs, and that’s just the farthest from it.”

 

Aaron Reyes, 21, of Soledad, agrees.

 

“Not all graffiti writers are gangsters,” Reyes said. “I write my graffiti for myself. Gang graffiti is simple lines. Our stuff is more colorful, more tweaked out. There’s more flow to it.”

 

The people who subscribe to this philosophy see graffiti as a means of releasing their artistic talents.

 

Sgt. Tracy Molfino of the Salinas Police Department says that while gang graffiti, which is used to mark territory, is the most prevalent variety, plenty of graffiti has nothing to do with gangs.

 

“You see it all the time,” Molfino said, “whether it’s skater graffiti, vandal graffiti, someone trying to think they’re an artist and tagging up buildings downtown.”

 

Regardless of the kind of graffiti, the police sergeant says it’s a drain on the community. The city budgets $180,000 a year for graffiti cleanup, according to Malfino.

 

He concedes, though, that there is some talent behind the illicit art.

 

“A lot of the graffiti artists are damn good artists — if it was on a canvas in a museum or if it was on a wall that was designed to be a mural,” Malfino said. “They could go out and make a living doing graphic art or some sort of art. They just take up the wrong location to do it.”

 

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The artist

 

Some people do go on to make a living at graphic design.

 

You have “graffiti guys doing tattoos, then it’s limited-edition shoes and the whole clothing thing,” Pear said. “Graffiti has got such a big influence on so much stuff that’s going on right now. My friend Axis from L.A. just got paid by Sprite. They flew him from L.A. to Oakland one day and San Francisco the next. He painted a billboard in each city, and he got paid bank.”

 

For years Pear himself produced art outside of graffiti. He had a show exhibiting his canvasses in September at Bill’s Wheels in Salinas and was planning another one at the Penny Farthing Tavern when he died. Bill’s Wheels frequently takes advantage of Salinas’ First Friday art walks to provide a legal venue for local graffiti artists.

 

Pear said he believed the art aspect of graffiti is largely ignored. He made a distinction between graffiti writing, where someone just writes his name on a wall, and graffiti art, which has a little more substance.

 

Speaking in the stream-of-consciousness flow of words that he used throughout the interview, Pear said graffiti art isn’t “a tag on the side of a building. It’s a multi-colored who-knows-what. The productions people do nowadays are just the most amazing, surrealistic art that I’ve ever seen. It’s mind-blowing that a spray can will do that. You put a lot of time into it — these guys are very skilled artists, super-talented. It’s not just some kid crawling out and tagging.”

 

Molfino agrees that there is a difference between tagging and painting graffiti murals.

 

“Taggers get their name out there tagging everything, and the mural types take large spaces and send a message through what they feel is art — on someone else’s property,” he said.

 

These graffiti artists would be better off expressing themselves through one of the local groups that paint legally, Molfino said.

 

“Go around town,” he said. “You see a lot of murals. There are groups of artists in Salinas that do murals. They’re well designed, they’re well thought out. It’s art. It’s in a place where they’ve got permission, where it’s wanted and where it’s not offensive.”

 

Painting with permission would hurt the art form, Pear said.

 

“A legal wall is going to be under somebody’s ideals of what graffiti should be,” he said. “(Artists) just want their freedom of expression with no drama, basically.”

 

Pear said he thought part of the outcry against graffiti is because it allows anybody to get his message heard.

 

“Maybe it’s that they fear that one person or one small group of people could produce such a large-scale communication to the public,” he said. “Who knows what their idea is.”

 

Businesses pay

 

But graffiti can cost small businesses and the community.

 

Once the city spots graffiti on a business, the owner has 10 days to clean up or the city will paint over the graffiti and bill the owner, Molfino said.

 

“Who’s paying the cost for the cleanup (of graffiti)?” he asked. “(Graffiti) is certainly an avenue of expression, but where do you draw the line? We have to draw the line that it’s illegal. … They run the risk of getting arrested and causing work and financial strain for other people.”

 

The law

 

Artists, for their part, say officials don’t have to paint over their graffiti because it doesn’t have anything to do with public safety. They see their work as beautifying an otherwise ugly, blank wall in their city.

 

Depending on your record, a graffiti conviction can mean anything from fines and community service to a felony conviction and time in prison, according to Molfino. Pear said he has had guns pulled on him.

 

“I got arrested once in Gilroy,” he said. “We were painting over all these gang tags and making a mural. I was, like, midstroke of a line, and I looked and the guy’s got the gun on me. I had two crates of paint, a backpack, a camera bag, two bags of garbage, we had extension poles, rollers, just this arsenal of (stuff). They were like, ‘What are you doing? Oh, graffiti. You’re under arrest.’ I got a hundred-dollar fine and a hundred hours of community service.”

 

Molfino said the officers involved might have felt threatened.

 

“If we were to respond to a burglary in progress and see someone standing next to the side of a building at 3 a.m., the officer’s going to pull out his gun because burglars carry weapons,” he said. “How do you differentiate between a burglar and somebody spray-painting until you turn on your lights and stop the person?”

 

The police can be a little heavy-handed, though, Pear said.

 

He told a story about a kid caught tagging earlier this year.

 

“They deported his (butt),” he said. “They caught him in the train yards over here. I guess his family was illegal or whatever. He got deported, man. That’s pretty crazy, for just writing on some train cars.”

 

Molfino said that although the police wouldn’t have done that, the U.S. Customs Service could have been notified by the courts or county jail.

 

Expression

 

Despite the risks, some people are willing to do what they need to in order to express themselves on walls, bridges and signs all over the world and here in Monterey County.

 

Reyes is one of those people.

 

“It makes you feel good,” he said. “I’m not good at anything else except DJing.”

 

Pear said he hoped that what he did will be appreciated as art.

 

“People look at graffiti people and think we’re just barbarian destroyers, that we’re just out to write on everything,” he said. “That’s not true. We’ll take these places, do murals on them. Spend what could be hundreds of man hours, a lot of money and materials and just do it for the fun of it. And in the end make the place look better.”

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