Raise the Hammer

This post pretty much summed everything up perfectly! "By anonymous (anonymous)Posted October 22, 2011 at 05:51:35

Also as a enthusiast of graffiti culture I would like to add that people who write graffiti do not feel that "they can write on what ever they want" or that "they have have a mental illness".Many writers spend hundreds of days and days and days studying various letter forms and typography
to create some of the pieces of art you see around you, even ontop of that many people also spend time on deciding where to put there art. While it may seem like it to the general public that graffiti writers put there name everywhere and anywhere if you spent some time and actually paid attention to the names you would see that there are two different motives for graffiti writers. While it is impossible to segregate all of graffiti writers into specific groups, I feel explaining it to the general public in this way might give better insight to the things they see around them.
Quantity & Quality are the two motives that drive many writers and as anon said befor me, writers choose to do both in moderation.

At this point we all know that many people hate the tags and simple bubble letters but love the intricate murals & clever art. If you are not interested in graffiti and look for it then the only graff you will see in your daily routine are the tags on the mailboxes and the occasional
bubble letter here and there, this is what people that are interested in graffiti first see and what are driven to do. Typography takes many many years and hard work to properly grasp and can never be fully masterd, its an ever going learning experiance, Many people who write graffiti quit after a short while because they relize how hard and difficult it is to do (there horrible work is also left behind everywhere theyve painted), This is like the average person picking
up a paintbrush for the first time and trying to paint the mona lisa.... youre only gonna come out with some ugly wack shit. This is why you see so many tags,scribble and bombs(bubble letters, These are the people who are first interested in graffiti & want to participate and add to all the tags and bombs they see because thats what they first like about graffiti. They have no REAL knowledge of graffiti culture, they only knowledge that they know of is society's general view/hate
on graffiti, that is what drives them.They are doing to be "rebels and bad-asses" at this level... Its almost the equivilent to throwing eggs at cars or the drunk kid painting swear words or swasticas on your neightboors fence. This is where I think many people get there hate for alot of the graffiti they see. New graffiti writers dont know about quality, they only know about quantity and the message.

If a new graff writer has more curiostiy of his new found love then they will soon relize that alot of the work they did at the beggining was dumb, ugly & stupid and in some cases even go back and clean over there old stuff. This is the point where an artist wants QUALITY. This is where the actual artform begins and seperates graffiti from vandalism. You can only truly know how hard something is untill youve tried it, A man can never know the pain of giving birth, and an outsider will never understand why people paint graffiti.Every one has there own reason and depending on whats going on in there life that will be expressed by there art(graff). The actual people who paint graffiti arent the one painting there name on every single mailbox, there not painting that 666 on your church, there not the ones painting the front of your store. Yeah I will admit that some people who are dedicated to the artform will still tag a mailbox or possibly do a bubble letter but thats to give them the feeling of that they once had when they first discoverd graffiti, its the equivilent of the feelings you get when you watch a old movie, no matter how bad the effects are or how bad the acting is,
it still gives you the feelings when you first watched it!

True graffiti wrtiers are the ones that are spending the countless nights inside perfecting the art of typography, They are the ones covering up the offensive shit that the new graffiti writers and the vandals have put under bridges, they are the ones who are punished and hated for all the mistakes that many befor them have made. Why you ask? The love for the art! What other artist would risk there whole careear and life just to put there art for free for others to see.Graffiti writers who are dedicated are very aware of there reputtion some like to have a bad one and some like to keep good ones, this is based off where they paint, how much they paint, who they go over and the type of grafiiti they do (tags, bubble letters and murals)They make no money off what they so, Theres no corruption or greed, every one is equal, you cannot be judged, its a way for a person to completly be themself!

In conclusion I just wanna say that Graffiti is an artform that cannot be properly described because there is not one style, the art form is anything on a wall outside. Theres no strict rules of form and shape like in De Stijl or fancy flourishes of art deco, the only thing it all has in common is the typography. So if you want to say you hate graffit as an artform then your grouping a whole lot of diffrent art into one catagory, instead why dont you just take the time on reading the name and finding out whos vandalizing your shit because what there doing is a completly individual artform in itself.

The Realist.