davis_square | Clean Up Davis Square

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Clean Up Davis Square

Davis Square is a great place to live.

Lately though it seems to have gotten a little shabby with an increase in littering and graffiti.

I'd love to meet up with a few people on a weekend morning (or covertly late at night!) and repaint graffiti on trashcans and doorways, pick up litter, plant flower seeds...whatever it takes to bring a nicer, cleaner environment to where we live.

The city doesn't seem to have the will so let's take the initiative.

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I agree with picking up trash and planting flower seeds, but graffiti is, in fact, public art, part of the living culture of those who call this area home. To spraypaint over these public expressions is to, in fact, sanitize the area in the name of a misguided attempt at gentrification. I find graffiti to be fascinating and would be saddened by its absence.

If you want life without graffiti, go live in the suburbs. In the mean time, for every tag you paint over, they'll spray two more. It happens the same everywhere.

so it's litter duty for you then!!

seriously tho, I love street art but gang cyphers are not something I want to look at. They are vandalism especially on private property like the one tha owners of Orleans had to paint over a few months ago...

Perhaps the owner of Orleans could have paid them to paint a version of the Orleans logo/sign in their style instead of having to paint over their art himself.

I agree, private property shouldn't be vandalised, but repainting it yourself is also a form of vandalism. What if the property owner *likes* the art?

Perhaps the owner of Orleans could have paid them to paint a version of the Orleans logo/sign in their style instead of having to paint over their art himself.

That sounds a lot like a standard protection racket.

Funny how that works.

'Course, it also assumes that the "artist" would actually come forward and not think that the offer to paint a logo was just a sting operation set up by the narcs.

Hah, I hadn't thought of that. I think of 'protection' as something in those old gangster movies I've never watched, and never thought to apply it to a community such as Davis.

But I was just thinking that if he liked their work, then he could ask them to do it in a way that his buisiness would like as well. The money is just because they're doing a job and should be reimbursed.

*shrug* I'm not a city person. I just love Davis.

Let's not kid ourselves. Graffiti is, in fact, a private form of expression that's done in a public space. Leaving aside the sticky questions of using someone else's property as a canvas, it can still be said that the vast majority of it just isn't that good. Yeah, there are some incredibly talented and innovative artists who work in graffiti. There are also a whole lot of hacks whose talent for expression doesn't extend past scrawling their names on someone else's wall.

There's a huge difference between good graffiti work and some fucking toy tags all over the place.

One way to deal with graffitists is to put them in touch with the Somerville Arts Council, who may be able to channel their energy into more legitimate work. We've got a number of murals in Somerville that are falling apart, as well as some blank walls (such as the back of the Somerville Theatre) that could use murals.

In that case, who decides what is art and what is vandalism? What stays and what goes?

It's too bad that public schools and afterschool programs don't encourage young graffiti artists to explore the medium in a productive way, and teach them good technique. When I was in high school, several of the kids in my art class, including me, got a large section of wall to paint. It was an ago boost (to this very shy high school girl) to see it up there for everyone to see.

If you're painting *your* "art" on *my* wall without my permission, that's vandalism.

Well what if the wall is public property, as is the case in some of the more elaborate and beautiful pieces placed along the bike path? I'd rather see those than see a whitewashed brick wall.

Some of that "public art" is trademarked by the Mara Salvatrucha gang, and marks the area as their turf.

Hmm, gang signs or white walls? I'll go with walls.

If the "artists" want to get permission from the city to do a mural (like a number of ones scattered around town), more power to them. Gang signs and tags? That's not art. It's marking turf.

graffiti is, in fact, public art,

No, it's teenage hoodlums trying to "claim" space as their own, with no more intellect than dogs who piss on things.

My little brother takes pains to find and point out the plaque his uncle made for the Davis Square T stop, every time we go though there. That sort of public art is the type where the artist is proudly saying, "I'm a part of this community!"

Graffiti, on the other hand, is the exact opposite of community-oriented. Graffiti is a single person, or a gang, attempting to make the claim, "This space is mine! All MINE!"

"My little brother takes pains to find and point out the plaque his uncle made for the Davis Square T stop, every time we go though there. That sort of public art is the type where the artist is proudly saying, "I'm a part of this community!"

Now that's what I'm talking about!

There's a cool organization in Portland, Oregon called City Repair (http://www.cityrepair.org/ir.html) that encourages communities to improve their streets with fun, and personalized stuff like pavement painting, sculpture, street gardens, community kiosks, and tea stands. I've been to a couple of these intersections and they are amazing. They are like mini-Art Beats all the time. Crime nearly disappears. Neighbors are more neighborly. And traffic slows down to a safe and livible pace. I'd love to see something like that in Somerville. I think we even have the right sorts of mixed, fun communities for it. I just wish I, myself, had the organizing a social skills to pull it off!

"Graffiti, on the other hand, is the exact opposite of community-oriented. Graffiti is a single person, or a gang, attempting to make the claim, "This space is mine! All MINE!""

Yeah, there is definitely some graffity that's done in an attempt to claim at least some small bit of the world as one's own (probably by the "less successful" young adults and teens who don't see a lot of options in their lives). But then there's political graffiti, which is more about communicating an important issue to the masses than is is about the person who creates it. And, of course, there's also the art. Graffiti can be wonderful folk art - art that isn't commissioned by the wealthy, or juried by a group of "art experts".

I love the "Santa is Real" graffiti all over the Boston area (with at least one in Davis). And the cute little clouds and critters that appear on signs are wonderful. I'm thankful for those little treasures because they make a place a little more interesting and personal.

Do you think I'm a teenage hoodlum? (I'm 36, a professional artist, and a teacher, for the record.) I've made public art many times before - it was not technically graffiti but I'm sure that some of it was just as illegal as spraypaint.

You may believe what you wish about my goals, but I can clearly say that I wasn't trying to piss on anything. I was trying to express myself creatively, and I was hoping to entertain and educate people who happened to be passing by an otherwise dull and lifeless concrete landscape. In the same vain, I also enjoy when others do the same kind of public art. Good graffiti included.

Yes, those clouds and critters bolted to the street signs are cute! And the "Andre the Giant has a Posse" stencils. I gotta admit, those amuse me.

But then, how do you distinguish that sort of "public art" (which I personally appreciate) from teen hoodlums tagging park benches and throwing their sneakers over telephone wires, or the Newbury Street club-promoters who wander down the street with a backpack of posters, dropping a few on the street every ten feet?

That's hard to do. Somebody's gotta make a judgement about the skill level and the motivation of the artist. And then we get back to arts councils and the like...

And speaking of motivation, apparently a lot of the tagging in dangerous low-income areas is done to broadcast one's own continued existance. Davis Square is hardly a dangerous area, though, and we've got some little wannabees tagging.

I'm sure that some of it was just as illegal as spraypaint.
So you and George W. Bush get to decide which laws apply to you, and which ones you can cheerfully ignore, eh?

Whenever somebody "makes public art" on the sign by the community garden on the bike path, I get somebody down there with the paint remover to get it off immediately. The garden is a community project, and the gardeners don't appreciate anybody "expressing themselves creatively" on the sign that the city gave us.

In the same vain,
I'm sure you mean to write "vein". But "vain" (http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=vain) also seems appropriate.

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Clean Up Davis Square

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There's graffiti and then there's graffiti...

Hmmm, that's a little harsh, don't you think?

Re: There's graffiti and then there's graffiti...

Re: Hmmm, that's a little harsh, don't you think?