The O.C. Register has finally published a report about the gang violence in Santa Ana, and they have included the fatality numbers. But they omitted the annual number of shootings. Thomas Gordon told me recently that we had 76 shootings in our city last year! If the gang bangers had better aim we certainly would have had more than sixteen fatalities.
There were 18 fatalities in 2006. This year we already have four, which extrapolates to 48 by the end of the year! It looks like we are going backwards: “The city’s highest number of gang homicides
So is the above picture supposed to be gang graffiti? It looks more like street art done somewhere outside of Santa Ana. Id rather see something like THAT in my neighborhood than those ugly “LPS” gang tags. Then you spend about 1 paragraph of your rant on graffiti. Be more focused. You put up a post like this a couple times a month, and its a little redundant.
Now that’s a sweet mural!
I’ve never seen graffiti that nice in Santa Ana.
Most of the garbage is chicken scratch on glass and anything metal.
That’s the sh!t that drives me bonkers.
If you were a teacher would you want one of these thugs in your classroom?
It’s so true that poverty is bred through ignorance. And not educating Santa Ana children, continues a grim path. And not being surrounded by inspiration, stunts the child’s intellectual development.
Accepting a “child” to drop out is irresponsible. And those who choose to be parents or guardians should be held accountable. But they are not. Child and adolescent development should be nurtured if we want them to grow into educated and independent adults. Instead we let it get all out of hand and lock up the misfits while the parents and teachers give a sigh of relief.
These gangsters are made not born. And most come from poor/uneducated families. Sometimes “it takes a village” to offer support.
People will come to Santa Ana for the neighborhood — the people. They won’t come for a building. So the idea of “build it and they will come” is false. We are drawn to support. And support comes from individuals and communities.
Maybe the focus needs to come home.
Ben,
I could not find any other pictures online, and Thomas won’t share his. I will have to start taking my own pictures!
Art – you should at least credit the website and/or person who you’ve taken the image from. The image you posted comes from my art blog The artist’s work that you’re showing is by KAI1 – a very well known and talented artist and writer about graffiti. KAI1 will also be showing his work in a major gallery here in Southern California in March of this year.
You should also know that there is a huge difference between “tagging” and the fine art murals that you see like KAI1′s. Not only is the intent and purpose different but there has been countless studies and reports that prove that there is no direct correlation between graffiti and violence. When you continually associate the beautiful work that KAI1 and his peers do with gang related violence, you are skewing the truth and warping the public’s view of what graffiti is and what it can do for a community.
Graffiti, good graffiti is art and should be considered as such.
Kevin Freitas
Kevin,
There is no such thing as “graffiti is art”
Does the criminal known as KAI1 own that wall he painted on?
Didn’t think so.
Please share your home and/or business address so that our readers may stop by do some “art” on your property
Until you provide said info, please consider what you claim as “art” a crime.
Thomas -
Hard to follow the point you’re trying to make but needless to say, there is a code of ethics amongst graffiti writers that does not involve people’s personal private property.
Secondly, you’ll find works by major graffiti artists in many many art museums, art collections and galleries all over the world. There have been hundreds of thousands of words written by critics and writers alike, defending graffiti as an art form.
Sorry to disagree with you Thomas, graffiti is very much an art form and is recognized as such. Check your facts and history.
Kevin Freitas
Seriously, that’s a sweet piece of street art. Do some homework and research Jean-Michel-Basquiat or Keith Haring, a lot of artists start out street level and head up. But, I digress. What is around Santa Ana is sh!t scribble from ignorant little turds trying express an underdeveloped machismo. I’m still not sure if this is some cultural thing? Someone help me out.
Kevin,
Sorry bro. I wrote the post this morning, in a hurry, before heading off to work. I did not realize the graffiti was artwork. To me it just looked like graffiti.
I will try to get a picture of some real graffiti tomorrow and replace the picture altogether.
In the meantime, I will replace it with something else from Google images.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and graffiti art just doesn’t look like much to me.
Thanks Art,
now the image that you found is definitely not what KAI1 and others of his caliber do in terms of their graffiti. This is not graffiti (image above) nor is it art, it is pure tagging and vandalism at its best.
Urban Messiah you’re quite right to have mentioned Haring and Basquiat as prime examples of what graffiti art can do and express.
Yes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and this is the beauty about art – it can be embraced by many or not.
O.k., now that’s more like the scribble garbage I see around town.
I hate that crap.
Kevin, if anything is spray-painted on any property that the criminal tagger does not own or has explicit permission to paint on, that is vandalism. Do you disagree?
Rob -
I believe some distinctions should be made between “tagging” – gang related as in marking one’s territory or otherwise, what I would call destructive vandalistic tagging – and what KAI1 paints as art. The intent and goal of tagging is simply marking one’s passage, like dogs or cats if we can be so crude. I would consider tagging, shoe polish on windows, glass scratching, acid etching et al on any property – legal or not – to be vandalism and most importantly – criminal and pointless.
