Why Graffiti Matters

For as I long as I can remember I have sucked at drawing things and have had it beaten into me that my art work looked like shit.  After all of the classes and the lessons in drawing and painting I never got any better at it. So I gave up.  But then I found graffiti.  Here was something that I could understand because at the end of the day you're just writing letters on a damn wall.  It's simple, unpretentious, and open.

That's why it matters to me.  Because unlike all of the other arts that I have tried over the years, there isn't any bullshit in graffiti.  It's an art form which requires honesty and skill from artists who will likely get nothing in return.  In many ways, graffiti is one of the main voices of the underground culture as its an outlet for the pain and anger that pervade our culture.  And that's what this is all about really.  It's about getting people to listen to what graffiti and hip hop are trying to tell us.
  
Because the fact is that graffiti is here to stay.  I don't care that some "concerned citizens" or even the police may say otherwise because the truth is that it's too big to stop at this point.  And I wouldn't want it to be any other way.


Evan Ad by user4867350

Evan Harper is the writer and editor of 12 Oz Writer and a freshman at Austin College.  His current interests involve riding around in his friend's trunks and going out to the pawn shops around Sherman.