Tagged

After reading through my last posting, I thought I should clarify my stance on graffiti. I do not condone anyone defacing private property. But I do understand why these artist put their skills on the sides of buildings. Just watch the movie BeatStreet from back in the 80s. It's a good rep on what makes the graffiti artist tick and what is the perfect canvas in their eyes. It also shows why these people can be called artist and not just vandals.

To the right you'll see a photo of a door covered in graffiti. The photo links to a larger image of this door. It's a side door to a building right next to my office in downtown Oakland. For as long as I can remember, the door looked like this. Until one day, the owners of the building paid to have it repainted. As I walked by on my normal route to lunch or the coffee shop, I was pleased to see the positive effort. Less than two days later, it was tagged again. They have since repainted this door about 5 times in the last month. This is the difference between a graffiti artist and a vandal. This door was tagged by criminals. The tagging depicts names of people, gangs, and whatever else they could think to scribe. This is what makes graffiti artist look bad and what gives the idea of urban art a bad name.

Below you'll see a photo of that same door from today...



I've decided to chronicle the life of this door. I'm sure if one of the talented Bay Area graffiti artist had painted something interesting here, the door would be left alone. But it's obvious the taggers won't give up, nor will the owners of this building. Let's see where this one takes us.

posted by DVS @ 1:41 AM