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Sarah Gardiner/For The Hoya

When asked where to find the best graffiti in D.C., Roger Gastman, author of Free Agents, a book about D.C. graffiti history, gave simple advice: Ride the Red Line. Catch the next GUTS bus to Dupont Circle, hop on the Metro in the direction of Glenmont, and grab a window seat. After Union Station, the Metro primarily runs on elevated tracks. The graffiti is clearly visible from the tracks in colorful patches on rooftops and on the sides of buildings. Past New York Avenue, the graffiti presence really asserts itself. Individual tags dominate, and the most-often-repeated names include Pear, Cert, Cave and Strike. You can also see the signature of Cool “Disco” Dan, a graffiti artist who Gastman describes as “iconic.” There are also several jubilant aerosol art portrayals of President Obama’s face, definitive proof that there are still active graffiti artists in the city. Around Rhode Island Avenue, a few political messages of a leftist slant crop up — most notably, “Capitalism is the Problem” and “Working People Unite.”

If this Metro-ride-turned-urban safari doesn’t scratch any graffiti itch you might have, turn around and head toward the Smithsonian Metro station. Get off at the Independence Avenue exit and walk toward the Holocaust Museum. Take a left on 14th Street and follow the signs toward the state of Virginia. Veer left when you near the overpass and follow the train tracks toward what is known as the “D.C. Hall of Fame,” a testament to the D.C. graffiti heyday of the ’90s, when it was easier to tag and when the likes of graffiti artist Cool “Disco” Dan dominated the graffiti scene. The tunnel, which stretches four blocks to L’Enfant Plaza, is so well known it’s difficult to characterize it as “underground” any longer: In 2007, Ruth Samuelson published the directions to the tunnel in an article in the Washington City Paper. Even so, it’s still something worth seeing. Tags are plastered — virtually from floor to ceiling — in varying color schemes and letter patterns.

However, the Hall of Fame isn’t an active graffiti site any longer, especially with the increased security of recent years. The L’Enfant Plaza tunnel is surrounded by signs of this: Fences around the adjacent parking lots are topped with barbed wire, security cameras are mounted under the overpass and a large sign at the entrance encourages anyone passing through to “report any suspicious behavior.” These security pressures are combined with continuing gentrification of the District’s neighborhoods. These two factors have had definite effects on the graffiti scene. Cory Stowers, a graffiti artist and instructor at the D.C. Urban Arts Academy, comments, “There’s not a whole lot of concentrated spots to see graffiti anymore.” However, the quantity of graffiti produced in the District does not equate to quality. Says Stowers, “D.C. graffiti since its budding in the early ‘90s has always been a graffiti lexicon … it’s a small pocket that’s important.”

Since 2001, there have undoubtedly been important contributions to the D.C. graffiti culture. Stowers maintains that there are currently between 40 and 50 active artists in D.C. Stowers’ personal best-of list includes: Pear, Amen, Cav, Cert, rivers, Cover, Eon and Sime. Perhaps the most famous example of D.C. graffiti outside of Cool “Disco” Dan, who is immortalized in the Corcoran Gallery, is Borf, later revealed to be John Tsombikos, an 18-year-old who studied at the Corcoran College of Art and Design. As Borf, Tsombikos carried out a high-profile graffiti campaign in 2004 and 2005, covering the city with spray-painted stencil designs of mischievous faces. Perhaps the most daring tag was a spray-painted face on the Roosevelt Bridge — a very visible, inaccessible spot.

Although Borf was an innovative contributor to the history of D.C. graffiti regardless of his background, a large part of his appeal to the press and public has been his identity as an upper-class white man. Although this may not mesh with wider societal perceptions on tagger identity, Stowers assures that Borf was not the only artist to hail from the suburb of Great Falls, Va.: “I know about seven,” he says.

