I've beeen working with graffiti artist for the past 5 years and i've
come across kids who have no formal training yet have a need to express
their immediate reality.."in context" to your discusssion I have found
that r working with some of these young people we( a facilitated process)
have been able to create discussion to what ART is from their point of
view not everything has been created in our community has been "for
arts's sake" but rather for a need that thse young people have to create
artistic viewpoints of what their "reality" is ....I also read about the
one canada project where the kids created sexist representation of women,
and why are they suprised when the majority of our society does discard
women and children as consumer items,we can discard, re-create... Prior
to pqainting any of our murals we have developed discussion points to see
what images can be painted, rather it is part of the education process.
In a place especially in the "barrio" where art is seldom given a voice i
am happy to be part of an on-going arena where young people can
participate in positive images from their 'hood as well as, creating
valued peice where art lovers can converge.Not everyone will be pleaSED
SO ONE MUST COMPROMISE!

On Mon, 9 Dec 1996, Ian Simmons wrote:

> At 04:21 PM 12/7/96 -0500, you wrote:
> > >>In my opinion, individuals who react negatively to graffiti (as well as
> >art that they call "bad") either do not understand it, or are afraid of its
> >implications. Just my opinion.
> >
> >I am stunned, and horrified, and appalled. The intent is kind, and the writer
> >clearly doesn't want to be judgmental. But graffiti is not "art," not even
> >Basquiet's graffiti, and to even consider it in the same category as the work
> >of the Old Masters and the Impressionists and, yes, even the Abstract
> >Expressionists -- pace, Jackson Pollock -- shows a serious and dangerous
> >lapse. Not everything done by the hand of man (or boy!!) is "Art" -- not even
> >Low Art. This post lends credence to "the dumbing of America."
> >
> >Well, If I can put in my two hap'orth from this side of the pond, it seems
> that there is a middle course between the two points expressed here. The
> majority of graffiti has no artistic merit and is a form of environmental
> pollution which also signifies the thin end of the loss of control wedge,
> which is why the Zero Tolerance advocates go for graffiti first - it signals
> that a degree of lawbreaking is acceptable and encourages escalation. But it
> is not as simple as that, in contemporary society, people of real artistic
> talent will indulge in graffiti as a creative outlet, especially if they
> come from a background with little access to formal artistic outlets, ie
> there is a minority of graffiti producers out there who might be viewed as
> artists in another context. Dismissing this particular strand of artistic
> expression entirely is not good, after all, the Impressionists were
> initially reviled as bestial polluters of the artistic purity embodied by
> the old masters. I am not sure the idea of "dangerous lapses" is a useful
> one in this argument, dangerous to what in what context ?
> IAN SIMMONS
>
> - A mind stretched by new ideas never returns to the same shape
>
>                                         - RALPH WALDO EMERSON
>