Forest For The Trees

FOREST FOR THE TREES MURAL PROJECT

Forest for the Trees (FFTT) is a non-profit public mural project that promotes public visual expression; collaboration; and community engagement with contemporary art and the creative process. For a few weeks in late August, the streets of Portland and its communities, were activated by a surge of art. FFTT is organized by artist Gage Hamilton, curator Matt Wagner of Hellion Gallery, and event producer Tia Vanich. It is also made possible by community volunteers who help with various project logistics, like transportation. In 2015, this team organized an impressive group of 30 artists from all around the world to paint 20 murals in the City of Portland. Participating FFTT artists donate their time, and in return FFTT secures the walls, all required city permits, and pays for all the materials, equipment, travel costs, and logging the artists may need during the project. Funding for the project comes mostly from public crowd-sourcing campaigns & Regional Arts and Culture Council (RACC) grants, along with discounts and donations from local businesses. 

The 2015 3rd annual FFTT once again propelled Portland’s creative energies forward, bringing together local and visiting artists from around the world to transform walls with their unique visions and diverse talents. Portland Street Art Alliance (PSAA) partnered with the FFTT team again and hosted a free public bicycle tour, visiting in-progress murals located in SE Portland.  This 3-hour tour was lead by PSAA and FFTT directors, along with a team of volunteer route experts, intersection corkers, and documenters. It was great to see such a wonderful turn out, even on a blustery morning, with about 40 people showing up for the ride. Traveling refreshments were generously provided by Guayaki Yerba Mate’s bike cart.

At each stop, tour guides provided commentary on each mural and the artists behind the work. Also discussed were topics like: the two processes for creating murals in Portland (via city permit or RACC), artistic copyright law (VARA rights), the global street art scene, and rise of street art festivals, and the constant battles over the use and control of urban public spaces.

The tour began at Pod 28 (the food carts at Ankeny & 28th) where Minneapolis-based artist Alex Petersen spoke to attendees. Alex described his piece, an x-ray shadow of a creature, as being symbolic of the primal connections among all life on Earth.

Riding down the Ankeny Bike Boulevard, the next tour stop was Josh Keyes’ mural, on the side of There Be Monsters. An well-known local gallery artist, Josh was trained as a fine artist at Yale University of Art and his subject matter often depicts wild animals set in post-apocalyptic urban landscapes – commentary on humanity’s impact on the natural world and nature’s resilience. In this mural, a rhino has literally broken through the wall, in trompe l’oeil style, stampeding down street signs in its path.

Josh explained to the crowd that this was his first mural and his largest painting to-date. He employed an old sign painter technique – using perforated tissue paper and a bag of loose chalk to outline his piece before painting.

Just down the street, the next tour stop was at ADX, where local artists-designers Blaine Fontana and David Rice were at their wall along the back of the warehouse. ADX, a creative workshop, is now a true hub for street art in Portland, being almost completely covered in murals from the past 3 years of FFTT. Their piece included several anthropomorphic beings and a cherished local icon – a totem of Belmont Goats. For years, the Belmont Goat herd grazed in a nearby field before new development pushed them out to the Lents neighborhood earlier this year.

Heading to inner industrial SE, the tour’s next stop was at Peruvian artist Jade Rivera’s massive mural at Union/Pine – a depiction of his wife, laying down with a small bird and skull. This striking piece has a translucent glowing quality. Surprisingly, it only took Jade only a few days to complete.

Just above Jade’s mural, Kazakhstani illustrator Ola Volo and local designer Zach Yarrington collaborated on their Nothing Good Comes Easy mural that involved bold typography and folk-inspired wolves, tangled up in a relationship.

Next up was Dutch painter Joram Roukes’ mural, a distorted double-exposed patchwork of images that included a man with the word “broken” on his sleeve. Masterfully stitched together and executed, this mural was among some of the favorites from this year.

Next the tour quickly swung by NoseGo and Yakima Fields’ 2014 FFTT murals on City Liquidators.

The bicycle group’s next stop was at River City Bicycles to visit Aaron Glasson(New Zealand) and Celeste Byers (San Diego, CA).

This duo travels the world together, often working on ocean activism projects, like Sea Walls Murals for Oceans and PangeaSeed. Together they create bright whimsical images, often of lively aquatic and psychedelic scenes.

For this mural, Aaron and Celeste decided to paint a family floating down a Pacific Northwest river, something they later found out was a favorite local pastime, tubing down our many waterways. The mural also had a personal connection to Celeste, who modeled the figures in the likeness of her great-great aunt and new baby nephew. This mural was a surprise birthday present for her great-great aunt, who was visiting Portland to celebrate her 95th birthday.

Finally, they wanted to represent some of their new friends they had made while painting the mural in Portland, and incorporated their tattoos into the mural’s imagery.

After quick cruise by DALeast’s “Persistent Parabola” wave mural from 2014, the group rolled out to the final mural stop – the BMD World Naked Bike Ride mural.

Painted a few months before the start of FFTT 2015, this huge mural (nearby the new Tilikum Crossing bridgehead) depicts adventure-loving animals in quirky flare participating in Portland’s famous and well-attended annual naked bike ride.

The bicycle tour finished off the afternoon enjoying cold brews and good conversation at the Apex Beer Garden on 12th and Division, just across the street from the recently revitalized “Art Fills the Void!” mural, painted originally by Gorilla Wallflare in 1984 and thus is Portland’s oldest surviving guerrilla graffiti.

PSAA was honored to be a part of the FFTT project again this year; it is a great opportunity for the community to connect, make, interact, and celebrate beautiful urban art. It is also a wonderfully democratic project because it turns the entire city into a public art gallery, accessible and free to everyone. Finally, place-based community events like these encourage people to not just passively observe, but to also engage with and become active participants in the creation of energized, distinct, and personalized public spaces.

More 2015 Tour Photos

2015 SE Portland Bike Route Map

Full List of 2015 FFTT Mural Wall Locations

All Photos © Anton Legoo

2014 Forest for the Trees Mural Project & PSAA Bicycle Tour

Portland Street Art Alliance was honored to be invited to host a guided bicycle tour of the Forest for the Trees murals painted during the 2nd annual project in 2014.

The tour began at the now iconic Rone mural and the new Faith47 masterpiece in downtown Portland. The group of 30 or so bicyclists rode through downtown and the southeast to visit 11 of the 18 new FFTT murals, ending in a classic Portland-style celebration on the patio of Gigantic Brewery. We hope the tour helped the community experience firsthand the magic of public mural making. It was a great opportunity to see the creative process unfold and to hear directly from the artists and festival directors about their vision.

We can’t thank the Portland art and cycling community more for their support in organizing this community event. It was a great success and PSAA is already working on plans to host more street art tours in the city. If you didn’t make it to the tour, and want to see all the new 2014 FFTT murals, check out this awesome bicycle route map we made (with the help of some friends).

Stop 1. 1114 SW Washington | Faith47 (CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA)

Stop 2. 720 NW Davis | Gage Hamilton, Director of Forest for the Trees (PDX)

Stop 3. 1301 SE Grand | J.Shea (PDX)

Stop 4. 2121 SE 6th | Zach Yarrington (PDX)

Stop 5. 840 SE 3rd | NoseGo (PHILADELPHIA)

Stop 6. 425 SE 11th | Spencer Keeton Cunningham (SAN FRANCISCO)

Stop 7. 2306 SE Morrison | Paige Wright (PDX) & Blakely Dadson (PDX)

Stop 8. 916 SE 34th | The Lost Cause (PDX)

Stop 9. 5224 SE 26th | Ogi (TOKYO) & Nosego (PHILADELPHIA)

Post-Tour Celebration with the Forest for the Trees & PSAA crews at Gigantic Brewing!

More photos from the 2014 Forest for the Trees Mural Project...

More Information about FFTT 2014 Artists

In-Progress Photos of all the 2014 FFTT Murals

All photos © Anton Legoo

Art Fills The Void

CALL TO ACTION

One of our city's oldest murals, the Art Fills the Void (aka "Banana Mural") on SE Division & 12th, needs our help. Originally painted in 1982 by Guerrilla Wallflare, this mural has been a unique piece of Portland's public art scene for over 40 years.

The mural has faced a lot of wear and tear, and for almost a decade Portland Street Art Alliance has been maintaining it with our own funds. But now we need community support to keep it going!

Every donation, big or small, will go directly toward preserving this piece of Portland's history. Let’s make sure this iconic mural continues to inspire our city!

Mural Damage as of November 13, 2024 (Projected Repair Costs $450)

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IN THE MEDIA

PRESS about the campaign to preserve the mural

Willamette Week

KGW KOIN 6

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THE HISTORY OF PORTLAND‘S 2nd OLDEST MURAL

With its abundant low-lying commercial buildings, ample wall space, and eccentric quirkiness, Portland Oregon had a unique mural arts scene in the 1980s. In 1982,Gorilla Wallflare formed.

It was one of Portland’s first anonymous “graffiti” art crews. This small group of citizens brought some much needed color and excitement to Portland dull walls, all undercover, and without permission. They called them “painted landmarks, political statements, graffiti, and spoofs.” After painting each of their three Portland murals, they sent a type-written letter to city officials and news outlets telling them about their actions and motivations.

Gorilla Wallflare’s first “attack” was their Art Fills the Void! banana mural at the corner of SE 12th and Division. This large 30 by 50 foot painting of a bruised banana may look like a reference to Andy Warhol, but a member of Gorilla Wallflare has said that it was originally about the war in Central America, a banana republic, “Viva mi banana! The group later decided to change the wall’s exclamation to “Art Fills the Void,” as a protest to the existence of such a boring blank wall.

Art Fills the Void! is the oldest mural in Portland. Predating even the 1984 Black Pride Malcolm X Mural (Read more about that mural here).

It is also a rare example 80s murals in Portland. Many old community murals in Portland were lost between 1998 and 2005, during the lengthy legal battle between the City of Portland and AK Media (now Clear Channel) over signage rights.

This local landmark is centrally positioned on the corner of SE 12th and Division. Once a quiet and somewhat seedy and abandoned part of town, this is now one of Portland’s most quickly gentrifying and developing neighborhoods, being cooked up by Portland’s sizzling food scene.

The Art Fills the Void! mural shows how communities can embrace a piece of illegal graffiti, and over time come to appreciate and embrace it. With or without permission, this piece of “graffiti” has lasted decades, and now holds a special place in Portland’s urban landscape and social consciousness.

2014 Interview with Frank DeSantis, ORIGINAL MURAL TEAM

Tell us a little about Gorilla Wallflare, and what made you form the group? There were about 5 of us who actually painted the murals. Of that, 4 were professional artists. But we had lots of honorary members. We were inspired by graffiti artists, just get out there and doing something about it. Artistic inspirations came from Calder, Lichtenstein, Warhol, Dali, Duchamp, Matisse, Man Ray, and a group called the Art Squad out of Canada.

Willamette Week called you Portland’s “underground graffiti gang,” did you see what you were doing as “graffiti” as we think of it today? Although I saw it as graffiti, I wanted it to be something different. We waved to authorities while we painted in broad daylight, sometimes taking all day to complete the project. Naïve, maybe, but there was definitely an adrenalin rush in being clandestine and brazen at the same time. I remember liking that, but didn’t care for using the words “underground” or “graffiti” at the time.

Other than Art Fills the Void! did Gorilla Wallflare paint any other guerilla murals in Portland? We painted three murals – “Art Fills the Void,” ‘Oh No!” on the Hawthorne Bridge, and the “Fingerprint” on SE Belmont.

What were these other murals about? The Fingerprint mural on Belmont was a subtle message about privacy and the rights of the individual. It felt as if soon everyone would be followed and watched. The Oh, No! explosion, on the east end of the Hawthorne Bridge, was about the end of the world, then in 1984, just a few years away.

Why did Gorilla Wallflare send letters to the press about the murals? 
The letter was fun to write, and a great public relations gag. How else can you get a half page of free public relations and advertising in The Oregonian newspaper? 

What were the reactions to you guys out there painting these murals in broad daylight without any permission? 
We wore painter’s pants, hats, and had official-looking ladders. We usually painted on Sundays. At the time, there were no sign inspectors or mural regulations. This was also the worn, torn, and tattered Eastside; people just didn’t notice of a couple of painters painting the wall. We had one person stop at the banana painting, a small Asian man carrying grocery bags. He looked up at us on the ladders and said, “Oh, that’s enough food to feed my family all week.” He laughed and kept waking. A police car drove by once and just kept on going. The owner of the office supplies store where the banana was painted was surprised by the new art, but they liked it. They actually incorporated it into their marketing campaigns.

Did you find that your antics generated any discussion in the city?
 Some discussion, I’m sure, but in circles I wasn’t privy to in Portland. The city’s mural program did loosen up some a year or two later, or so it seemed. We really weren’t interested in the legal aspects. We were a guerilla operation; in and out. It was about free speech. We had more of an affinity towards graffiti, than the stodgy mural scene.

Gorilla Wallflare painted their murals before the City of Portland had to enact mural and sign permitting regulations we have today. How do you feel about that shift, how the city handles now handles public murals? 
Who’s to say who can approve or not approve art? I’m not that knowledge about these mural waivers and permits, but I do know about sign codes and permits. Those I understand, but why regulate murals? They are artistic community ventures. We went through all that rigmarole for other murals. It was too much bureaucracy. Too much of being a “suit.” By the time we got through it, we were bored with the whole thing and could care less. The initial creative thought and energy were lost. Better to beg for forgiveness, than ask for permission.

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HISTORIC MURAL RESTORATION BY PSAA

The Art Fills the Void! project took place during the summer of 2015 and was sponsored by SE Uplift’s Small Neighborhood Grants Program. This project included several community outreach, education, and networking events, including an interpretive bicycle tour, a street art of SE Portland brochure, and the revitalization of Portland’s oldest “gorilla graffiti,” the iconic Art Fills the Void!  mural on SE 12th & Division.