Most graffiti writers like KAI1 do not paint their murals on people’s personal homes or property. Mostly for the simple reason is that the writer wants his/her work to be seen by as many people as possible. Most common “targets” are freeway underpasses, trains etc. These areas are for the most part neglected, unkept, eyesores and are built out of ugly gray concrete. I would argue that the graffiti writer with his art “beautifies” these areas with color and composition – a certain design and motif – that resonates aesthetically and visually with most people.
I’ll keep on saying it, graffiti is art and is not criminal. Society has made it illegal for all the reasons that Thomas and others have expressed on this blog. These are huge misconceptions and are easy answers/solutions to a much larger cultural phenomenon largely misunderstood. While you’re at, you might as well lock up everyone with a tattoo Rob, they’re surely criminal as well.
I have a question for you too, would you consider advertising billboards as visual pollution ie graffiti?
Kevin Freitas
#8 writes:
“there is a code of ethics amongnst graffiti writers that does not involve people’s personal private property”.
Graffiti writers should also have a code of ethics that does not involve public property.
The point is that they are damaging property that is not theirs. They are producing a involuntary expense on another party. In some instances into the thousands of dollars. It is robbery upon a community resident no matter wether the crime is on personal or public property.
If it is entirely an expression of art, why don’t they use their property and the property of those that support them as the canvas for their art?
“The point is that they are damaging property that is not theirs. They are producing a involuntary expense on another party.”
I imagine the same is true of reverse graffiti, yet it is ultimately performing a public good:
http://inhabitat.com/2007/01/11/reverse-graffiti/
#16,
From what I understand this art on public spaces is directly accepted or indirectly accepted(not removed) by the community and local government.
The result in this case is no expense to anyone. No robbery and so an exception to the argument.
Kevin,
I do think billboards are visual pollution, and communities enact sign ordinances to prohibit them when the populace desires it.
As I am sure you know, the aesthethic desirability of art is in the eye of the beholder. To claim that freeway underpasses and trains, for example, are “beautifie[d]” by graffitti art is your opinion, and I can confidently state that your assertion that it “resonates aesthetically and visually with most people” is mostly wrong.
Certainly, if you surround yourself with like minded folks, they will agree with you. Some graffitti is beautiful and artistic, and cities that support public art are richer for it.
But the FACT remains the same, that outside of art circles, the general population sees freeway underpasses and trains covered with graffitti as urban blight.
Good intentions aside, if KAI1 applies graffitti to an underpass, wall, or train, some criminal thug tagger will feel perfectly entitled to do so as well. You can’t have it both ways. If KAI1 applies his “art” to public property in violation of the law, he is facilitating the widespread vandalism that plagues our urban areas and cause REAL harm to the people who live in those neighborhoods. This isn’t some utopian art discussion, this is about real people living in real neighborhoods who are sick and g-damned tired of stupid little punks destroying their property.
Sorry Thomas, Pedrosa and Lomeli,
But Kevin Fritas has a point there is a difference between Tagging and Graffiti.
Don
Art Lomeli – please read the article again, the “city” did send a crew out to clean the entire tunnel at the taxpayers expense. The real question is why hasn’t the tunnel(s) or any other area been kept clean by the city and why do graffiti writers always pick areas that are in ruin or areas that I would call “urban blight” (Rob’s expression) for areas in any city that are physically, socially and architecturally inaccesible due to poor planning and poor insight as to how real people live in real cities or real neighborhoods. Or are we saying we like filth and can’t stand graffiti? Which for the record once again is not tagging!
Lead a movement against taggers and gang related tagging and I’m all aboard, leave a movement against graffiti in the city and you can count me out.
#18
Rob is right. And one has to live with it to understand its implications on a community.
My background is design. And I personally like to view graffiti solely for design purposes–to distinguish a message and its relevancy to its canvas environment. Most of this “art” is for “art(ist)’s sake” and that’s what I view as blight in any neighborhood. There is rarely guerilla advertising going on nor support of any cause– most of the time, messages seem absent.
Billboards are different from graffiti. They are a paid for mainstream media designated for adveritsing as are print, radio and TV. These media create revenue.
What is a graffiti artist’s message if the canvas is a shipping container or overpass? Maybe a little business education could get their work to the appropriate target market.
#21 –
first, I refer you to this website http://antiadvertisingagency.com/ and second, check your facts. One only has to look at the whole action sport industry – surf, skateboarding, snowboarding etc. and the whole design and graphic industry that you’re involved in to realize how much has been “lifted” for years now from the graffiti movement and its artists! – not to mention the comic book industry as well. You get paid for stealing inspiration and graffiti artists get to go to jail – does this seem fair? Obviously not.
Here is what wikipedia says graffiti is……
Graffiti (singular: graffito; the plural is used as a mass noun) is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property. Graffiti is often regarded by others as unsightly damage or unwanted vandalism.
Tagging or ILLEGAL graffiti it is all the same to me. People come on our property and make there stupid drawings everywhere. It is OURS not theirs..it is illegally, ugly and disgusting.(and when the city comes to cover it..oh how wonderful that paint matches..NOT!!!)
Yes I know there is an artform called “graffiti art” but none of the stuff I see on the sides of buildings in Santa Are can be described as that. It can be described as crap!!