May 2, 2006
Not Without My Spray Paint or Markers
It's Marc Ecko 2, City of New York 0! After suing the city last week over the law that now prevents people between 18 and 21 from carrying wide-tip markers or spray paint, a federal judge ruled that the law has no "rational basis." The city is supposed to stop enforcing the law on Thursday at 5PM. However, the part of the law that prevents people between 18 and 21 to buy etching acids, which are tools in scratchitti, is still in effect. Scratchitti is considered one of the most annoying scourges in the subway system these days, as most train windows are covered with it. Last week, the NY Times reported that the NYC Transit was looking into putting Mylar on all the windows, but it was unclear whether or not they'd do it (what with the money it'd take and how well it would work).
The city will appeal: City Councilman Peter Vallone sniffed to amNew York, "Its unfortunate the these kids are being used as pawns by corporations in pursuit of profits. This is a minor bump in the road to a cleaner city. We haven't presented our case and once we do I'm sure the judge will see the necessity for this law."
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City Councilman Peter Vallone should know that 18 to 21 year olds are not "kids", but adults that should be able to buy whatever pens and spraypaints they want.
how on earth is this ever going to be enforced?
Spoken like somebody in that age range. You'll find that once you're much older, you will realize that calling 18-21 year olds "adults" is silly. Yes, they're allowed to vote, which isn't such a great thing. They betray their immaturity in college bashes that have resulted in a 21+ drinking age.
Ecko says, "Young artists use spray paint and markers for art on canvas, shoes, hats and other places, he said." Yeah, it's these "other places" that are at issue. Besides, do you really need to carry all these "art materials" with you just to decorate your sneakers? Can't you do that at home? The law doesn't bar possession in the home, after all. And who spray-paints clothing anyway? I think somebody should tag the judge's home, then we'll see how much he likes it.
this is great. i am product design student at parsons, and spray paint is always needed in model building. imagine my surprise when coming to school that i found out that i cant buy spray paint because i am underage. and imagine my annoyance that i had to seek out a senior to buy my spray paint for me so i could finish my product model for class. just because some 18-21 year olds use spray paint for graffiti purposes doesnt mean we all do. sometimes spray paint is needed for valid reasons and it is a bitch to not being able to purchase it when needed.
May I rephrase? "Just because some 18-21 year olds drink to excess doesn't me we all do." Maybe we should rescind the drinking age law, too. Actually, spray paint isn't always needed in model building. I used to build them decades ago and I never used spray cans. They're too sloppy, wasteful and expensive. Inexpensive single-action hobby airbrushes and propellant cans provide much more control, smoother coverage and let you use a wider variety of paint compared with just the enamels and lacquers that aerosol cans are filled with. Over the course of a school year, they're more cost-effective, too, since spray cans cost several dollars apiece.
The real problem is etching acid. That's still illegal but obviously, the miscreants are still obtaining it and it's going all over subway windows.
www.forgotten-ny.com
Brightliner: art students need to carry these things in order to do their homework, get good grades, and a job. (And, you're more than a little bit condescending.)
As it says in the post, which Is why I'll finish reading next time. Anyway, Mylar would be a great solution but the vandals would target it unless it were impossible to remove without special tools.
You would also have to replace all the glass that the geniuses have defaced.
Has any detailed study been made of these vandals to explain why they have to tag trains? What drives them?
www.forgotten-ny.com
Isn't homework usually done in the home? Did I not already mention that possession in the home is not banned by the law? I'm sure cops can distinguish between unopened packages being taken home and ones that had already been opened and ready to be used. Did I not already go into detail that spray cans aren't necessary to paint models? A basic hobbyist airbrush setup with a cheap compressor runs about $70, less than 10 cans of spray paint would cost. And you get to mix any color you need. Try that with aerosol cans. Fine arts students generally don't use spray cans, either, and if they do need to spray paint for whatever reason, they would again get more control with an airbrush. Aerosol cans have a fixed spray pattern and spit and sputter droplets haphazardly. With apologies to Ripley, did IQs suddenly drop while I was away?
Now, if I wanted to be condescending, I would note that many art majors don't need good grades to get a job. They get hired just fine all the time. In McDonald's.