The goal of this project was to provide more community resources and opportunities that promote livability and art in the streets of SE Portland. These types of experiences not only increase the number and diversity of people engaged in and connected to their communities thereby promoting stronger cultural and historical identities, but they also empower people to become active leaders with the skills and inspiration needed to continue to shape and improve their shared public spaces in the future.

The Art Fills the Void! project was a full historic restoration of the iconic Art Fills the Void mural, something that has not been done in decades. After decades of fading, damage, and haphazard touch-ups, PSAA connected with muralist and sign painter Frank DeSantis to obtain original photos, stencils, and schematics to be able to reproduce the mural true its 1982 form.

The repainting took weeks of planning, 5 days to buff and repaint. This was all completely done with volunteer labor, organized by PSAA. In addition to core PSAA volunteers, several local artists like Galen Malcolm, Jon Stommel and Travis Czekalski (Rather Severe) donated their time and expertise to paint the mural details.

Additionally, several banana mural neighbors, mainly Joel and Mary Schroeder, provided invaluable assistance, coming out to help on multiple days, storing ladders, and helping PSAA manage on-the-ground logistics. Restoring this mural was truly a community achievement, through and through.

Everyone passing by had great things to say about the mural, recounting their experiences with it throughout the years and how wonderful it was to see it being restored. Local business employees came out on their breaks to watch us paint and chat about the project. Passing cars honked, bicyclists rang their bells, and every two hours we got a tipsy applause from the bar-hopping group bicycle tour, Pedalounge.

These types of experiences not only increase the number and diversity of people engaged in and connected to their communities thereby promoting stronger cultural and historical identities, but they also empower people to become active leaders with the skills and inspiration needed to continue to shape and improve their shared public spaces in the future. PSAA was proud to be able to restore this piece of Portland history for generations to come.

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MURAL RESTORATION CELEBREATION BICYCLE TOUR 

The Art Fills the Void! project provided a public interpretive bicycle tour of existing murals and street art installations in the SE Uplift area of Portland. PSAA tour guides provided descriptions, histories, and explanations of the artwork seen at each tour stop.

PSAA tour guides provided a bicycle tour that provided descriptions, histories, and explanations of the artwork seen at each tour stop. Several local artists, activists, and academics participated by being guest speakers a tour stops; talking about various topics they focus on and experiences they’ve had painting murals in Portland.

Speakers included local artists Jon Stommel and The Lost Cause, who spoke about their experiences painting the Music Millennium mural in 2013 in collaboration with PSAA.

Local artists Paige Wright and Lord Blakley who spoke about their experiences painting murals for the 2014 Forest for the Trees project.

Representatives from the City of Portland including City Planner and mural permit program coordinator, Douglas Strickler and Regional Arts and Culture Council (RACC) Public Art Manager Peggy Kendellen provided overviews of both official systems for creating legal art in the streets.

Other speakers included Gage Hamilton, director of Forest for the Trees, Kohel Haver a lawyer who specializes in artistic copyright law, and PSU geography professor Hunter Shobe whose research focus on the politics of public space, geographies of graffiti, and sense of place. Unfortunately the bicycle tour had to be cut short due to inclement weather (even for Portland standards!) so the rest of the group converged at Sweetpea Baking Company for good coffee and conversation.

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Northwest Spray Day

Graffiti art is probably not the first thing that crosses a person’s mind when they think of Onalaska, Washington. Situated halfway between Portland and Seattle, Onalaska is an unlikely location to hold one of the largest aerosol art events, the Annual Northwest Spray Day; a regional live painting event that since 2014 has been bringing together and showcasing of some of the best graffiti art talent in the Pacific Northwest. 

Every June artists from as far as Oakland to Vancouver, B.C. gather to create their aerosol-based artwork at three sites scattered around the small town: the abandoned waste transfer station, the old 300 foot-tall Carlisle Lumber Mill smokestack, and the Onalaska Middle School basketball playshed – a space totaling over 3,000 square feet.

Justin Boggs, the event organizer and once-Onalaska native, secured space around the small town from several local governmental and non-profit entities, raised money, and networked within his community to make this happen. He, along with several other graffiti artists and supporters, turned the once abandoned, dull, and un-notable structures into colorful, energized spaces marked with distinct personality.

Boggs and his family also did a lot of community outreach to raise money, even securing art donations to auction off. This year, Boggs parents even donated $1000 to the event; Boggs explained, “It wouldn’t happen without their support.” Boggs got permission from the Onalaska Volunteer Fire Department and Lewis County Public Works to access the main Spray Day venue, the abandoned transfer station. Local paint distributors Jerry’s Color Center and Rodda paint each donated 20 gallons of primer. Spray paint sponsorship comes from Silika Store (in Tacoma) and Ironlak. 

Boggs, now student at the University of Oregon in Eugene, described the main goals of NWSD as a way of bringing together and networking the best spray paint talent in the Pacific Northwest. He also wants to bring vibrant public art to his rural hometown community. “It’s a unique celebration of graffiti art that helps regional artists gain exposure within the global graffiti community. There’s also something special about the atmosphere of so many talented artists gathering in one place during one day and painting all at the same time next to each other. It produces a higher quality of work,” explained Boggs.

Amidst the sound of rattling and hissing aerosol cans, non-stop hip hop beats, and sizzling BBQ, graffiti artists took center stage, painting their unique characters and stylized monikers in an impressive array of styles and techniques.

The basketball court play shed at Onalaska Middle School is the largest of the three painting locations, displaying 12-15 individual pieces of graffiti art each year.

Local parents, children, and students visit the event throughout the day to watch the artists transform the structure’s formerly blank aesthetics into something quite notable. Many onlookers seemed to appreciate and admire the efforts of these local and visiting artists. They not only helped bring the community together for this event, but they also provided kids with positive examples of how transformative this style of art can be if you put your mind to it (and ask for permission). It takes a lot of time, skill, and diligence to master the medium of aerosol. In a time when the school’s art programs have been cut due to budget constraints, this town needs all the positive art outlets it can get. 

Overall, Spray Day was a community effort, big and small. Graffiti artists throughout the region worked together to provide an outlet for their craft, a legitimate modern art form that’s still sometimes feared, repressed, and regulated in nearby cities like Portland and Seattle.

On a smaller, but no less significant scale, Boggs and other local organizers, were able to give a special gift to their hometown, one that’s plagued with boredom and poverty. They were able to bring these spaces to life in a style that they and the town’s youth can connect and identify with. The art not only brightened up the often grey and rainy town, it also sparked imagination and interest throughout the region. A random town off I-5 is now a Cascadian graffiti art landmark. Next year, Boggs is considering changing the location of Spray Day, bringing this gift of art to another deserving site. As with graffiti, there’s always the urge to go bigger and better.

2014 Northwest Spray Day Artists:

• Syhis – Vancouver B.C.

• Pest – Seattle, WA

• Isrek – Seattle, WA

• Noise – Seattle, WA

• Sim – Olympia, WA

• Rite – Portland, OR

• Sens – Portland, OR

• Live DJE – Portland, OR

• Kango – Portland, OR

• Grime – Portland, OR

• Dr. Greed – Portland, OR

• Ashley Montague – Portland, OR

• Case12 – Portland, OR

• Trips – Salem, OR

• Akses – Salem, OR

• Conus – Eugene, OR

• Frey – Oakland, CA

2015 Northwest Spray Day Artists:

• SYHIS – Vancouver B.C.

• MERLOT – Washington

• KANGO – Salem, Oregon

• They Drift – Seattle, Washington

• Jeremy Nichols – Portland, Oregon

• ISREK – The Universe

• Ashley Montague – Portland, OR

• EYESR – California

• UTER – Oregon/California

• ZAFOS – Washington

• VIDEO – Washington

• TASK – Washington

• HARLEM – California

• PEST – Washington

• 179 – Washington

• JRATS – Washington

• SEZUR – Washington

• RITE – Oregon

• SABLE – Oregon

• CKOS – Oregon

• CONUS – Oregon

• FONE – Washington

• COMBO – Vancouver, WA

• RADIO

All Photos © PSAA 

The Rise of Global Street Art Festivals

THE RISE OF GLOBAL STREET ART FESTIVALS

‘What is a festival? It’s something exceptional, something out of the ordinary . . . something that must create a special atmosphere which stems not only from the quality of the art and the production, but from the countryside, the ambience of a city and the traditions . . . of a region (de Rougement, quoted in Isar, 1976).

Beginning in the early late 1990s and early 2000s, a new contemporary art movement began sweeping the globe, this time transgressing the walls of the gallery and museum and resided primarily in the streets. Some modern cities are transforming into free public art galleries, showcasing talent from near and far. It has been said that street art is one of the most influential art movements of recent history. With roots in graffiti culture, pop art, and community muralism, contemporary street art is the current culmination of global communities coming together in time and space. These festivals have a way of producing both a mass spectacle of new art splashing onto millions via social media. On the ground, festivalgoers get a temporary glimpse into public spaces that have no bounds, where a carnivalesque atmosphere allow people the freedom to gather and use the streets for expression of all kinds.

Festivals play an important role in countering the social and homogenizing crises faced by cities in the context of globalization. The growing interest in festivity and street art is partly a grassroots reaction and strategy to combat the growing alienation and insecurity we feel in increasingly commercialized, militarized and bureaucratically-controlled public spaces. A new generation of artists, organizers, and activists see the city as their canvas and message board. In many modern cities, the urban landscape provides endless amounts of blank indeterminate spaces. These are canvases in the eyes of many, and are a striking and accessible context for their art and message.

Large multi-year street art festivals are now happening in cities around the world. This proliferation and resilience is evidence that these festivals have some use-value in society, for social-bonding, place-making, or place-marketing.

Bushwick Open Studios 2014

The following research is the culmination of several years of visiting street art festivals across in the U.S, including some of the largest and most well-known street art festivals in the U.S. like POW! WOW! (Honolulu, Tawian, Austin), Art Basel (Miami, Basel, Hong Kong), Bushwick Open Studios (New York City), and Forest for the Trees (Portland, Oregon). We actively experienced and participated in these festivals in multiple roles, from mere spectators and party-goers to managing paintings and tours. This multi-level engagement gave us unique first-hand glimpses into the festivals intricacies, similarities, and differences in their organization, styles, and impact on people and places.

Kobra, Art Basel 2013

During these festivals, local and visiting artists collaborate on public art murals and interventions. For artists, they benefit not only from the exposure, but also by participating in gallery exhibitions, lectures, workshops, and panel discussions. Public engagement is a key component of these festivals as organizers attempt to create welcoming spaces and opportunities where the community can interact, network, and learn from artists.

Wynwood Walls at Art Basel 2014

Logistically, these festivals take an immense amount of time, effort, and money to orchestrate. Some festivals are run by city governments, or arts commissions, but many, and we argue the best, are run by a dedicated group of local citizens and small business owners who are active in the arts community of their cities. Regardless of their position, festival organizers spend up to a year planning for a week-long event. Relationships with local business and property owners must be nurtured to secure ample wall space and to find spaces to host events. Sponsorship must be secured from city governments, crowd-funding, and corporations. There is also the logistics of providing paint, lifts, and supplies to muralists.

Honolulu Museum of Art School event for POW! WOW! 2014

Differences between these festivals are seen in the way they are founded, who the organizers are, and how they are operated.

POW! WOW! is a more localized festival, started by a group of artists based atLana Lane Studios. All the murals are located in the Kaka’ako warehouse and manufacturing district where Lana Lane Studios is located. Founder and director of POW! WOW! Hawaii describes what he has created over the past 5 years as a “global network of artists and organizes gallery shows, lecture series, schools for art and music, mural projects.” This weeklong event is managed by seven directors, and includes over 100 visiting and local visual artists, and countless documenters and festivalgoers. Each artist is sent photographs of the available walls and asked to pick their top five location choices. Event coordinators then try to match artists with appropriate walls that they have been working to secure all year. With now increasingly limited wall space in the Kaka’ako district of Honolulu, some older murals are buffed to make way for new murals, other times artists are paired together to share a wall and form impromptu artistic collaborations. Local graffiti crews and street artists are also invited to participate in the festival and are provided wall space to showcase their talent. What is particularly unique about Pow Wow, is that upon arrival the artists are provided “cultural tours,” so they can consider setting, place, and cultural history when creating the work they put on the streets of Honolulu.

Bushwick Open Studios describes itself as a “volunteer, non-hierarchical organization” with “a completely open structure.” Anyone in the community who is willing to volunteer their time is welcome to join and take on a leadership role. Artists who want to paint can arrange a mural with neighborhood property owner as they normally would. Artist living and working in Bushwick open their studios up to visitors hosting gallery shows and parties. A few blocks are closed to traffic, turf is laid, bands play, and food carts serve up local specialties.

Comparatively, POW! WOW! and Forest for the Trees are more centralized and planned out by a single entity.

The Forest for the Trees (FFTT) public art project was founded and is directed by a local artist and gallery curator. FFTT murals are spread throughout the City of Portland, rather than being concentrated into one district. Several large-scale murals are located downtown, but the majority are located along the main drags of Portland’s five districts. In 2014, 23 artists from Portland and around the world paint over 20 walls.

The event, now in its second year, assigns twenty artists, half of them regional, to locations throughout Portland. The results are site-specific, significant-scale murals painted in a variety of styles and palettes on sixteen buildings in mainly close-in neighborhoods about the city.

Said to be the first large-scale art festivals of its kind (started in 1970), Art Basel Miami exhibits more decentralized management, being part of a larger event that focuses on gallery art.  Murals are mainly organized by several art galleries, property owners, and developers working in tandem. Like POW! WOW!, Art Basel is centered in one area, the Wynwood Arts District. Wynwood was a consorted effort started by developers who redeveloped warehouses, factories, and unused buildings into art complexes, galleries, restaurants, cafes, and other creative businesses.

Broad local outreach is an important factor in planning these festivals. It is easy for international festivals like these to be criticized for ignoring or outdoing local talent. At POW! WOW! 2014, several indicators of resistance were documented including mural tagging and pasted protest flyers. In Bushwick, it took the form of stenciled sidewalk messages.

