I'm not a fan of (destructive) graffiti. I'm pleased to see it in a form where the artist is using a proper canvas (meaning their own purchased materials) rather than on property (buildings, municipal structures) that they don't own.

I respect that many graffiti artists are quite talented - but when I see graffiti in neighborhoods I'm always incensed. As my boyfriend says... they need to find a way to make money from their talent rather than destroy other people's property.

Let's show this work to the kids on the streets and show them how to change their lives!! And make a living!

I like the design of graffiti when it is done on someplace it is allowed but more then that I'm really into sidewalk chalk art. I know is sound simplistic and childish but I was looking through photo of chalk art on Flickr and their was some amazing artists featured. If you painted a wall in your house with chalkboard paint you could keep switching out the design by simply erasing it.

No I wouldn't bring it into my home. I'm generally not a fan of grafitti.

However I would definately like to see something to encourage people who do this to make art in a more constructive manner, e.g., any manner which doesn't clutter up public space.

That could include doing their grafitti art style in their home. And if there are people willing to pay them for pieces of grafitti to display in their home, more power to them.

A product of the birth of hip hop here. In the 80's your friends would spark up on your bedroom wall with a can of spray paint. It wcould be your name, your crew name, or a picture.

Depends on your style.

I've got a Paul Insect original that I'm hoping to frame eventually. Not graffiti per se, but in the same vain.

http://www.paulinsect.com/

i'm glad people here are open to graff art. I work with youth on probation through a program called "Walls2Canvas" here in LA and it is the ONLY way to work with young people who are in trouble for tagging. We have held 4 art shows so far and every time we do it people go crazy for their art, which is SO important! Being a tagger is all about creating a new "identity" for yourself. I hope that people support real youth who do graff art, not just the older well known artists. We help the youth create custom t-shirts, skatebaoards, canvas, and bags. email me if you want photos or info

From a project that Brian Murphy (architect) did in the 80s.

http://www.bamcdi.com/houston06.html

...wow. what comments.
taking graffiti off the streets & using it solely to make money is like ripping out the heart of a lifestyle that is 100% passion.

can't you get down with the get-down, grandma?

Uh -- no this "grandma" can't "get down with the get-down".

Graffiti needs to be taken off the streets. People have no business doing it there. I don't mean to stomp on people's passion or "lifestyle", but it is destructive to property. Everybody who is out on the street doing graffiti is committing an act of violence against somebody else's property. It's property, not a canvas for "art." If it's public property, I as a taxpayer am paying to maintain it, and I really don't want to see that defaced.

Graffiti is also, in my opinion, hideously ugly but that is beside the point. I would never stomp on someone else's expressing themselves artistically when it's not harming others, even if I don't find the art particularly appealing. That's why I think it's a good idea to take it off the street and into private places.

I don't care whether they make money off it or not, but if they have a talent that people will pay for, why not? They need to do something to support themselves.

That sounds like a great program SydneyBristow. Is there a website?

Being a product of the 80's I have a lotta love for this art form. Also let me clarify, this IS art I have seen pieces from la, Chicago, NYC, Germany and Tokyo that rival van Gogh. Some walls are permission and some aren’t, but to call Graf “violence’” is a bit much. The real criminals are the government officials who put poison in our food and water, the doctors who keep us sick (so they can get paid by pharmaceutical companies), bob suburbia who puts poisonous fertilizer out where our kids play, the guy who designed mcmansions, and designers who charge exorbitant prices for good design. Now that I got that out of the way…I had an artist friend of mine paint a mural in my basement a few years back we painted over it before we moved but it was beautiful.

i knew as soon as I saw the topic, that there would be a bunch of comments talking about the harms of graffitti and how it is so "destructive" or an.. "act of violence" (are you kidding?)

Most of you have no problem with the hundreds of unsolicited advertisements you take in every day (heck, look at this site).. but you cannot come to terms with graffitti on the street? get over it/ used to it.

it belongs on the street.

First of all, I would say most of us do have a problem with the hundreds of unsolicited advertisements we take in every day. Secondly, those advertisements are not permanently placed without permission on our private property.

If I can get this to post (tried a few times) it is a link to thumbnails of the street art festival at Waterloo in London

http://www.timeout.com/london/big-smoke/features/4799.html

It stays on the street, I come along with a can of Kilz and obliterates it.

Look, I agree that destroying people's property is a no-no, particularly with poorly done tags, but a good majority of graffiti artists are working places that have been abandoned and neglected and are a blight on the neighborhood. Vacant, boarded up buildings (to me, at least) are far uglier and socially destructive than a well placed, well done piece. This can be the most beautiful art in what is otherwise a sea of concrete, brick, and glass. Certainly the prime solution is to populate these areas and commission the artists to do murals in sanctioned spaces, but this does not always happen, because not every city is run by people sensitive to culture.

I'm with Jenny! and antimatt on this one.

I have a few small pieces by graf artists in my apartment.

If I owned a building I'd probably dedicate a wall for graf artists to paint... then of course it wouldn't be "real" graf... but what can you do?

Everyone who posted in favor of graffiti on the streets, please provide your location. There are "artists" anxiously awaiting your appreciation of their work on YOUR front door, YOUR walls, YOUR windows, and YOUR car.

Everyone who posted against graffiti on the streets, please provide funding for local underfunded public schools in poverty infested neighborhoods, so that the children have a legitimate outlet for their creativity.

Art or butt ugly? Check the photos, and here's some text:

"The reality was that on May 12th, 1989, the war on graffiti was over. The TA had won. The international symbol of decay and crime was completely eradicated from the system, but not the perception of it. That would take longer to overcome. So in August of 1989, the MTA was ready to put its money to its improvement claims. On August 16th, 1989, the most expensive subway ad campaign in New York City history ($2 million) was launched to convince people that the subway was no longer the grimy, sleazy, filthy, graffiti-marred system that it once was.91"

Source:
http://www.nycsubway.org/articles/history-nycta1980s.html

Getting closer to artistic:
http://www.duncancumming.co.uk/photos.cfm?start=1&max=500&category=Graffiti

But you know, it's still the updated version of carving initials into trees. It's a name, right? Someone's trademark.

It's like a "Hello, my name is..." sticker. Or "I was here" scrawled on a bathroom wall. It's fancier in some ways. More colorful.

But if folks want to announce who they are, couldn't they create a cool t-shirt design? Graffiti-wear. I bet that would sell.

And then there's this:
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article3280058.ece

try out your hand at Graffiti online:
http://www.nemisys.uk.com/games/graffiti.asp

I am looking for another one I had bookmarked, not sure where it is now.

If you leave America and go out in to the wilds of the world you see graffiti in every big city. One place that I have seen a lot of it was in Toronto Canada, and thats when I met a street artiest, he said theirs a difference between tagging and graffiti, a tag is a name and is often destructive, graffiti is a mural and often beautifies a derelict space. I agree with him.
and if you are trying to say its not a art form the Washington protects for the arts/Corcoran had a show in Georgetown called wall snatchers in February 23, march 26 2006. and it was really cool.
BORF

If you paid someone to do it on a piece of canvas or whatever so that you could add a splash of color to your little pristine castles then I have news for you.....it's NOT graffiti...

Love it. especially if its on public property!!!