Yeah thats a good one - you are SURE that cops will recognize the difference and not just randomly choose whom to apply and not apply that rule to.
How about instead New York should make it illegal for anyone who posts comments on blogs as 'Brightliner' to own a computer. It would make just about as much sense.
Possibly more?
Infantilizing your citizens is never the way to go. Brightliner, in other countries where people develop a much more responsible, healthy attitude towards alcohol and it's part of life from a much younger age, incidents of binge drinking, drunk driving, and the like are much lower per capita. Where, you might ask? Oh, like, just about every other industrialized nation in the world.
And I'm surprised that no one else has said this, but graffiti is one of my favorite parts of living in this city. I love all the murals and large-scale throwups, and I'm always looking for new ones. And the ingenuity and daring demonstrated by some people! I've seen some mind-blowing placement for some Dr. Sex tags. You guys know the one in Chinatown? Or there's one on stanton where it looks like he climbed up on top of a gate enclosure to get the job done.
And I've started seeing really great etching work, too, where people have used stencils combined with the etching material to create these beautiful ghostlike images on windows.
I think graffiti is great.
>>>And I've started seeing really great etching work, too, where people have used stencils combined with the etching material to create these beautiful ghostlike images on windows.
The difference is not everyone wants it, and when it makes it impossible to look out the window of the train you're riding in, that's a problem. (Advertisers do it too: you can't look out the window of a bus that is covered by an ad. It's all the same.)
When you go to a gallery, it's your choice to view the art. On a train you have no choice.
When people usurp my right to look out a subway window by creating "beautiful" ghostlike images, or assail my senses with ugly crap on the trains because they feel they have a right, I have a right to demand that they be removed and subsequently prevented.
www.forgotten-ny.com
Let's throw out the Bill of Rights and our Constitution purely for the sake of a cleaner city. Principles have no meaning.
And in many of those industrialized nations you can't get a driver's license until you are 18 and even then the exam and license costs 10 times what it does in the United States. And the exams are much more difficult.
And wile purchasing the spray paint may cause problems why can't you just carry it in a bag that the cops can't see through? Problem solved.
in reply to the use of a spray can in model making as opposed to airbrushes.
No, we don't do our model making at home. I am sure breathing all those fumes from the plaster, paint, glue, etc is very healthy in a small city apartment. We work in a product design shop, that has the necessary ventilation. It is then possible to get stopped by the cops on the way to school.
I use an airbrush when I work on my final models, but when doing study models, it is often easier just to use a spray can. It is easier to use when you dont have the time to set up, use, and then clean an airbrush. And especially for quick model studies.
Brightliner, just because you did model making decades ago doesn't necessarily make you knowledgeable in what is takes to be a product design or make successful models.
a product designer*, i am sorry for the typo
Maybe a possible solution would be to issue a special "license" to designers, art students, etc. to allow them to carry around the controversial materials, just as a gun owner is required to have. I know that sounds beyond ridiculous and stupid, but it's just a thought. I can see both sides of the argument. I'm not anti-grafitti per se, but some of it is butt-ugly and done by talentless hipsters who are all ego and no common sense. Of course, a lot of it is beautiful, artistic, sometimes thought-provoking, and there are worse problems that this city has to deal with. And it's not fair to target art students... especially if they're going to wind up working at Mickey D's in a few years (lol! Only playing!)
Still, when you're talking people's houses and apartment buildings, I can't defend any art form that vandalizes private property, no matter how beautiful it looks to me.
It's the same argument every time.
If you use spray paint in a design shop, then why not leave the cans in the design shop, or at least in your school locker? When I was in high school, they had a store inside the building where you could buy everything you needed. Don't tell me Parsons is too cheap to do this. Hmm, I wasn't aware plaster produced fumes. I never claimed to know product design. But a model is a model. They're built the same way now as they were then, with good, old balsa, clay, Styrofoam, plaster, Fiberglas, etc. Although we also used sheet metal and aluminum castings. Unless you're using STL, LOM or other RP technologies, which it sounds like you're not. Kids, believe it or not, what you play with in school isn't the whole of what the world works with. When you come out here, you'll find that school learning is just a sliver of what you need to know.