Festivals also run the risk of being difficult to navigate for artists and visitors and co-opted and corporatized by marketers. Like street art, there is a great possibility and threat of commodification and disenchantment with these festivals. Successful events must find a balance between many factors; infusing the city with new art and ideas, all while paying homage to and preserving local cultures. There is also the issues of how to pay for the events and murals, perhaps profiting but trying to maintain legitimacy by not “selling out.”

For every mural, however, there are countless unauthorized graffiti interventions. Artists who visit might do an official piece on one corner and a few blocks away do an un-commissioned piece. The juxtaposition of planned and spontaneity adds to the allure of these events for spectators. Generally, business owners allow this activity to happen during the festival (after all many of them are benefiting from the foot-traffic and tourism) but like after Art Basel, many buff and remove it after the event is over.

For the viewer, it is fascinating to watch the process of mural making unfold day after day. Each artist has their own unique style, method, and approach. Some use only aerosol, others use a combination of aerosol for fill and brush for detail, others use rollers, mittens, chisels, and hammers.  Seeing a piece jump from a black-book to a wall, outlined, filled in, rendered, and detailed is an exciting journey into the artists’ craft and personality. Some work quickly, others take a slower pace. Some rise with the sun, others paint through the night. Everyone however must work with what is given to them, adjusting their artistic visions to fit the walls and contours of the space.

Artists benefit from these festivals by being provided spaces to showcase their work to new audiences in other cities. There is an influx of new ideas and styles into the city’s art scene. Cultural exchanges are made, as artists learn to work together, blend styles, sometimes without even speaking a common language. The result is entirely new forms of art that would have otherwise never have happened. Forest for the Trees specifically aims to create a mix of traditional street artists, those with backgrounds in graffiti-style, and even fine, sculptural, and graphic art.

Artists are provided opportunities to meet, reconnect, and network with other visual artists from around the world. Introductions are made, and cards and stickers are swapped. Convergences like these provide a platform for sharing ideas and building new partnerships. Although social media has provided an amazing platform for connecting with others, face-to-face interaction often offers the possibility of forming stronger more lasting relationships than those based solely online. These types of ‘meeting grounds’ are where new cultural movements form, solidify, and evolve.

Another benefit of organized art festivals is that sometimes it is difficult to get walls in cities where one does not physically live, or have connections to. Having someone on-the-ground helping visiting artists secure wall space is essential, especially in a city like Portland where having the permission of a property owner is not enough – all murals also need a city permit (or RACC wavier). Attaining a city permit is a month-long process that requires someone applying, paying a $50 fee, posting a mural notice, and holding a community meeting all things that are difficult or impossible to do remotely.

Street art and festivals can also positively impact surrounding businesses and drive local tourism. They call attention to now unique places and make people want to get out of their cars, walk around, and enjoy the streets. Traditional art hubs like New York City, Paris, Berlin, London, Sao Paulo, and more recently, Detroit and New Orleans, are becoming destinations for creative-types and art connoisseurs.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, these events provide a way for the general public to engage in the process of public art making. Public art is a democratic form of art. People do not have to pay to go to a museum, or feel uncomfortable going to a fine art gallery to see amazing modern art; they just have to explore and walk the streets of their city.

Organizers’ use of social media to promote, inform, and connect with their audiences. In addition to informational webpages, interactive maps, and press releases, these festivals use platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook to notify the public of events, locations, and opportunities. POW! WOW! offers free lectures and classes on various topics during the festival, and in 2014, Portland Street Art Alliance partnered with Forest of the Trees to offer a guided bicycle tour to help the public engage with the muralists and the new exciting spaces being created.

Moving art from the studio and canvas, and into city streets, has a powerful effect on people and places. Concentrated public artistic interventions like these street art festivals can dramatically transform landscapes, uses, and compositions of cities. Making public art is a bold statement and a powerful tool. Street art festivals distill creative energy into one space and time, and have an everlasting ripple effect on the people and cities. This global movement is inspiring people to re-energize their public realms, one wall, one space, and one conversation at a time.

The global street art communities converge at these festivals to create a more inspiring streetscape. A truly exceptional break from the ordinary, a certain time when people celebrate in the public sphere, art runs freely through the streets, and life springs up out of the cracks of the city streets.

More photos from Forest for the Trees

More photos from POW! WOW!

More photos from Bushwick Open Studios

More photos from Art Basel

ALL PHOTOS © PSAA

Portland Graffiti Abatement Summits

For several years, members of PSAA have attended the annual Graffiti Abatement Summits, the region’s largest anti-graffiti event. An unlikely place for art advocates, but we hoped that by hearing opposing perspectives, we would gain a better understanding of the politics of graffiti criminalization and how the City of Portland approaches graffiti removal and abatement.

On May 23rd 2013, PSAA attended the 2013 Graffiti Abatement Summit held in Portland. This training was provided by Portland’s Graffiti Abatement Program (part of the Office of Neighborhood Involvement) for local officials, police officers, and community members interested in learning more about the topics of graffiti prevention, conviction, and removal. 

Presentations were made by Portland’s Graffiti Police Investigator’s Matt Miller (Graffiti Vandals – Who They Are/Why They Do It) and Anthony Zanetti (Building a Case – How You Can Help), Multnomah County’s DDA Nathan Vasquez (Prosecuting Graffiti Cases), and Graffiti Abatement Coordinator Dennis LaGiudice (Abating Graffiti with Volunteers) along with a graffiti removal demonstration by the Graffiti Removal Services Corporation.

One of the main topics discussed at the Summit, was how to build felony cases against people caught doing unauthorized graffiti. For this reason, outside the building where the Summit was held, a group of local artist advocates staged a community action protest, spray-painting murals while dressed in black-and-white prison uniforms. These advocates wanted to call attention to the general criminalization of graffiti and street artists in Portland.

During Officer Matt Miller’s presentation, an audience member voiced their concerns about the lack of support for emerging artists, and the harassment of local businesses that support street art culture and graffiti-style art (the now closed Samo Lives & Railyard art galleries). This passionate outcry was met with some anger from the audience, and hostility from the presenter. The audience member was eventually escorted out by police.

Shortly after the interruption inside the Summit, three Portland Police officers arrived outside, at the community demonstration to question the group’s intentions. The police eventually left, making no arrests or demands.

Graffiti is often a symptom or sign of larger systemic societal issues, such as youth disenchantment, the privatization of public space, general resistance of mainstream and state-run systems, and the exclusiveness of the art establishment. There is a big difference in the intentions behind vandalism, gang graffiti, and ‘artistic’ expressions in the street – there are also differences in the outcomes and public acceptance of these different forms of spatial interventions.

Even though the City’s Graffiti Program Officer’s presentations focused on tagging as the main problem in the city, their actions over the past few years (which are based on a zero-tolerance graffiti policy) suggest that they often do not distinguish between various forms of unauthorized expression. Unfortunately, the Summit presentations seemed to instigate a ‘culture of fear’ and intolerance and promote broad stereotyping of people who carry out unauthorized public expression in the streets. Matt Miller clearly stated that these are “bad people,” who often commit violent crimes, have no respect for the community or authority, are gang members, and drug addicts.

Instead of making broad-brush stereotypes and promoting punitive policies, PSAA would like to see our city’s Graffiti (Abatement) Program provide more unbiased evidence-based information, educate the public  about why graffiti actually exists and consider alternative graffiti management strategies that have shown positive outcomes in other cities (like Tacoma’s city-sponsored Graffiti Garages).

Additionally, graffiti police investigators should focus their resources on gang and hate graffiti (which they claim is the problem) and less on abating other forms of unauthorized (or unpermitted) artistic expression.

PSAA hopes that the Summit, and the subsequent reactions it sparked from the arts community, alerts Portlanders that it’s time to have a more open and inclusive dialogue about public expression in our city. This issue goes far beyond some random markings; it speaks to larger social questions about how we can better share and maintain our public spaces and how the community can engage in, and affect, public policy regarding these topics.

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On Tuesday May 20th 2014, PSAA attended the 2014 Metro Portland Graffiti Summit. Hosted by the City of Portland and Friendly Streets, the Summit is organized by the Office of Neighborhood Involvement (ONI), the Graffiti Abatement Program (GAP), and the Portland Police Graffiti Task Force (GTF).

This event was also sponsored by several private, public and non-profit entities (including Clear Channel, Pearl District Neighborhood Association, various graffiti removal and management services, Alaska Airlines, and the Crime Prevention Association of Oregon).

The Summit Planning Committee consisted of Matt Miller and Anthony Zanetti (Portland Police Graffiti Task Force), Denay Love (Friendly Streets), Amy Archer (City of Portland), Dennis LaGiudice (City of Portland, Graffiti Program Coordinator) and Marcia Dennis (former City Graffiti Program Coordinator, now Vice President of Friendly Streets).

Starting this year, the Summit was divided into two sessions. First, a private day-long police training, and second, a free 3-hour public lecture and award session.

According to Friendly Streets, the first session provided “networking between police agencies” across the US and was designed as a “tool in catching and prosecuting graffiti vandals, who often travel between states to damage property.”

The second session included visiting and local guest speakers, City officials, neighborhood association members, and graffiti removal businesses. Even Portland Mayor Charlie Hales made a brief appearance to present ONI’s Graffiti “All-Star Awards.” Unfortunately, this session opened with a statement telling the audience that this was not the time for public comment, an obvious reference to last year’s public disturbance.

The keynote speech was given by Valerie Spicer, a Vancouver, BC police officer. A presentation focused on “Tagger Behavior and Graffiti Culture.” Spicer is a PhD candidate in criminology and holds master’s degrees in art history and criminology. She is also is the co-founder of RestART, a restorative art program that engages with graffiti offenders to build self-esteem and direct them towards “pro-social activities” like community mural painting.

Spicer presented her research on graffiti subcultures and juvenile risk predictors. Her main argument was that graffiti is an at-risk youth indicator and leads to serious social-ills like drug abuse, theft, and violence. Spicer believes that the motivations behind graffiti are usually to vandalize and destroy, and not making art. Spicer sees graffiti as the only supposed “art” movement that produces a victim, and thus needs to be criminalized.

An aesthetical argument was also put forth as Spicer went through photos of fine artists’ work (such as Picasso and Monet), and compared those to the artwork of graffiti taggers at the same age. Her key argument was that the “quality” of work by the graffitists was inferior to that of fine artists.

Spicer did present some empirical data from larger studies, like that of Graham Martin (2003), who argued that if society really wants to reduce graffiti, it has the responsibility to address the underlying socio-economic issues causing graffiti and should not just criminalize the outcome. Graham believes these issues should be addressed through preventive approaches and proactive programs, not with increased penalties and criminalization.

Taking just one audience question, Spicer was asked: Do stricter laws result in less graffiti? Spicer said that in Australia and Canada (where her research is focused), current data suggests that harsher penalties do not deter graffiti.

The next speaker was Richard Toscan, a retired art school Dean from Virginia Commonwealth University who helped create downtown Portland’s Cultural District.

Toscan’s presentation, titled “The Writing on the Wall: Art, Art Schools, Money and Graffiti,” touched on a number of topics, including the Spraycopter (a DIY graffiti-spraying drone), the Pearl District’s Centennial Mills water tower (AKA Portland’s unofficial graffiti museum), and his personal quest to convince the Portland Art Museum not to sell the “Guerilla Art Kit” book.

Providing his overview of graffiti art cultures, Toscan focused on street artists who also attend art school. Toscan gave several self-proclaimed “wild guesses” of who might makeup Portland’s “Tagger Pool.” He guessed that there are currently 700 taggers in Portland, 20% of those are “art school students,” and 1% are just “art-school-wannabees.” Toscan’s opinion-statistics went as far as estimating how many graffiti writers come from each of Portland’s universities and colleges.

Toscan then called out several Portland street art and graffiti related organizations and initiatives. Included in his list, was the Portland Street Art Alliance, labeled the “The Second Front: The Graffiti Lobby.”

Toscan told the audience to ignore PSAA’s mission statement (describing it as meaningless academic jargon) and explained that what PSAA is really doing is promoting crime, destruction, and vandalism. Toscan went on to suggest that PSAA was consorting with the Regional Arts and Culture Council (RACC) and will soon receive operational funding from them.

The final presentation was provided by Paul Watts of Graffiti Removal Services. Watts is also a board member of Friendly Streets. It is clear that one of the main functions of these summits is to provide a marketing venue for profit-seeking graffiti clean-up companies.

To clarify some of these misconceptions about PSAA…

For two years, PSAA has worked to build bridges and relationships within the city. We want to help promote all forms of public art in Portland.

RACC has been willing to meet with PSAA and listen to our concerns, ideas, and suggestions. We are concerned that Toscan suggested, in a public setting hosted by the City’s Graffiti Program, that community groups like PSAA should not be associated with. Isn’t it the duty of all public entities to be willing to meet with and at least try to understand the communities they represent and serve?

PSAA is open to speak to anyone who wants to know more about our mission and purpose. We have requested meetings with various representatives from the City over the past two years. To date, our requests have been mostly ignored.

As of 2013, PSAA is a volunteer-run community group. We do not make any money advocating for public art. We are open to opportunities for receiving city and/or private funding for specific art projects (such as murals, curated walls, etc.).

PSAA exists because we feel passionately about the public’s right to free speech, public space, and the city. We see these rights as essential ingredients for preserving a democratic society.

In general, PSAA does not believe that graffiti is an automatic sign of urban decay or distress. Like everything, it is place-specific and the larger context and intent should always be taken into account. We see the vast majority of graffiti in Portland as a sign of urban vitalization, vibrancy, energy, and urban culture-building. We also appreciate the history of graffiti and hip hop culture and recognize it as a valid form of self-expression.

It was unprofessional and irresponsible of the City of Portland to host this event without verifying whether or not its content was accurate. Toscan’s “wild guess” statistics are now being repeated in news articles, including one by Don MacGillivray recently published in the SE Examiner. If the Summit is going to host presentations by academics, they should at least be presenting legitimate statistics.

Commendably, this year’s Summit presented a few alternatives to simply criminalizing graffiti artists, such as the RestART program. However, we are disheartened to hear that Portland’s Graffiti Program is not using their funding to re-instate the mural-assistance program that was cut a few years ago.

