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| "André the Giant Has A Posse" sticker by Shepherd Fairey |
Years ago, young and enrolled at the Rhode Island School of Design, me and a friend ran wild in the quiet dark of Providence, sidewalk chalk in hand. We went on silly, drink-fueled capers, knowing our works disappeared with the next rain. Still, it gave us a thrill. We wrote a dirty rhyme with a ridiculous caricature of then-President Tom Schutte on the brick wall in front of the deans' house. The funniest part is, he must have realized the deed was done by matriculated Illustration students, from the level of accurate detail and the nature of the pun. I hope he had a good laugh at our joke, because it was intended without any real malice.
After all, it was 1992 and street art was on fire. Shep Fairey printed batches of André stickers that went mad viral while he was a student. He gave them away as fast as he printed them off the equipment in the Printing department studios. We passed them around just as quickly. We were geared for global expression in a huge way, and what grander scale is there than the whole wide world? When someone is denied a voice for a long time, it's bound to come out one way or another, legal or not. And I was totally on board.
New York City was a hotbed for graffiti and street art. When I was a teen, Keith Haring posted drawings in the slip-in slots for subway maps on trains. I once spotted a black piece with white glyphs, easily identifiable as his work, complete with a signature. Woe to me now that that I didn't take it, but it was midday and too many people were around for me to make a quick grab. I pointed it out to a friend in passing, as we left the train. Haring also made drawings on the platform spaces reserved for ads, incorporating the partially removed ad as part of the piece. For years his murals lined our streets, like the one on the West Side Highways' handball court. I still associate Keith Haring with the drive to Queens, for visits with my grandfather.
When a group is robbed of a voice, it will come out. In the case of our city, the rougher neighborhoods were pressure cookers, popping off here and there explosively. It was the reason for many a family exodus from our beloved town: drugs, crime, prostitution, gangs...it was everywhere. Bombed out cars and burning trash cans lined the streets, serving as fodder for post-Apocalyptic nightmarish movies, like Escape from New York. After visits to town, I could feel the crunch of sharp, broken crack vials under my feet, which covered the sidewalk on the way back to the Port Authority bus station: past the X-rated movie theaters, the 3-card Monty swindlers, and the fake I.D. store fronts that showcased exotic-looking drug paraphernalia for the masses through grimy windows.
What can street kids do, lost as they are, abandoned by their parents, authority figures, and society? It feels like they are nothing, they don't exist, a band of kids desperate to survive, their spirits challenged to the max. I saw their tags as a way of crying out to the world "See me! I'm here. I exist. I am real.", affirmations of their lives writ on our shared public spaces, for us to take notice. It linked us back to our ancestral artists, who recorded their lives for an eternity on the Caves of Lascaux, using their hand prints as signatures. It shouts out "I was here!", a poignant message sent to us via time portal. Researchers concluded the painters of Lascaux were predominately women, measuring their hands against those of modern man. What powerful expressions of the self, by the empathetic and generous mothers of humanity. It makes me feel less alone.
I always found graffiti artists worthy of a larger audience. As street art gained in popularity, more appropriate venues gradually replaced the illegal ones. Galleries started showing their work, and wall spaces devoted to mural art became available, giving disenfranchised artists a bigger voice with sorely-needed income. It also helps to ensure their safety, as they learn to take less risks with lives. Being an artist is an act of bravery as it is. I'm glad their time has come around again.
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| Shep Fairey Art in NYC © Marie Doucette 2010 |