How about you see it from my eyes yes i do use the tools they band but where does that come in in the process of racking paint? or hittin stuff up if ima break the law its goin to get done in alla counts till im lockd up an back out it doesnt matter where u have one person gettin arrested for carrying somthing an he doesnt do graffiti to the person who does it doesnt matter u can not stop graffiti it will be here for ever ,, cant wait till they ask me for I.D TO HIT A SPOT
TO ETHOS!! HOW ABOUT U LET THEM ENFORCE THAT RULE WHERE U LIVE,,,,,,* IF U DONT LIVE IN NYC PLEASE REFRAME FROM COMENTING ON A SUBJECT STRICTLY NEW YORK LIKE...
So according to Peter Vallone, it's OK for an 18-year-old to carry a gun in Iraq, but not a Sharpie or can of spray paint in NYC? What an idiot.
At least be consistent...allow people to become legal adults at either 18 or 21.
>>>u can not stop graffiti it will be here for ever ,,
It can be stopped, but it depends on what kind of measures you want to take. If it takes jackbooted gestapo tactics count me out.
But I still do not know what drives you to do what you do.
www.forgotten-ny.com
i think brightliner is on to something. the city should create an admin agency that regulates art because that is in effect what s/he is recommending. spray paint for models: no. but the agency will let you know what you can use and what it can be used for. carry a marker in a shopping bag: no (unless the police says you can because they know what the marker is used for.) carry ink on the person: no. independent expression: no. totalitarian state: yes.
I like a lot of "street art" also but I have one question-
Why is it when someone suggests the crazy idea of respecting someone's private property (lets leave subways and lamp-posts out of it for a minute) "taggers" instantly reply with words like "totalitarian state" and "jackbooted gestapo tactics" without actually addressing the idea that their rights end where someone else's begin?
And please don't say these disenfranchised youth have no other avenue of expression. For proof look at the example of "Borf" whose work is here in NYC. He was caught and arrested last year in DC and it turns out he was just some snotty rich kid from the VA suburbs.
It seems like if the people doing graffitti had respected private property in the first place then the City Counsel might not have taken such an extreem mesure in the first place.
Tim,
All you have to do is read the posts from "Graffiti Writer," "To Ethos" and "ken" to know why you can't get through to these people. The grammar and spelling there, as well as the train of thought that's more like a train wreck, makes it clear they're not the brightest bulbs on the Christmas tree. Not by a long shot. If you've ever wondered why graffiti tags have highly unconventional spellings, it's because they're trying, but they couldn't spell to save their lives. It's not that they don't have any other avenues of expression. They can't express themselves in anything resembling a legitimate medium. Honestly, can you imagine anyone who'd be willing to publish "reframe from comenting"?
Echh... I get the impression from your last post, Brightliner, that this is really about class warfare for you. Modes of communication that aren't developed through traditional educational programs aren't "legitimate"?
Graffiti has long been a voice for the voiceless. To discount those viewpoints and ideas from the public discourse of the city, chalking their banishment up to legitimacy that can only be gained through traditional systems of cultural capital...
Well, Brightliner, I think it's pretty fucked up.
But what do I know? I'm just some jungle bunny without an education. I don't matter. Not really.
tim, you make valid points, and i respect and appreciate your civility. i don't know if anyone else mentioned totalitarian state in the thread so i'm only going to quickly address why i used it.
since the thread is about a court issued preliminary injunction concerning free speech, and not whether graf is right or wrong, i said totalitarian state because i meant to question the extent people are willing to accept or tolerate government regulations in order to serve a public interest. as you know, questions involving the constitution are usually done with a balancing approach involving the state and the individual interests with varying levels of scrutiny. here, the judge said no rational basis. on its face, and without having read the opinion, it seems like a sound decision. (btw, this is only a prelim injunction so it's not like ecko won. you still have arguments.)
now, i don't know what your tolerance for govt intrusion is, but for me, i'm comforted when the govt regulation bears a [insert level of scrutiny here] relationship with the stated public interest and doesn't encroach on the rights of innocent bystanders. i believe that this city regulation is too broad and hurts innocent people. brightliner basically said that people don't need to use such and such for such and such project. but says who? are there rules for art and what can be used for mediums of art? models? sculptures? paintings? do you want the govt to say what you can or cannot use? yes, you want to stem the problem graf, but the question is how you do it without offending other people's rights. where do you draw the line? i think the city here used a broad brush to tackle a "thin brush" problem.