We encourage everyone to contact their neighborhood and City representatives, and share your thoughts. We’ve been told the commissioners and neighborhood association presidents are good people to start with. Leaving your mark in public can have an effect, but speaking directly to those in power can have quite an impact too.

More Photos from the Summit

Portland City Commissioner’s Contact Information

Neighborhood Associations in Portland

 

Ugly Sweater PDX

PSAA interviewed Claudia Martinez, one of the yarn bombers behind the uglysweaterPDX project. In its second year, uglysweaterPDX yarn bombs Pioneer Square’s bronze art statues with festive ugly sweaters for the holidays.

How did the Ugly Sweater PDX project start? What were the project’s goals?

Our team of knitters this year included Jessica DeVries, Jenny Mosher, Amanda Miller, and myself (Claudia Martinez). Our friend Kyle Stuart, who works for a local branding company called North, wanted to propose a yarn bombing project to Travel Portland. He wanted it to be something that locals and visitors to Portland could enjoy during the holiday season. Problem was, he only knew one crocheter. Luckily, he reached out to his friend Jessica DeVires, who then approached Jenny and me with the idea. I was already familiar with the practice of yarn bombing, so I immediately wanted to join the team. It was an opportunity to what I could normally be doing any Sunday Crafternoon anyways, but on a much grander scale, and more importantly it would be something for the city.

Jessica and Jenny dress up downtown’s deer. [Photo by: Travel Portland]

Did your team face any challenges when trying to make this happen?

I was a little skeptical about the idea of getting paid, and also worried about the longevity of the sweaters. I’ve made art installations before and know that people often remove or take them (just for fun, to keep, or maybe they think they’re trash). The temptation of decorative sweaters would be no exception. As sad as it is to have the sweaters disappear, I’ve come to peace with the idea that if it’s taken, it was such a good piece that people wanted it, or perhaps they actually needed it to stay warm. I knew that if we did this project, we had to be ready for criticisms the possibility of vandalism, but those are things that come with any form of installation art.

Under different (or normal) circumstances something like this could technically be fined as littering, or even theoretically criminal mischief (i.e. interference with private property). Any thoughts on that? What do you think about unauthorized yarn bombing?

I’m a bit biased on this question due to my long-standing affection towards street art. Sometimes you just need to break up the monotony of everyday. The advantage to yarn bombing is that it can be removed with little or no damage to those directly affected by the art. It is the same with wheatpasted art. Any artist will tell you that even their best pieces have at least one villainous critic, so someone’s litter is another’s needed splash of color.

UglySweaterPDX 2014 [Photo by: Gina Murrell]

What were people’s reactions to you putting up these yarn installations? Any memorable interactions?

I was surprised by the amount of positive feedback we received from passersby, both young and old. The older crowds were inspecting the types of knots or stitches used, while the younger people made comments about the time it must have taken to create the pieces. In fact, when one of our first pieces was stolen, some unknown strangers put scarves and gloves on them, as replacement pieces. It was nice to know that our work had touched people so deeply that they made and installed replacement yarn pieces, all just to keep the sentiment alive.

Claudia knits on some leg cozies [Photo by: Jaime Valdez]

It would be great to see publicly-funded yarn art for causes that are for the greater good like this because I really do feel that it reflects well on the city. I was also part of the team that did Bridge for Blankets this past year, a temporary installation on the Broadway Bridge to celebrate its centennial birthday. After, all the blankets were donated to the local homeless shelters and hospitals. Projects like these show that the city wants to support the non-traditional, and it stands behind all sorts of creatives, from traditional painters and muralists, to the lesser-known fabric, yarn, and fiber artists.

Watch a short UglySweaterPDX promo video.

For more photos of this years and last years installations, search #uglysweaterpdx on Instagram and Twitter.

Hanky's Portland Surplus Candy

Check out Hanksy’s new episode of Surplus Candy, featuring PSAA and other members of Portland’s street art community. Filmed in the Spring 2014, the 4th episode of this mini-series highlights the unique and determined artists that call Portland home.

NYC-based artist Hanksy has teamed up with The Hundreds to showcase what American streets have to offer, visiting off-the-beaten path cities like Montreal, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Austin to explore their unique street art and graffiti scenes. The episodes air every other Wednesday on The Hundreds‘ website.

“The Hundreds is pleased to bring you Hanksy’s “Surplus Candy” episode 4 – Portland. Hanksy’s six-part street art odyssey, with the help of Squarespace, has brought him to the streets of Portland to find an art scene that is supposed to be absent. After a scuffle between an ad agency and the city of Portland, a zero tolerance policy for graffiti and murals was put into effect. Though Hanksy soon learns that when art is blocked it just changes courses and flows into a different direction. Portland is a place where street artists have been forced to channel their creativity around the strict laws, ironically pushing street art back to its purest form – underground and out of sight. So much for a city with a non-existent street art scene. (Review from The Hundreds)”

A HUGE shout out to all the local artists involved in this project, and everyone that makes up and supports Portland’s street art and graffiti scenes. Portland’s street art and graffiti scenes are alive and well, if you take time to stop and look. 

Read more about Hanksy’s work and his unique spin on the world of street art here.

Graffiti + Activism Panel Talk

In September 2014, representatives from three organizations; Portland Street Art Alliance (PSAA), Endless Canvas (Bay Area, CA) and Graffiti Defense Coalition (GDC) (Seattle, WA) participated in a panel discussion exploring the use of graffiti as a tool for communication and activism.

UNMEDIATED ACCESS & COMMUNICATION IN SPACE

The event was held at the University of Oregon in Portland, as part of the Cascade Media Convergence, a three-day long regional gathering of community-based media organizations, journalists, and artists.

The panel discussion focused on what activism graffiti is, how it can be an effective tactic, how it’s spatial and social contexts affect its message and impact, and how city municipalities and corporations have responded to these types of actions.

The panelists were first asked how they define “graffiti” for the purposes of the discussion.

Occupy graffiti, Portland 2011. Photo: Portland Street Art Alliance

Although each panelist’s definition differed, consensus was that graffiti should be framed both legally and culturally. Legally speaking, graffiti is any marking text, or imagery that’s done in public (private property or public city-owned space) without permission. One type of illegal marking, is activist graffiti, which aims to communicate a dissenting message to the larger public. It was noted by panelists that all of these definitions are fluid and not universal. What is, or is not, considered graffiti greatly depends on the cultural, spatial, and legal contexts within which it is created and viewed.

The panelists then discussed how graffiti exercises our rights to free speech and expression.

Make Living Space Cast out Investors, Berlin September 2011. Photo: Portland Street Art Alliance

Panelists felt that graffiti is a highly autonomous and democratic mode of communication. Because it occurs in public, graffiti is a way for a wide range of people that might not typically interact with one another, to freely and directly communicate with one another. The anonymity acts as a mask, protecting people from being prosecuted (unless caught) and encourages honesty and harsh criticism.

Endless Canvas representatives pointed out that graffiti is an accessible medium for anyone, no matter what their socio-economic status is. Everyone can, at least in theory, create graffiti in public space. In so doing, graffiti can give value and power to under-served parts of society because it’s a way to insert their voice and presence into spaces where they’re otherwise not welcomed or allowed.

Anti-Ulises Ruiz Ortiz graffiti, Oaxaca 2006. Photo: Itandehui Franco Ortiz

Women’s Rights graffiti by Grrrl Army, Seattle 2012. Photo: Portland Street Art Alliance

Graffiti also challenges so-called “free speech zones,” acting outside of these regulated spaces and pushing the boundaries of what is done and tolerated in public space.

Next, panelists provided examples of how graffiti has been used as a tactic for activism and direct action.  

Occupy graffiti, London 2011. Photo: monevator.com

Protest graffiti has been used in countless social movements throughout history. Recent examples can been seen in the Occupy, Egyptian, and Greek uprisings of 2011, the 2006 Oaxaca, Mexico protests, and the 2014 anti-World Cup graffiti in Brazil.

“In our home, our own freedom, our own strength and our own truth.” Kyiv, Ukraine April 2014. Photo: Magdalena Patalong

The multiplying power of social media technologies can amplify the reach of these social and political commentaries. Therefore, these types of unregulated communications can have an immense amount of potential power that governments fear. Governments have been known to shut down telecommunications during political uprisings (for example, in Venezuela, Ukraine, and Egypt).

Memorial Mural for Victims of Police Brutality Oakland, 2013. Photo: Endless Canvas

Violations of free speech like this can even be seen in the U.S. For example, Endless Canvas representatives explained that following the fatal shooting of Oscar Grant by a BART police officer in 

Oakland, BART shut down all underground cell phone service to try to prevent large protests. In some cases, graffiti is one of the only ways people can communicate dissenting messages to the public.

Billboard graffiti, Berkeley 2009. Photo: Craig Cook

Also discussed was how graffiti is often used to protest the “visual pollution” of corporate advertising. One of the most interesting cases presented was how Bay Area graffiti writers concentrated their interventions on certain billboard advertisements. These pieces tended to last longer on billboards than other spaces in the city because they were in hard-to-reach spaces, which proved to be difficult for the billboard company to remove. The owners eventually found these billboards to be a lost cause and were decommissioned due to unprofitability. Though the graffiti writers were unconsciously making a political statement, other guerilla artists found that these tactics were a powerful way for average people to fight against corporate advertisements in public space.

It was also pointed out by one panelist that after the AK Media (now Clear Channel) vs. City of Portland case of 2005, painting murals without official city permission in Portland was (and still could be) seen as a form of protest. Today, all murals that are done without a permit or RACC waiver can be reported as “illegal graffiti,” fined, and forcefully removed by the city (regardless of whether or not the property owner consents).

Art Fills the Void by Gorilla Wallflare, Portland. 1982. Photo: Gorilla Wallflare

Kickin Ass for the Working Class by Nuclear Winter, May 1 2011. Photo: Endless Canvas

Panelists were then asked how permitted activist art differs from un-permitted activist graffiti.

Anti-GMO mural in Oakland by Pancho Peskador and Desi W.O.M.E, April 2012.

On one hand, panelists saw both legal and illegal activist art as two different strategies that can work simultaneously. Both forms can communicate powerful messages to the public though political commentary, making an impact on civic consciousness.

On the other hand, panelists also pointed out that it is impossible to radically change the system by working within it. Some believe illegal activist art is a much blunter weapon that maintains maximum power and impact. With illegal art, there is no censorship. It is not mediated through the framework of capitalism or the state and the risks artists take to trespass and produce their artwork illegally infuses their art with intrinsic symbolic power.

Occupy Walls by Graffiti Against the System (GATS), Portland 2011. Photo: Portland Street Art Alliance

Lastly, panelists were asked to think about the public’s reactions to graffiti and how it alters our perceptions of space in the city.

Falsas Promesas Broken Promises, South Bronx, 1980. Photo: John Fekner

A Graffiti Defense Coalition representative gave the example of New York City in the late 1970s when many young people saw graffiti as a creative way to bring much needed color to the crumbling and decaying city, exciting the urban landscapes around them. Amidst this political and infrastructural chaos, authorities and the media began to campaign against graffiti, associating it with dirt, decay, disease, and madness. These anti-graffiti campaigns cited the “broken windows theory” as their basis, arguing that minor misdemeanors (like graffiti) must be stopped or there will be an atmosphere of lawlessness that will attract serious criminal offenders who will assume that residents don’t care about the neighborhood.

By promoting a culture of unrealistic fears, and tapping into the public’s moral insecurities, authorities were able to justify increased policing and regulations of our public spaces. Policing ideologies like this did nothing to address the longstanding social inequalities, infrastructural neglect, purposeful arson-for-profit scams, and declining tax revenues that were causing urban decline at this time. Today, it’s clear to see that graffiti is often actually a sign of a vibrant urban area, or one that’s in the early stages of gentrification (Berlin, Bushwick, and Miami, etc).

Portland Street Art Alliance members then pointed out that dominant ideologies define what is, and is not appropriate in public spaces. In the case of graffiti, the public was told by city-sponsored anti-graffiti ads and public announcements that they should prevent graffiti at all costs, that it didn’t belong in the city, and will cause a spiral of decay like is seen in extremely neglected and ignored urban neighborhoods, like the South Bronx in the 1970s and 80s. Subsequently, the tide of fear and criticism against graffiti rolled in.

Representatives of Endless Canvas echoed the sentiment, stating that graffiti doesn’t actually physically hurt anyone, and the battle between the city and graffiti artists, is a sign of a much larger battle for control, voice, and representation.

Graffiti is considered a major urban problem because it challenges the notion of private property, and by extension, the entire system in which modern society is built upon. It also makes us think about who really does or should have control of our public visual space. It is symbolic of a much larger struggle for our collective rights to the city.

Special thanks to Brett Peters for helping to write this article and CMC organizers, particularly Tim Rice, for supporting and making this regional discussion possible. 

Portland Sticker Nerds

A group of dedicated street artists just pulled off what might be the largest sticker art installation show in the United States – Sticker Nerds III. After months of preparation and stickers donated from around the world, a simple warehouse space was transformed into an alternate reality. Every wall and fixture covered with an estimated 15,000+ pieces of artistic expression from 1000s of artists around the world. Each sticker telling a story, a small glimpse into someone’s unique personality and imagination.

The third and largest installment of the Sticker Nerds trilogy was carried out by a team of about 20 prolific vinyl sticker artists and supporters including: Skam, RxSkulls, Kanye, Doctor Rasterbator, Voxx Romana, and Jonathan Boys.

Over the past 10 years, the Portland sticker art scene has blossomed into an impressive, colorful, and relentless force on city streets. To the dismay of tireless graffiti abatement crews, volunteer community groups, and vigilantes, stickers just keep getting up – an endless cycle of slap, stick, and scrape. Many sticker connoisseurs would agree that Portland is one of the best places to see this type of urban intervention.

Some say Portland’s wet weather and mural regulations have encouraged artists to focus more on vinyl mediums, others look back to our DIY and skateboarding cultural roots. Regardless, a strong and supportive community of artists has formed, all helping each other master this craft, push its limits, and organized for the cause.