Stowers witnesses this diversity first-hand once a week, when he leads a graffiti-writing workshop called The Writers Bench in the basement of a church. Young graffiti enthusiasts make the trip to practice their technique and to learn from Stowers and each other. “I get ex-gang members, kids from the suburbs, black kids from the Southeast … kids from as far away as Baltimore,” says Stowers. For some of the kids from the suburbs, graffiti serves as a gateway into the seductive world of hip-hop. This tension is felt especially through the hip-hop elements of emceeing and break dancing. However, a graffiti tag is not ambiguous: It’s either on the wall or it’s not, and you get credibility for how often you tag, where you tag and the artistic ability of your lettering. For other participants in Stowers’ workshop, graffiti is a way to release pent-up frustration or stifled creative energy. All participants share the desire to see their tag displayed somewhere others can see it.

Although Stowers has a prolific portfolio of his own, he doesn’t view the workshops so much about graffiti as a way to get into the lives of the kids participating. If a member of the group is flunking a class at school, they must turn in weekly book reports on substantive literature to be allowed back into class. When the class is granted a wall to paint, Stowers and his students will often take the time to clean up the surrounding area, hauling mountains of trash out of alleyways foreign to city municipal workers. Stowers also asserts that he hears positive feedback from passersby. The class is also one component of other programs run by Words Beats and Life Inc., a nonprofit which seeks to utilize the power of hip-hop to make positive change in individual lives as well as in broader communities. In the end, Stowers isn’t really concerned with the fact that these kids participate in illegal tagging when they’re not painting within the context of the class. He recognizes that love affairs with graffiti stem from that primal urge to assert your individual identity and from bypassing the red tape.

However, not everyone shares Stowers’ enthusiasm for graffiti culture. The city of Washington, D.C. reported that in 2007, it spent about $800,000 removing illegal graffiti. In an effort to combat this, the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities teamed up with the Executive Office of the Mayor and the Department of Public Works to sponsor the D.C. Creates Public Art project. The project was funded by the Committee on Public Works, chaired by Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham. The project aims “to replace illegal graffiti with artistic works, to revitalize sites within the community and to teach young people the art of aerosol painting.” The project was headed by The Midnight Forum, another D.C. organization focused on youth empowerment through hip-hop. After an application to select the participants, the project resulted in murals created throughout the spring and summer in D.C. communities.

Byron Peck, a prominent D.C. public artist, is in favor of the program. Peck is famous for the Duke Ellington Mural on the True Reformer Building of U Street as well as the mural in Metro Center. When it comes to illegal tagging, he critiques graffiti that focuses solely on promoting one individual name lacking a higher message. The mural project, on the other hand, seeks to push graffiti, “more toward a public art mindset,” he says. He views his work as an accessible form of high art, the equivalent to anything you might find in a museum.

Stowers takes a different view of the project. Words Beats and Life Inc. contributed two murals to the project: one in the Southeast, which served as a tribute to go-go music, and another in Upshur Park, which spelled out the name of the community in traditional graffiti lettering. Those who participated were given $75 a day and a valuable chance to practice their skills.

Although Stowers recognizes these positive aspects of the project, he has a few criticisms. For one thing, “Most of the people in the project had nothing to do with graffiti culture,” he says. Furthermore, he believes that the participants were denied a true voice in the creative process. Rather than stemming from an interest in the participants’ lives, Stowers feels that the project was a result of complaints from the gentrified Northwest. Starting with Mayor Anthony Williams, who served from 1999 to 2007, there have been “aggressive tactics to clean the city,” says Stowers. He maintains that the struggle between those who love graffiti and those who hate it “will always come down to who has more power.” Additionally, the Murals project did not provide a permanent solution: “After the opportunity dries up, they’re right back out in the street,” he says.

Ultimately, Stowers doesn’t believe that illegal graffiti can really be prevented. “It’s a sign of a vibrant society … a human tradition. People leave their mark to prove that they were there, feeling the need for some permanence.” In power centers such as D.C., these marks serve several roles. They shake us out of a drowsy Metro commute, cause us to stop and pause while walking down the street, and give us reason to remember that there is more than one side to every story.

Article Source:  http://www.thehoya.com/node/17674