Let's not forget all of the truly serious issues - like rape, homicide, homelessness, child abuse - in the city that are being neglected in favor of stuff like this. While I recognize that there are government agencies devoted to help resolve all the issues I mentioned, and many more that I didn't, the point I'm trying to make is this:
If we use all of the government's available resources on the issues that really matter, the life and death problems that face so many of the citizens of the city, I think that smaller quality-of-life issues like graffiti will take care of themselves.
And if they don't? Let's worry about them then, when we've got all these other, and in my mind, more important things all settled and taken care of.
Every hour spent by politicians and interns, every piece of photocopier paper used, every square foot of office space occupied for the purpose of taking markers away from adults is better spent in the service of feeding people and saving lives.
I think it takes a small mind, a disturbed mind, easily rattled by assaults on "cleanliness" and "purity of space," it takes a lousy mind to live in this city, to walk around in it, to read the papers and know all the things going wrong and going badly and to think, "What really needs fixing around here is all these marks on the walls."
in parts of toronto, it is LEGAL to tags walls. most notably the alley behind queen st. w, which is covered with by far the most beautiful graf art i have ever seen. one day a year, they re-paint the alleys, which is a wonderful, legal art day.
check it out http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/graffitialley/interesting/
http://www.styleinprogress.ca
LOL at "a voice for the voiceless". Yes, tagging "Borf" or "Tamara Wuz Hea" is really having a voice. Puh-leeze.
To "TO ETHOS,"
Well, it's painfully obvious you don't live anywhere near the tri-state area, or you would know that graffitti -- and this proposed legislation -- would affect all five boroughs, including my own.
Smitty-
I take the exact opposite perspective. How is that *not* a form of expression?
To every single commenter on here: WHO GIVES A SHIT?
I have to agree with some of the people here that the resources of politicians and law enforcement would be better deployed on some of the more pressing issues of the day.
Sounds to me like some are using promises on legislation against graffiti (or at least the sources of it) to persuade those who agree to agree with themselves. Trying to blanket the more important problems? Somebody has to stop this and point them out then.
Also to smitty-
Of course you get differing levels of quality, as with any artform. Some of the things on the Berlin Wall were pretty amazing (says someone who has been lucky enough to only have seen photographs), Banksy's It's Not A Race, offhand, is very well excecuted, and some of the other pieces around...well I reccomend you check out wooster collective or the australian site Die Laughing for a squiz. We're looking at the difference between a fingerpainting and The Persistence of Memory.
To all the people that are alright with this...
This is ridiculous if your 18 you a LEAGALY an adult if you want to change that go ahead and try in a legal way. But don't you dare try to take our rights away.
On the note of graf not being art or a form of expression your just flat wrong, obviously there are people who are new or are just not good but i enjoy graf more than almost any other kind of art (to me its equal with canvas painting). I grew-up with it since i live in the LA area, and if there where a way to have done it in a legal environment (other than the one completely over tagged skate park 20 miles from my house) than i would have.
so if you want to have a law that will stop illegal graffiti than make a large area in every city that its legal to do it.....
make it legal or graf will never stop.....
To all the people that are alright with this...
This is ridiculous if your 18 you a LEAGALY an adult if you want to change that go ahead and try in a legal way. But don't you dare try to take our rights away.
On the note of graf not being art or a form of expression your just flat wrong, obviously there are people who are new or are just not good but i enjoy graf more than almost any other kind of art (to me its equal with canvas painting). I grew-up with it since i live in the LA area, and if there where a way to have done it in a legal environment (other than the one completely over tagged skate park 20 miles from my house) than i would have.
so if you want to have a law that will stop illegal graffiti than make a large area in every city that its legal to do it.....
make it legal or graf will never stop.....