Tension and nerves were high before the show. Logistically everything was working great, however, organizers ran into red tape when it came time to obtain an event permit from the Portland Fire Marshal. The City’s Fire & Rescue office and the Portland Police have come under scrutiny in recent weeks for allegedly paying extra attention to enforcing capacity codes and shutting down local cultural events like hip hop concerts, art gallery events, and dancing events.  Even though Sticker Nerds III venue was a big space, it only had one exit.

After days of talking with marshal’s staff, the organizers were forced to limit the event to no more than 25 people at any time. Three people were needed to manage the space, leaving only 22 spaces for visitors. To accommodate for this unfortunate, but understandable limitation, the event was quickly reconfigured into an all-day open house.

On the morning of the show, a message was posted by organizers with the warehouse’s address and a note “Please be advised that you may have to wait in line. Please respect the local neighborhood. The Sticker Nerds 3 event does not condone vandalism.”Within minutes of posting the location on various social media outlets, people started lining up outside the door hoping to be one of the first 100 guests in who received a special SN3 sticker pack. Sticker enthusiasts from as far away as Minnesota, California, and Washington came to Portland for this free event. The line remained 1 to 2 hours strong all day and night.

Once in possession of the doorman’s magic glass ticket, guests entered the warehouse. You were instantly submerged in a sea of stickers and wheatpastes. Static-crackling TVs, light projections, and DJs gave it a post-apocalyptic vibe. The artists even incorporated real pieces of everyday life into the space like city furniture, utility boxes, newspaper boxes, bathroom stalls, espresso makers, and a few classic tube televisions. The walls constantly change throughout the day as guests added more stickers and tags. Outside the venue, an art-covered newspaper box was used by attendees to share stickers and swag.

A full screen-printing set-up cranked out fresh prints on bought or brought clothes, a gallery sold handmade fine art pieces, and pop-up shop sold merchandise like prints, stickers, tee-shirts, bike bags, books, bandanas, cozies, patches, and buttons. Local street and graffiti artists painted a full wall collaborative mural, displaying some of Portland’s finest artistic talent. Throughout the day, free art was given away to guests. The day after the show, an all-warehouse auction was held. They even sold the wall panels to raise money for the next event.

Since they had to officially close their doors at 9pm, organizers threw a special SN3 VIP After-Party. Guests with exclusive stick-its quietly descended upon the dimly lit warehouse for evening of networking, creating, trading, and conversing. The evening closed without incident, everyone played by the rules.  Most of us left with pockets full of stickers and an amazing sense of community. Portland’s sticker art scene is as much about the art as it is the people who do it and the social spaces it adheres too.

More Photos from Sticker Nerds Events

And More Photos!

ALL PHOTOS @ PSAA

JR’s Inside Out Project PDX

Portland has been turned inside out! Alongside the train tracks of inner SE, a group of community members transformed the wall of K+F Coffee Roasters into a people’s public art gallery. One Grand, an art and design gallery in Portland, organized the city’s first JR Inside Out Project. The theme, “Keep Portland Weird.”

Inside Out is a global art project transforming messages of personal identity into works of art. The Steps: Organize a group, choose a theme, apply for the grant, and if accepted, take photos of people who live in the city based on the theme, send them to JR, who prints them out and sends them back. The project culminated with the community coming together to wheatpaste these portraits in public spaces around the city. These massive collages literally put a “human face” on the urban built environment. Projects like this get people to participate in public space in ways they may, or may not, have before.

It was great to see people wheatpasting for the first time, and really enjoying the process of being a part of this community action to alter the aesthesis of the city. One of those people was Anton Legoo, a local interaction designer. Anton spoke about the project’s effect saying, “it helped me to remember that we are all the same person wearing different disguises; hats, glasses, hair styles, facial expressions, social projections, genders, daily routines, hometowns, loves, and life experiences.”

Project organizer, Kali Huebner of the One Grand Gallery, explained that they wanted to bring JR’s Inside Out here to “to celebrate our landscape, our culture, and the individuals and ideas that make and shape this city. The goal was “to honor our appreciation for local business and craft, while bringing the community together to challenge our art scene and continue the discussion of street art and vandalism.”

The installation is on a factory building on SE 14th & Taggart. Located between the railroad tracks, a dead-end road, and the nearby former Brooklyn Skate Spot. This building has been a favorite for local graffiti artists for many years. This is a hidden space “in-between.” It’s a tucked away spot, slightly out of sight from the flow of traffic, a space creative and unmediated creative exchanges between people and their environment can more easily happen without fear of harassment or arrest.

It will be interesting to see how the City reacts to this project and how it evolves over time. Will the building still be a graffiti spot? Is this the start of a wheatpaste wall like Seattle’s Post Alley? Will Portland’s graffiti abatement issue a citation? The Brooklyn neighborhoodis rapidly changing with the new light rail construction surrounding it, so whatever happens, it will only be brief. When the development is complete, graffiti abatement will surely increase and all of this will most likely be wiped ‘clean’ like many other parts of this quickly gentrifying city.

The politics of the space extend past the official legalities, to the unofficial laws of the street. Some in the street and graffiti art community see this project as a mass replication that limits their access to few spaces where it is still somewhat possible to paint without extreme risk of being arrested. Wheatepaste is sometimes looked down upon by graffiti and other street artists because, in some cases, they see it as being less creative (it is not necessarily ‘made by hand’) and daring. Modern printing and copying technology, and the popularity of the OBEY campaign, has popularized this medium over the past few decades. Wheatepaste is also thought to be problematic from a graffiti writer’s perspective because it interferes with the quality of their work. Spray paint will quick wash away if it’s applied over wheatpaste and the texture is difficult to work around. An aerosol piece can paint on over and over again, but once a wheatepaste is applied to a wall, it makes that canvas less desirable for paint interventions and more desirable for more wheatepaste interventions.

To us, all of these forms have equal merit; both have examples that display unquestionable artistic skill and/or social commentary. Take for instance N.O. Bonzo, a local street artist who spends month’s intricately painting home-made paper with home-made ink, creating truly epic wheatpastes. Or, on the other hand, a graffiti writer who refines and plays with their hand-style over decades, constantly is remixing its elements.

We believe that street art, in all its forms, is the defining modern aesthetic of our time and a powerful community organizing tool. In the end, we hope this project makes us question: what does it mean to have an active role in our environments and communities? This project helps show the City of Portland that there are many benefits to allowing more street art and letting people directly participate in their city space. One of the most powerful aspects of Inside Out is that everyone can participate; it is truly the “people’s” art project.

Artist Forced To Buff Mural

GRAFFITI POLICE FORCE ARTIST TO BUFF OWNER-AUTHORIZED MURAL

On Monday August 12, 2013, the City of Portland was about to have a new and exciting addition to its public art collection. Cannon Dill, a highly regarded artist from San Francisco was visiting Portland. He is known for incredibly detailed black and white aerosol murals of enchanting wolf-like creatures and his murals can be seen in cities across the country, including Chicago, Detroit, Denver, Oakland, Brooklyn, Kansas City, Minneapolis, and New Orleans. His artwork is usually welcomed and celebrated as invigorating dull walls and dilapidated urban environments. However, to our dismay, it was met with contempt in Portland by police.

About a quarter of the way through painting a self-funded mural on the side of a chronically tagged building in inner Southeast Portland (SE 9th and Ash) Dill was interrupted by two City of Portland police officers.

The building owner, who arrived at the scene shortly after, immediately expressed their satisfaction with the progress and told the officers that they had given Dill permission to paint the mural.  The owner explained that they were trying to deter repeat graffiti tagging. Over the years, they have spent a lot of public tax dollars and time painting over unwanted markings.

After realizing that Dill’s mural was not un-authorized ‘graffiti’ and was instead an owner-authorized mural, the Portland Police officers seemed to be appeased. At that point, in most cities, the situation would have been over and the artist would have been allowed to continue. But in Portland, painting a mural is not that easy.

Shortly after, officer Anthony Zanetti, one of the Portland Police Department’s two Graffiti Abatement Task Force officers arrived at the scene. Officer Zanetti said that due to the lack of proper permitting the mural had to be removed immediately or the building owner would be issued a City citation and fined as being a Graffiti Nuisance Property. In Portland, both private and business property owners can be fined (up to $250 per incident of graffiti) and even jailed if there’s graffiti on their property for more than 10 days after they are issued a citation. This can be quite a burden on small businesses and residents.

Zanetti continued to explain to the owner, that his permission did not matter; they still needed a $250 permit from the Regional Arts and Culture Council (RACC).

While it’s true that the property owner’s permission does not matter in the eyes of the City of Portland when it comes to painting art on the outside of buildings, other things officer Zanetti is reported to have said are not accurate.

Going through RACC is not the only way to paint a mural in Portland. The City has an Original Art Mural Permitting Program, which in most cases, costs only $50 (as of 2013, $56 as of 2022). RACC does provide mural artists exceptions to the city sign codes (providing an easement and adding the mural to the city’s public art collection), but that process is free, and if approved, RACC will actually provide an opportunity to “match” an artist’s mural funding up to $10,000 via an application and review process.

Why did officer Zanetti give the owner inaccurate information? At minimum, we should hold those accountable whose job it is to abate graffiti and and enforce mural regulations to know and provide the public factual information about these rules and processes.

This is also surprising because the City’s new Graffiti Abatement Program Coordinator, Dennis LoGiudice, recently said that he was not going to make regulating non-permitted community murals a priority in his office, which works in partnership with the two Graffiti Task Force police officers.

Zanetti also told the owner that those who do graffiti hide their ‘crew signs’ in their pieces. At the 2013 Graffiti Abatement Summit this past May, Officer Matt Miller (the other Portland Graffiti Task Force police detective) said he and his partner focus their efforts on ‘gang’ graffiti.

The City of Portland estimates that 13-15% of reported cases in the city are ‘gang-related’ (a number we haven’t seen updated by the task force since 2006). However, this estimate is biased and unreliable because it is not systematic and only includes reported cases (and not all cases). It’s also a relatively small proportion compared to other cities. A good amount of Portland’s actual gang graffiti is on the edges of the city, not in the inner-city.

Cannon Dill’s artwork is not ‘gang’ related. He is an artist who mainly paints permission murals and shows his work in galleries. It’s a stereotype that all young people who put their work in the streets (especially those who use aerosol paint and are ethnic minorities) are members of gangs or crews. The main function of these ‘crews’ Zanetti is referring to is to network, share information, organize street art-related events, and paint large murals in cities. All of these tasks take organization and management. Associating artists with criminal gangs (or crews) is often used a fear tactic by authorities to demonize artists and justify more graffiti abatement (in the form of graffiti nuisance property, criminal mischief, vandalism, and trespassing fines). This is a self-reinforcing cycle, the more graffiti ‘problems,’ the more job security for graffiti abatement officials.

One of the main purposes of police officers, in general, is to enforce property laws meant to control access and conduct in public space (or spaces viewed from public space). As soon as you put art in this realm, it is regulated and controlled for us, and not by us.

The fact that the City of Portland requires mural permits is often unknown to visiting artists because in most cities (Seattle and San Francisco for example) there are no permits required for murals and all you need is owner-permission. Neither Cannon Dill, nor the property owner, knew that a mural permit was required. Also, visiting artists often are not able to navigate these permitting processes because it can take anywhere from one to three months to complete and requires someone being physically present to organize and attend neighborhood meetings and post proposed mural site notices.

The situation on Monday afternoon concluded with Dill being forced to buff his mural with white paint. Dill was then told by police to get out of town.

This incident is yet another example of the current problem Portland faces with creating art in public spaces. We’re missing out on showcasing local and visiting artists’ work in our city.

Less than a week after the in-progress mural was forcably buffed, Cannon Dill's only other existing mural in Portland was buffed. The wall and surrounding area along MLK Blvd has had street art and graffiti on it for many months (if not years), with no action from graffiti abatement. This mural was the only piece buffed. It survived for only one week. This was not random buffing, it was a targeted effort to remove all traces of Cannon Dill’s art from the Portland landscape. While we understand that this was in some ways inevitable, since a city mural permit was not attained, we rarely see this type of stealth, targeted abatement.  

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These incidents are not the first time the Portland’s Graffiti Abatement officers have shut down grassroots efforts to beautify the city with murals. They have targeted numerous galleries, community groups, and other mural efforts over the years (i.e., the Special Delivery gallery show in 2011 and the Samo Lives Gallery in 2012). These situations portray Portland as being an unwelcoming city for public creativity; something other cities are fully embracing.

It seems that many of these threats and shutdowns are also solely aimed at artists working with aerosol paint. For many artists, aerosol is not just a cheaper and easier way to paint large works, it provides a certain aesthetic quality that other mediums cannot replicate.

Even more concerning is that our access to public space in Portland is under siege. Countless barriers are in place that makes it difficult for people to navigate and receive proper permission to paint a mural or otherwise improve our shared public spaces. By systematically denying the city’s diverse artistic possibilities, authorities are increasingly working to encode privilege and exclusion in our public spaces by setting up legal and environmental barriers that make these spaces off-limits to us. If we’re not careful, Portland will turn into a ‘Disneyfied’ version of its former weird and quirky self.

While community art is closely monitored and regulated, countless un-permitted corporate advertising signage across the city is unregulated – something the city could profit from if proper resources were dedicated to corporate signage enforcement.

In difficult financial times, when city budgets and important social programs are being slashed, why does the City continue to use public resources and tax monies on an aggressive graffiti abatement task force that pursues, intimidates, and prosecutes street artists instead of violent criminals?

All Photos © PSAA

Sow Good Seeds

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Burnside Arts Trust partnered with Portland’s Urban Farm Collective to sow good seeds in the Grand Dekum Garden. Local Portland artists Circleface, N.O. Bonzo, and Dhestoe painted the garden’s garage to celebrate the joyous growth of this garden and infuse the space with lovely art and excitement. These artists dedicated their time to this project because they want to actively promote shared green spaces within our city. “We believe in the power of community gardens to build relationships, beautify urban spaces, and promote positive interactions with nature inside the city,” said a Burnside Arts Trust representative.

The Urban Farm Collective (UFC) maintains 17 community gardens in Portland. UFC is made up of a progressive group of volunteers who use vacant urban land to enrich and support communities, helping people re-imagine the possibilities of these spaces. They aim to educate, build communities, and improve food security. Their gardens are fully supported by local volunteers who care for and maintain them throughout the year. The collective hosts a non-monetized market that trades volunteer hours for garden produce. Surplus crops are donated to the St. Andrews Church food bank.

Please visit the UFC’s website at urbanfarmcollective.com to see the amazing work they do and to get involved with one of their gardens. For more information on the benefits of urban community farming visit communitygarden.org.

Urban residents around the world are reclaiming vacant land; transforming void spaces into fertile places to grow food, relationships, and community. Community gardens re-introduce nature into the city, helping to cultivate a re-enchantment with the natural world and support the psychological well-being of residents. Gardens also promote more sustainable urban development, community resilience and networking, organic food production, environmental protection and awareness. It is not just the physical creation of gardens that is transformative; they also spur new ways of thinking about cities and our right to directly create places around us that nourish our basic human needs – to grow, love, play, sense, connect, and live.

ALL PHOTOS © PSAA

Murals and the Portland Sign Codes

MURALS AND THE PORTLAND CITY SIGN CODE

At one time, artists could paint outdoor murals in Portland with a simple agreement between themselves and the building owner, as is the case in manyother cities in the United States.

In 1998, the City of Portland was thrust into a lengthy and complicated legal battle with AK Media (a company that was later absorbed by Clear Channel).

Thanks to the dedicated efforts of a handful of art advocates who pushed for the art of mural-making to be recognized, in 2005, the Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) began its Public Art Mural Program. In 2009, following the closing of the Clear Channel trial, and the judge’s decision (in 2007), the City of Portland’s new mural program was created.

Until those two pathways were forged, community murals were either not painted, or were done without City permission, thereby risking citations and fines for building owners being out of compliance with the City’s sign code.

Both the existing mural programs have certain requirements. The City of Portland’s mural permitting process requires a fee and a neighborhood meeting. RACC is a more comprehensive mural proposal submission and funding opportunity that, if approved, the mural is added to the City’s public art collection, ensuring that the artwork is exempt from the City’s sign code and will be enjoyed by future generations to come.

The existing systems work, and many murals have been painted since the drought of mural art in the late 1990s and early 2000s, however, there are many ways that certain types of artistic expression are still burdened.

It is time that the City of Portland re-evaluates its Original Art Mural Permit process to ensure that it is still effective and could not be further improved.

Buckman Community Mural by Joe Cotter

Contributors: Joanne Oleksiak, Robin Dunitz & Mark Meltzer

Music Millennium Mural

In the spring of 2013, Portland Street Art Alliance and two local artists, The Lost Cause (TLC) and Jon Stommel of Rather Severe, successfully completed a community-funded mural on the backside of Music Millennium (3158 E Burnside). This was PSAA's first project, bringing together the founding team to engage with the community and facilitating art in the streets. 

PSAA and this project started in an unlikely way. The prior winter (2012) TLC and local art shop, Home:bass, launched a very successful fundraising campaign, raising almost 3 times more than what they asked for. Everything was going smoothly until TLC was painting the mural and was approached by Portland Police. The officers interrogated him, asking what he was doing, and if he had a permit. No one knew that in addition to owner-permission, you also need a City of Portland mural permit to legally paint an art mural. The Home:bass shop was no stranger to Portland police, being the frequent target of surveillance, especially during their street art show openings. Due to these complications, the Home:bass mural project fell through when Home:bass's lease was not renewed by the property owner. 

That is when the founding members of PSAA stepped in, Tiffany and Tomas. After a few brainstorming sessions, the team hit the streets canvasing local business to find a new mural space for this project. After approaching about 20 business on Burnside, Stark and Hawthorne, we walked into Music Millennium, the oldest record store in the Pacific Northwest. We were imminently directed to speak to Terry Currier the owner. Terry was very open-minded and excited at the prospect of bringing some color and energy to his blank white wall. Even better, the artists were willing to do this project at no cost Music Millennium, as the crowd-source funding covered most of the costs associated with paint and labor. 

The artist team worked with Terry Currier, the owner of Music Millennium, to create a design that would be reminiscent of the record store’s psychedelic roots. They decided on a colorful Beatles-inspired array of happy characters and swirling patterns. PSAA secured the City of Portland mural permit.

Speaking about his art and the new mural, the The Lost Cause said, “We just want to make people smile and laugh. It was a great experience to paint this mural and get to talk with people of all ages, some neighbors and others coming to the record shop. They liked the characters and bright colors.”

Check out PSAA's video documenting some of the creative process!

ALL PHOTOS © PSAA

Reclaim The Streets Symposium

Reclaim The Streets: A SYMPOSIUM ON ART & PUBLIC SPACE

PSAA Co-Director Tiffany Conklin recently moderated a panel discussion on Art & Public Space at a Symposium in Victoria B.C. The following is a report back from that event.

Founded in 1972, the Open Space Arts Society is a non-profit artist-run centre located in Victoria, British Columbia. Open Space supports artists who utilize hybrid and experimental approaches to media, art, music, and performance. In April 2014, Open Space hosted a two-day symposium that brought together artists, scholars, curators, activists, city officials, community organizations, and engaged citizens to examine the goals, perceptions, problems, and possibilities of unsanctioned public art. This free and public symposium also featured presentations and a series of round-table panel discussions to encourage audience involvement and participation in these important conversations. The symposium was generously sponsored by the City of Victoria and the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria.

Open Space Assistant Curator Sara Fruchtman and local artist-in-residence Cameron Kidd organized this local and international community event. The symposium was the final finale of Kidd’s 10 month residency at Open Space. During this time, he’s helped to create 3 murals, and a variety of projects that addressed the need for youth engagement and more publicly accessible sites for street art in the city.

Kidd and Fruchtman just successfully pitched a new project to the city – turning Commercial Alley behind the centre into a new city-sponsored mural zone, the first of its kind in Victoria.

Key note speaker Barbara Cole, the director of Other Sights for Artists’ Projects presented examples of how artists she works with are resisting, reinterpreting, and reinventing the ways in which our cities’ public places are experienced. In 2010, Other Sights curated a piece of public art by Folke Koeb­ber­ling and Mar­tin Kalt­wasser, two Berlin-based artist who built a compostable bulldozer in empty lot about to be developed in Vancouver B.C.

The first panel discussion focused on the various types of spaces in the city: public, semi-public, and private space. On the panel was: art activist Kika Thorne, geography professor Reuben Rose-Redwood, sculptor Mowry Baden, and the founders of the The Wayward School, Stefan Morales and Heather Cosidetto.

They discussed questions like: What is public space? Who has the right to occupy and use these space? Do all members of society have access to it? What should public spaces be used for, and not used for? Does public space need to be regulated ? If so, by whom? Can public space be community-managed? If we spaces completely open for any use, then how do we govern our relations within those spaces? How do we sustain a shared and safe space, and prevent a tragedy of the commons?

The second session focused on public art and youth engagement, specifically the ways in which communities can support youth in becoming more positively engaged with public space, especially when it comes to art practices. The panel included Sue Donaldson of the BC Arts Council, Haida artist Sacha Ouellet, Tla-o-qui-aht wood carver Hjalmer Wenstob, and theatre director Will Weigler.

Katrina Thorsen provided examples from her 10 years of experience as a therapeutic art facilitator. Similar to alcohol and drug addiction therapy, Thorsen uses street art as a therapeutic practice for at-risk and traumatized youth. She’s found that community-based street art can be used as a highly effective tool of empowerment, helping youth integrate themselves into public life, build confidence, strengthen community support structures in an active, positive, and supportive ways. Thorsen found that providing youth public spaces to express themselves in helped them find their ‘voice’ and feel like they are be heard.

Next up was the screening of 100 Layers of Beige, a local documentary directed by Kay Gallivan (VIPIRG) and Zsofin Sheehy (Wandering Eye Media). The film focuses on  Trackside Gallery and the conflicts that led to the end of one of Canada’s largest graffiti walls.

100 Layers Beige Trailer from Zsofin Sheehy on Vimeo.

The final session focused on exploring the differences between sanctioned and unsanctioned street art. Panel participants included street artists Cameron Kidd and “Other” (Troy Lovegates), the City of Victoria Arts and Culture Coordinator Nichola Reddington,Erika Heyrman the owner of Wildfire Bakery and a local free wall, and Tiffany Conklin of the Portland Street Art Alliance.

This last panel explored topics like: Why are some forms of unsanctioned interventions (often called street art) more socially acceptable than letter-based graffiti? What are the differences and similarities between these practices? Both are often illegal, but are both always vandalism? The panel also proposed ideas on how communities can support the types of artistic interventions they want to see. Rather than criminalizing, dictating, and suppressing, instead asking: how can we collectively manage, compromise, and improve the quality and vibrancy of our streets?

Although many insights arose, a few key ideas seemed to resonate with the crowd. Some called for more action against the overabundance of advertisements in the city. Saying, that this type of visual pollution is often tolerated and ignored, only because it is backed by capital. Graffiti is no different than ads, except that it is free and springs from the grassroots. Additionally, advertisers are not easily regulated since they have strong legal teams and lobbyists. They can promote with impunity, regardless of the negative effects campaigns may have on our physical and mental spaces.

The quality and accessibility of a city’s public spaces are a true reflection of the quality, commitment, and vibrancy of the communities that live there. The peopleof the city are in control of it’s public spaces. However, this right to the city can only be realized if we have an active and empowered citizenry. Rather than being complacent or passively complaining about something, we need to act, sometimes alone, but more effectively, as a diverse group working from all angles towards a common goal.

Sharing experiences and ideas (even if conflicting) is one of the best ways to generate new solutions and approaches. Having safe social spaces where we can all communicate and be heard, regardless of our power, money, or status in the community, is the primary objective. Pubic space is the original and only true democratic arena, however, it can only serve this role if people consistently occupy it and communicate with one another about the pressing issues of their time and place. We are the city, and the city is us.

Murals and VARA Rights

By Kohel Haver - kohel@artcop.com

A painting on a wall is different only in size and accessibility to the public from those on canvas or paper. Real artists paint on buildings and cars and busses. The fundamental legal issues facing mural and street artists are relatively straightforward. Most of us are aware that painting on a building or other public property can lead to civil and criminal liability. Less often considered are the interesting and nuanced legal issues concerning copyright and ownership of the work itself. How the work got on the wall does not alter the legitimacy of the expression, the work can even be vandalism and also protected by copyright. Although communities vary in artistic preferences, especially in their regulation of public art, the expressive and aesthetic value of art is separate from its status in that regulatory process. The fact remains that even “street art” is real and as advocates for arts and artists it is something we should come to terms with. In fact many cities and businesses in America (NIKE, Vans, Levi’s, and Frito Lay) have embraced this work both to advocate the legitimacy of street art, and to utilize this young urban medium for commercial purposes. Street artist Shepard Fairey helped define the brand of the last presidential election, inviting hordes of young people into the political process. Shepard Fairey is an ambassador.

Especially relevant to the public artists are the rights regarding the attribution and integrity of the work, which is part of the 1990 Visual Artists Rights Act that became part of copyright law. VARA applies to the work of artists who paint on building walls. Important rights also control secondary uses of the art such as the making of copies, t-shirts, postcards, posters, and other commercial goods.

How Copyright law applies to Murals

Copyright law is grounded in our constitution to ensure a continuing incentive for creativity. Copyright protects “original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression.” This means the author of an original work in a tangible medium of expression owns the copyright in that work from the moment of creation: the copyright springs into existence as soon as the pen leaves the paper (starting with the cartoon), or the paint hits the wall. The law applies to the work of Shepard Fairey, Jeff Koons, KAWS, Joe Cotter, Larry Kangas, and Robin Corbo the same as it applies to any other artist.

The rights of muralists under Copyright law

Once an image is “fixed in a tangible medium of expression,” the creator of the work enjoys the exclusive right to make and distribute copies, to display the work publicly, and to make derivative works (subsequent copyrightable creations based on the original work). Through stencils, sketches, and the final image, the muralist fixes this creative expression “in a tangible medium;” thus, earning the protections afforded by copyright law.

While the rights to the work itself pass to the owner of the wall by nature of the wall; ownership of the copyright stays with the author. Under copyright law, the artist is the sole holder of the copyright to his creations; however, if a piece is painted onto a building owned by another, the building owner is the rightful holder of that particular “copy” of the work. Lawyers can split this hair separating the copyright in the art from the rights in the work therefore; the building owner could cut out the wall on which the art was placed and sell or lend it.

A building owner cannot, however, begin making t-shirts, mugs or advertising with the design because doing so would constitute the creation of unlawful derivative works or copies--the building owner is no longer using the wall, but instead, is using the art itself. Similarly, a photographer could not legally photograph the wall and then proceed to sell or license the copies. Capturing the painting in photographs is a copy or derivative. It would be a derivative work to use the patterns in the artwork to make fabric designs, packaging, or as promotions for film or video projects. Most major film and video productions obtain clearances for murals appearing in background shots. The art is a valuable tool to establish the "look and feel" of a location.

The ownership of the rights can change if the artist gives the rights to someone by signing a “work for hire” agreement which has the effect to transfer the ownership of the rights in the work. That agreement must clearly state that the work will be considered a “work for hire.” There are good reasons why a street artist may not want to demand credit for his work nor trouble himself with copyright and compensation. If we are talking about graffiti, making such a demand could expose the artist to civil and criminal liability for vandalism, trespassing, and a host of other potential violations. These uncredited artists miss out on some copyright protections recognitions and royalties in their copyrights and devalue their otherwise legitimate work.

The artists can also give up the rights in the artwork with a license, transfer or assignment of the rights in the work. The artist can give up some or all of the rights, its up to the seller and buyer.

The Duration of Copyrights

For works created on or after January 1, 1978, when an artist creates a work under a pseudonym (for example, calling oneself “KAWS” instead of signing with one’s actual name) or creates a work anonymously, the copyrights in that work only lasts for the lesser of 95 years from first publication or 120 years from the year of its creation. However, if an artist’s identity is revealed in the registration records of the Copyright Office (including in any other registrations made prior to the expiration of the copyright term), then the term will last for either (a) the life of the author plus 70 years; or (b) in the case of a work made by more than one person, for the life of the last surviving author plus 70 years. These nuances often mean that an unattributed work fades into the public domain much sooner than an attributed work.

The Visual Artist’s Right of Attribution and Integrity

We know that a building owner can sell the building or the wall itself but cannot make t-shirts of the art. Another question is whether a building owner may paint over a given work of art. The standard provisions of copyright law only prevent people from violating the copyright holder’s exclusive rights which include distribution, making copies, and selling or licensing derivatives. The artist and copyright holder would typically be powerless to stop the destruction of the work except for VARA which might add additional rights. If the work is of “recognized stature” the artist may be able to prevent its destruction by exercising his moral rights under the Visual Artist’s Right of Attribution and Integrity (“VARA”).

VARA was enacted in 1990 as an amendment to the Copyright Act, to provide for the protection of the so-called “moral rights” of certain artists. “[M]oral rights afford protection for the author’s personal, non-economic interests in receiving attribution for her work, and in preserving the work in the form in which it was created, even after its sale or licensing.” VARA provides that the author of a “work of visual art,” “shall have the right,” for life,

(A) to prevent any intentional distortion, mutilation, or other modification of that work which would be prejudicial to his or her honor or reputation, and any intentional distortion, mutilation, or modification of that work is a violation of that right, and

(B) to prevent any destruction of a work of recognized stature, and any intentional or grossly negligent destruction of that work is a violation of that right.

How VARA applies to a mural including street art

Upon passing VARA in 1990, Congress instructed courts to use common sense and generally accepted standards of the artistic community in determining whether a particular work falls within the scope of the definition of a “work of visual art”, and explicitly stated that “whether a particular work falls within the definition should not depend on the medium or materials used.” Protection of a work under VARA can depend upon the work’s objective and evident purpose.

VARA protects only things defined as “work[s] of visual art.” There is no clear bright line standard for where this applies. The congressional debate “revealed a consensus that the bill’s scope should be limited to certain carefully defined types of works and artists, and that if claims arising in other contexts are to be considered, they must be considered separately” (Thus the “legislation covers only a very select group of artists”). VARA does not protect advertising, promotional, or utilitarian works, and does not protect “works for hire”, regardless of their artistic merit, their medium, or their value to the artist or the market.

As the quoted text reflects, VARA confers rights only on artists who have produced works of “recognized stature,” or whose “honor or reputation” is such that it would be prejudiced by the modification of a work. To determine whether a work is of “recognized stature,” courts typically apply a two-part test: (1) the work is viewed as meritorious and (2) this stature is recognized by art experts, other members of the artistic community, or some other cross-section of society. To satisfy this test, the artist will probably have to rely on expert witnesses; however, a long-existing work with some importance to the community should be sufficient. For the purposes of this determination, “recognized stature” can be either recognition of the work itself, or of the artist.

The rights of muralists under VARA

VARA grants artists a type of “moral rights.” For example, from the Büchel (Mass MoCA) case, part of the law provides that the author of a “visual work” has the right to prevent the use of his or her name as the author of the work of visual art in the event of a distortion, mutilation, or other modification of the work which would be prejudicial to his or her honor or reputation.

Under VARA, authors of qualifying works have the right to prevent its destruction. Destruction of such works can lead to substantial liability. In 2008, Kent Twitchell (an American muralist) settled a case under VARA and California’s Art Preservation Act (CAPA), in which he was awarded approximately $1,100,000 for the destruction (painting over) of his 70-foot-tall landmark mural of the iconic L.A. artist Ed Ruscha.

However, even if all the VARA elements are met, courts may still deny relief to artists who have illegally placed their works on property. This was the case when artists illegally placed artwork in a community owned garden on city property. When the interior construction by the artists was identified as a “work for hire” so the artists did not own the copyright (Carter v. Helmsley-Spear). It was also the case with a temporary mural (Pollara case) attached to a chain link fence in Albany New York, regardless of the artists reputation and quality of the work, political appropriateness, or value of the message. But it was not the case when the artist and museum disputed whether the work was “finished” and if it could to be publically shown (Büchel).

Unpermitted work in violation of the law

Under VARA, artists who illegally paint the property of another are probably without a means of stopping the destruction, removal, or transfer of that particular manifestation. As a result public pressure rather than copyright law is probably the best means of protecting such work—if the work is truly special, of recognized stature, or widely appreciated by members of the community, then coordinated action from local citizens may be the only way to save it regardless of artistic merit. While there is a growing recognition of street art, illegally placed artwork is subject to the wishes of the landowner. Whether you agree or not, the legal reality balances the value of art against the value of property rights, and the result is unsurprising. Although it makes sense from a policy perspective, it has also led to the destruction of many important works of art. Copyright law applies to all artwork, legal or otherwise. “Legal” work can have the additional protection of VARA which might prevent certain important works from being lost, or altered, or even exploited improperly. Conversely, artists of commissioned work may be entitled to VARA protections even absent their ownership of the copyright.

Conclusion

Copyright grants artists the right and ability to control the copying and distribution of their work. Murals painted with the approval or the property owner will enjoy this protection under VARA if it meets the necessary subjective conditions. If it’s protected under VARA and if the artist or their agent is attentive, if there is an attempt to alter or deface the work the artists has rights that can stop the artwork from being changed or even repaired without permission. But the artist must assert that right. The artist should be able to assign that right to someone, or an agency, to protect the work like the Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles. That solution hasn’t been tested in the courts, but certainly has been suggested in the cases.

With regard to unpermitted works, the rubbing out, painting-over and alteration by other artists, and the constant changing urban landscape drives street art forward. While such art can be commoditized, it is inherently impermanent. Perhaps today’s mural and street artists owe thanks to the public reaction and the laws that constrain the medium because they force it to evolve.

Read more about VARA rights in this article.

Burnside Arts Trust: Community Art Vs. Graffiti Abatement

BURNSIDE ARTS TRUST: COMMUNITY ART VS. GRAFFITI ABATEMENT

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By Burnside Arts Trust

On Easter Sunday, a small group representing the Burnside Arts Trust attempted to give the City of Portland something it sorely needs more of – public art. The long boring stretch of boarded-up grey windows of the historic R.J. Templeton Building on the Burnside Bridge has been a magnet for graffiti and other vandalism for years. Like many other derelict buildings in the city, the Templeton Building attracts urban artists, and later, graffiti abatement crews.

This was the chosen location for the Burnside Arts Trust's latest public art project in Portland. The Burnside Arts Trust hoped to give the city a large public mural that would reduce graffiti vandalism on the Templeton Building and shine light on the uplifting and positive effects that public art has on the surrounding community. This was a lost chance to celebrate Portland's weirdness and its thriving arts culture.

Unfortunately, the mural, which took hours to create, was painted over with grey paint the very next day. Just hours after being buffed, graffiti tags already began reappearing. These, too, will soon be buffed in an endless cycle of creative destruction.

Portland has a long and tumultuous mural arts history. In 1997, 2003, and 2006 the City was sued by Clear Channel, the multi-media conglomerate. Clear Channel demanded that Portland murals be regulated under the same codes that their advertisement billboards were. Even though community activists fought and lessened the burden, these regulations still create a complex code of red tape and barriers for artists who are attempting to paint in Portland. The process also requires applicants to pay the city a permitting fee, something many freelance artists cannot afford. Instead of revisiting the mural code as promised many years ago when it was finalized, the City has chosen to instead focus its efforts on enforcing a zero-tolerance graffiti abatement program. Just one of the many examples of how the graffiti abatement program handles the issue of community art occurred in the summer of 2011 when two public murals in Portland were classified as ‘graffiti,’ even though they were endorsed by the building and business owners and neighboring residents. One of the murals painted over by graffiti abatement was by prolific artist Jules Muck.

The speed in which the Burnside Arts Trust mural was removed, shows that the City of Portland is only willing to celebrate or advance the arts in a very controlled and regulated way. By doing this, the City places a very arbitrary and subjective definition on what constitutes as ‘art’ and ‘graffiti,’ making it clear that citizens do not have a voice when it comes to what they want the spaces around them to look like. These heavy-handed measures also restrict emerging artists, who do not have money or access to a gallery, from sharing their art with the city. The Burnside Arts Trust hopes that this mural project, and the story of its demise, will prompt city officials to reconsider these restrictive public art laws that control our shared creative spaces. If we want to ‘Keep Portland Weird’ and ensure it is seen as a creative capital of the Pacific Northwest, the City must start tolerating more artistic interventions in public space and allow its citizens to enjoy what countless other cities long have, a thriving public art scene.

ALL PHOTOS © PSAA

Decapitalizing Public Space

Originally published by Partizaning, a participatory urban re-planning and activist organization based in Russia that promotes the idea of art-based DIY activism aimed at rethinking, restructuring and improving urban environments and communities.

An article written by local artist Nina Montenegro and PSAA’s Tiffany Conklin, about the Free the Billboards project that took place in Portland during the summer 2012 and why it’s important to re-claim and re-imagine Portland’s public spaces.

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Street art is as transient as life itself; it often disappears as quickly as it appears. This ephemeral nature gives the work a freedom, spontaneity, and playfulness seldom reached in other, more lasting forms of art.

With street art, a different kind of reality is offered, one in which our physical urban surroundings are not static, but are mold-able by each of us. It encourages dialogue within society about cultural values and norms. It produces shared narratives between people, ideas, and the built environment.

Artists who place their work in the streets engage in a form of grassroots place-making—they construct and invent new types of spaces and social relations, showing that the value spaces have (or don’t have) and the meanings we attached to spaces, are constantly changing—in an endless cycle of creation and destruction.

(Re)Claiming Public Space

We’re often pushed towards a ‘containerist view’ of public spaces, seeing them as inert vessels which we have little influence or control over. Many of our shared spaces are actually ‘pseudo-public spaces’ that are specifically designed to restrict the possibilities of appropriating them to fulfill our needs. They are heavy monitored spaces; CCTV surveillance, motion, and vibration sensors track many activities. In this system, property rights often trump human rights.

The nature of public spaces in modern cities corresponds to an economic mode of life that we’ve embraced—one of reproducibility and repetition—that consistently reproduces and reinforces hierarchical relationships (Lefebvre & Goonewardena 2008). Since many of the values we hold are mediated through the desire to accumulate capital, the spaces we produce often reflect this preoccupation.

These spaces are not really meant to be used by the public. Homeless people are now basically banned from existing in many US cities. Public spaces are designed to control behaviors, protect investments, and ensure smooth circulation through the mechanics of the city.

Unique places are increasingly smoothed over. Every place begins to look like the next. Through the process of re-ification, an imaginary ‘ideal’ of what cities should be is produced by those in power, regurgitated and presented to the public as real. Take for instance the dramatic transformation of the once gritty New York City Times Square into a Disney-fied Main Street USA. These distorted urban mirages are hollow shells of what cities really are: diverse, dirty, melting pots of people and ideas.

The sense of ‘place-lessness’ often felt in these pseudo-public spaces is a result of them not being grounded or connected to the people who occupy them (Massey 2005). Feelings of alienation and disconnectedness are spurred from our disengagement from public spaces.

Additionally, public spaces have not historically been a guaranteed public right—they have been made public because people take the space, making it public (Cresswell 1996). Public space only remains open if citizens ensure its continued access by occupying it and consistently pushing its boundaries. Having access to public space is vital to a healthy democracy because of the functional necessity of having a physical arena to communicate with others and voice dissent.

One way to counter-act this spectacle is through tactical urban interventions. Artists are re-embracing the revolutionary ideas of the Situationists of the 1950s by creating ‘situations’ that take pedestrians off their predictable paths, outside their habits, and jolt them into a new imaginative awareness of the city where space is in a constant state of becoming.

Free the Billboards

Street artists produce artifacts that sit in direct competition with sanctioned public art and commercial advertisements. On average, we’re exposed to 3,000 to 5,000 ads per day. Being constantly confronted by this onslaught of ads pushes us to be passive consumers rather than contributing citizens.

Advertisements are considered normal and acceptable uses of public space because capital interests regulate them. Visual communication amongst community members (i.e., street art, murals, etc.) is illegal unless permitted and paid for. Advertising conglomerates can easily pay to display marketing in our public space. On the other hand, individual citizens are up against complicated bureaucracies, curators, and fees. Therefore, many artists choose to ‘go rogue’ and express themselves in the streets without permission. A number of cities and states are pushing back. Sao Paulo Brazil, Houston Texas, Maine, Vermont, Alaska, and Hawaii have all banned billboards from their public spaces.

Street art stands separate (for the most part) from the commercial sphere. If done without permission, by its very nature, street art confronts mainstream ideas of a well-organized and regulated public sphere. Even if street artists don’t intentionally protest against this system, their public work does spark a new type of awareness in the minds of passersby. The possibilities of the space have been opened up, even if slightly.

In the summer of 2012, Nina Montenegro began Free the Billboards, a project to revive community interaction at the street level in Portland, Oregon USA by facilitating a (re)imagination of public visual space. Imagery and ideas were collected from community members via an online public forum. The public submitted pictures of what they would rather see displayed on their neighborhoods billboards, other than advertisements—artwork they loved, poetry, anything they felt strongly about. The community-contributed images were placed into vintage Portland-made View-Masters, which were then put into hand-crafted recycled brass and steel pedestal stations that were strategically positioned in front of billboards around the city.

The collected images were superimposed over the ads. Pedestrians could peer into the View-Master to see the wall before them with art, gardens, or poetry on it instead of an ad.  The powerful visioning tools acted as a gateway into an augmented reality.

Playing with the Streets

The use of View-Masters also invokes a playful nostalgia, as many of us may remember playing with these toys as children. Play is an important but largely neglected aspect of human experience in the city.

As children, we all explore, touch, and manipulate things. This is how we learn about the reality of objects and the structuring of space (Tuan 1974). When adults play in the city, it is often seen as a controversial waste of time and energy (Stevens 2007). Cities are planned to optimize work and other rational objectives, with leisure space serving well-defined functions. Therefore, spontaneous actions like this challenge the rigorous timetable of bureaucratic and capitalist production (Bonnett 1992).

Playing in public spaces, especially those not designed for it, reveals new realms of possibilities and embraces the space’s embedded use-value. This tactical blending of art, play, and life is a lived critique of rational action, because it discovers new needs and develops new forms of social life illustrating the capacities for social action and expression that the urbanization of society has made possible.

Free the Billboards aims to produce counter-spectacles that interrupt everyday experiences and provoke a reorientation—a temporary liberation from established order. The installations produce an imaginative and autonomous world; one that helps people (re)imagine the urban spaces around them.

The project intends to crack open the status quo, to challenge people to think beyond the current reality and imagine a new one, one of their own making. Instead of our public places being produced for us and controlled by distant bodies for profit, citizens must demand the right to the oeuvre, the right to participate in the creation of their own realities.

ALL PHOTOS © ALEX MILAN TRACY

SEA Street and Graffiti Art

The City of Seattle manages graffiti reporting, abatement, and removal primarily through the Graffiti Prevention Program housed within Seattle Public Utilities. Seattle’s Graffiti Nuisance Ordinance was adopted in 1994 and requires property owners to remove graffiti within 10 days of a report, or the property owner will receive a notice of civil violation and directed to appear before the City's Hearing Examiner. The Hearing Examiner can fine the property owner up to $100 per day (with a maximum of $5,000) if the graffiti is not removed. Like many cities, Seattle has a 24-hour Graffiti Report Line and online reporting system. Additionally, the City’s Adopt-a-Street program organizes volunteers to participate in “Paint Outs,” which are periodic community graffiti removal events. In 2009 (the last publicly reported statistic), the City of Seattle spent $1.8 million. Additionally, the King County Metro Transit that spent another $734,000 in 2009 removing graffiti from transit property.

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In 2009, at the request of City Council, the City conducted a research study to examine how the City handles graffiti removal, prosecutes offenders, and educates the public about graffiti. Part of this research was a web survey conducted with 900 Seattle residents, businesses and organizations. Surveys of this type about the public’s perceptions and opinions of graffiti are rare. The survey found that public views on graffiti are mixed, with 49% saying that graffiti was “a medium to very big problem,” 21% saying it was “a small problem,” and 39% saying graffiti was “not a problem” at all.

This graffiti report made nine recommendations to the City. Adding “stickering” as a form of graffiti was at the top of that list. In response to this recommendation, the advocacy community group Graffiti Defense Coalition was formed. These activists fought against the adaptation of this new policy and successfully blocked the addition of stickers into the graffiti code. Read more about the community's reaction to this report here. 

Another report recommendation was to hire a dedicated police detective to apprehend and prosecute graffiti offenders as part of a two-year pilot project. This recommendation resulted in the hiring of Christopher Young in 2011, who continues to work as Seattle’s sole graffiti detective in 2016. Interestingly, Detective Young also runs the website Graffipedia.org, which aims to be “a training aid for other graffiti investigators.” On this website, Young reports that in 2012 there were 181 identified graffiti suspects in Seattle, of which 71% were adults, with an average age of 23. Young also reported that only 1% of graffiti in Seattle is gang-related. This statistic suggests that association between graffiti and gangs is a myth, and the fear that they public has that graffiti is a signal of criminal activity in a neighborhood is unfounded. This is also perplexingly quite lower than 12-15% of gang-related graffiti reported in Portland. Seattle is a much larger city, so you would expect that it has more gang activity than Portland. This dramatic difference calls into question the methodology used to track and report graffiti statistics, which is not systematic or disclosed.

The City also conducted a systematic, single-day, physical count of graffiti in four sample areas in two Seattle neighborhoods and documented 556 instances of graffiti including 551 common tags (five of which appeared to be gang-related). It was found that public property was nearly twice as commonly tagged as private property, with traffic/street signs, utility poles, and pay stations as common targets.

Seattle is famous for its free spaces for graffiti and wheatpastes. 

Post Alley, Pike Place Market

The Pike Place Public Market Historic District is a distinctive collection of early twentieth century commercial buildings and public spaces that have evolved and functioned as a vibrant public space since August 1907. For over 100 years, this labyrinthine of angled streets and steep grades has maintained a distinctive physical and cultural character. One of the main points of interest of Pike Place, for both locals and visitors alike is Post Alley, named for the Seattle Post, which used to be located at the alley's southern end. This narrow alley passage is famous for its gum and wheatpaste art wall. The gum tradition began in 1993 by patrons of a nearby theatre. It is unclear how long the wheatpaste art wall has existed (please email PSAA if you have data on this history), but it's past is likely intertwined with the historic tradition of pasted city notices and advertisements, especially considering this is a high-traffic corridor once occupied by a newsprint company. With both the gum and wheatpastes, the Pike Place Market management and the City of Seattle police takes a “hands off” approach to these public interventions, allowing and even somewhat encouraging freedom of speech and expression in these spaces (likely due to the obvious tourist-draw). Over the years, the gum has spread quite a bit. So much so local street artists have attempted to clean the gum off the art side of the alley, even spraying stenciled signs saying to please not to put gum on this side of the wall, but to no avail. Even though the City of Seattle's sanitary department cleans off some of the gum bi-monthly, in 2015, they undertook a multi-day process of completely cleaning off both walls. Within hours of being clean the gum started to re-appear and artists from all over the pacific northwest descended upon the alley to reclaim the art space with their wheatpastes. For the foreseeable future, Post Alley is one of the United States most open and accessible public art spaces.

Since the 2010 report, alot has changed in the Seattle street art graffiti art scenes.

SEATTLE HAS BEEN THE HOME OF AMAZING ARTISTS FOR SOME TIME, BUT UNTIL RECENT YEARS THE SKYLINE HAS LACKED THE TYPE OF LARGE SCALE MURALS THAT LANDMARK OTHER CITIES OF CULTURE AROUND THE WORLD. SEVERAL ORGANIZATIONS AND PROJECTS HAVE WORKED TOGETHER TO CHANGE THAT.

Urban Artworks

Urban Artworks is a Seattle-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides opportunities for contemporary artists and local youth to work together to create public works of art. Since 1995, they have collaborated with more than 2,000 youth to bring art to public and private spaces throughout Seattle neighborhoods. They have organized murals by internationally renounded artists such as Insa, Erik Burke, and Devin Liston and local Seattle-based artists such as Mary Iverson, John Sarkis and Kyle Martz. You can find their murals all around the city. They are also well-known for their successful utlity singal box project in along Broadway and in Fremont. 

Seattle Mural Project & Graffiti Defense Coalition

In 2014, the Seattle Mural Project brought murals by NoseGo and Ellen Picken to Seattle to paint as part of this city-sponsored project. This mural project was locally managed by the founders of the Graffiti Defense Coalition, a grassroots organization working for policy that supports street art.

SODO Track

The SODO Track, which runs along the public transit corridor is a unique mural project that asks artists to explore one theme side by side – motion, speed, progression – to reflect the experience of its viewers. Artists from Seattle and around the country, together with international talent are painting large-scale murals to mark the portal to Downtown Seattle as an imaginative raceway of art in motion. The team making this happen includes 4Culture, Gage Hamilton (director of Portland's Forest for the Trees project), SODO BIA, and Urban Artworks.

TUBS [Demolished 2014]

For 7 years, the former 104-year old building known as TUBS sat vacant at the corner of 50th and Roosevelt in the University District, amids a bustling urban neighborhood. In 2009, the building owner thought it's demise was near, so they invited graffiti artists to use the 12,000-square-foot space as a canvas for their art and expression in the meantime. The owner wanting to provide the community an "ephemeral and evolving" piece of curated street art. Over time, the space opened up even more to other artists, and it essentially became a free wall and a hot spot for Seattle graffiti.

A year after the free wall began, the City had receive over 900 graffiti complaints. But the building owner fought back, citing their private property rights and community appreciation for the art. By this point, TUBS had become a tourist destination and like many graffiti meccas, served as an urban backdrop for photographers and filmmakers.

In response to the complaints, the City of Seattle said they're hands were tied and they had no power to force the owner to clean up their building. Seattle City Attorney Ed McKenna said, "Legally, we're in a difficult position. We can't force the owner to remove his graffiti, so we have pretty much have exhausted every remedy." The City of Seattle defines graffiti as "unauthorized markings." The difference with TUBS was that the building owner willingly allowed their building to become a "free wall," so the City of Seattle could not fine or penalize them for graffiti. The free wall at TUBS continued for 6 more years until 2014 when it was finally demolished to make way for a large condo building. 

Like the SoDo Wall before it, the TUBS free wall was an important piece of Seattle's urban art history and unique when it comes to other cities in the U.S. For example, in neighboring Portland, OR a free wall like TUBS could never offically exist. While the City of Portland also defines graffiti as "unauthorized markings," it also requires a mural permit or waiver for any public art. So if a piece of art doesn't have a permit, the City of Portland can deem it as "graffiti" and force property owners to remove it regardless of whether or not the owner consented to the art in the first place. 

Alberta Arts District Murals Buffed

ART BASE COMMUNITY MURAL PROJECT FACES FORCED REMOVAL BY THE CITY

Portland is a city that by all appearances is constantly in flux. Nowhere is this more noticeable than in North Portland, where the Alberta Arts District draws thousands of people each month to its Last Thursday, where collectively-inspired permaculture gardens explode into vibrant natural canvases in lots that dandelion weeds and thistle once overwhelmed, where old bike parts and other rusty recycled metals decorate gates and archways, and where purposeful paint sprawls across intersections, bike lanes, and otherwise crushingly quotidian surfaces.

While Alberta Street has drawn ample attention as being a revitalized center for art, commerce, cuisine and cooperatives, commuters and bikers along N Williams Avenue have noticed a steady increase in the level of commitment from the neighborhood and local artists to create a more community-oriented and visually appealing thoroughfare.

Formerly dotted with forbidding, unused lots, strewn with the obligatory broken glass, and tagged with a heavy saturation of graffiti, the stretch now boasts several community gardens, Village Building Convergence’s Boise Eliot public market, and several community mural projects that cover small plywood frames or entire two-story building facades.

One such mural lies at the intersection of Williams and NE Wygant. Formerly the site of an upholstery store, and attached to a residential unit, the building was frequently the target of graffiti artists and the city seemed to neither have the willpower or resources to address the situation. Now a colorful panoply of murals on three sides, the city has stepped in to serve a notice that the murals must be effaced.

Flash back to several months ago, when residents of the house began to dialogue with the graffiti artists by creating their own visual expressions on the building. A local painter/muralist noticed the building and approached the residents about opening up the space for a mural project.

The residents pooled their resources together to rent the empty space – which they likened to an “empty, cold, concrete cave” – and turn the exterior into a display of art, with an interior that would be a “warm, inspiring den of community-building and artistic creation.” A sign was raised on the roof that heralded Portland’s new “Arts Base.”

The property owners gave permission to paint over the drab and defaced walls, and the idea was generated that murals would be painted to feature a “rotating showcase of local talent,” according to outreach communications from the project organizers.

People in the surrounding Humboldt neighborhood were contacted and invited to give their feedback and express any concerns about the project. As the tagging began to subside, all that seemed missing was an interest from the City in funding this graffiti abatement project.

The project continued informally, and several months later, people began to take notice. One resident recalls people constantly coming by to photograph the murals and commenting on how beautiful they looked.

A nearby neighbor came to paint her own mural on the walls. A local group with the moniker “Bike Temple” approached the organizers to rent space in the building. Other individuals seeking studio space for larger projects started to take an interest in the space.

Organizers raised money as they could and supplemented the rest with meager teachers’ pay, with the intention that it could some day be a self-sustaining space. “We’re trying to do something that’s benefiting the community,” says one organizer.

Enter the Portland Police Department’s Graffiti Abatement Office. In a public communication prepared by Program Coordinator Marcia Dennis entitled “How to Read Graffiti and What to Do,” she writes, “Graffiti, by legal definition, is vandalism. (See ORS 164.383 or Portland City Code 14B.80) It is the unauthorized application of markings on someone else’s property, i.e.,WITHOUT PERMISSION.”

The same coordinator has determined that the murals at Williams and Wygant have indeed met the definition of vandalism. A notice was served to the landlords to paint over the murals within ten days.

Property owners who had unquestionably given permission for the murals filed an appeal with the city to delay the repainting, but ended up withdrawing their appeal after poring over restrictive city codes. Many neighbors were surprised, confused, or angry that the residents were now being required to paint over the murals.

An organizer of Arts Base expressed their frustration, “It’s too much for them, too colorful, too loud . . . as long as we can keep it inside it would be great, but it’s hard to do a community art space when you have to keep it inside, when you can’t be loud, can’t amplify music, can’t have murals, can’t have a sign.”

Residents now have two weeks to paint over the murals, and the Graffiti Abatement Office Coordinator is rejecting further appeals, claiming that it is no longer in her “jurisdiction.” Organizers hold out hope that a sympathetic coordinator or specialist in whatever other jurisdiction the case is now in will authorize the mural project, or calls to the City Commissioner from community members might stay the date of execution for the artwork.

UPDATE: (Aug 8th, 2011) The City of Portland has allowed the murals to stay, and plans for new murals are underway. However, the City has found Arts Base to be in violation of city zoning statutes, alleging that the residential space is being used for commercial activities. While the organizers of Arts Base have gone in the red on their venture, they plan on complying with their property managers’ demands that they cease community art activities in the space in order to pass the City’s upcoming inspection.

THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN WATCHDOG INTERNATIONAL POSTED ON JULY 18, 2011 AND ENTITLED: COMMUNITY MURAL PROJECT FACES EFFACEMENT