The War of Art.<\/b><\/p>\n
by Tracee Carter<\/p>\n
\u201cStreet art is a vandalism deterrent and it brings excitement to the city.\u201d -Hamilton Glass<\/p>\n
Grafitti.<\/p>\n
graf\u00b7fi\u00b7ti <\/b>(gr\u0259-f\u0113-t\u0113)<\/p>\n
n.<\/i> (used with a sing. or pl. verb)<\/i><\/p>\n
Drawings or inscriptions made on a wall or other surface, usually so as to be seen by the public.<\/p>\n
-American Heritage Dictionary<\/p>\n
According to graffiti.org, the term “graffiti” derives from the Greek graphein (“to write”). Graffiti (s. graffito), meaning a drawing or scribbling on a flat surface, originally referred to those marks found on ancient Roman architecture.<\/p>\n
Graffiti is nothing new to Richmond. There is an underground society of writers who artistically, and bravely, write on the walls the surround the city.<\/p>\n
Rootz Uno, 27, a well-known Richmond graffiti artist of 13 years, is no stranger to the war of art in Richmond.<\/p>\n
Throughout his 13-year career, Rootz has only been arrested once. He served two weeks in jail, paid more than $3,000 in fines and restitution to the city and the business owners and completed 500 hours of community service.<\/p>\n
He got his start in middle school when witnessing a group of writers tag a building while he and a group of friends were out skateboarding. That encounter ignited a fire in Rootz that has been burning ever since.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s kind go like a drug, it\u2019s kind of addictive. Once you get a taste of writing your name somewhere, and you see it when you drive by or walk by, you start wanting to see it more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rootz, who wears a spray cap on a string around his neck as a sign of his dedication to the craft and something he\u2019s invested his life into, says it\u2019s a competition.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s definitely a competition. It\u2019s power in numbers, so the more your name is out there, the more credibility you have. The more dangerous the spot, the more respect you get.\u201d<\/p>\n
But how far does the competition go? And who are they competing with?<\/p>\n
\u201cCommunities that produce graffiti (as opposed to the individual “scribbler”) may target cryptic messages toward their own closed community, producing a seemingly confusing and unreadable product. The writers may not sign their real names; they instead employ the use of nicknames, codes, and symbols within stylized aesthetic systems. This type of graffiti is geared toward people who already understand the messages and may act to enhance group solidarity.\u201d -Graffiti.org<\/p>\n
In most cities, there are territories, but in Richmond, the city is a territory in itself.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Richmond there are a handful of people who do real graffiti. Those writers think they run everything. And if you don\u2019t write with them then they don\u2019t respect you. And if they see you putting stuff up, they\u2019ll go over you. Because they can. It\u2019s very territorial.<\/p>\n
So if someone comes from out of town. Chances are people from Richmond are going to go over it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beyond territorial tensions, personal conflicts are triggers for conflict between writers.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s say I have a problem with another graffiti artist. If I do something legal, they might come and go over it just because they don\u2019t like me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGraffiti is a language. Most of it is someone recognizing that this right here is crap, this is dilapidated, this sucks. City, come fix it. Come clean it up.\u201d- Hamilton Glass<\/p>\n
Rootz has only been tagged once. He and another artist went back and forth for a while. Rootz said it ended around the time he got arrested and changed his tag.<\/p>\n
The going back and forth is called a battle. \u201cIt\u2019s like in hip hop. Rappers will write songs back and forth. Graffiti artists write over each other.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve seen a battle end violently. Someone went over him. So he found out where he lives and went to his house, punch him in the face and then tagged his front door. I\u2019ve seen people pull out knives.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMurals are usually a sign that your treating it with care. And a tagger probably respects it.\u201d-Hamilton Glass<\/p>\n
Does tension exist between writers and muralists? Do writers tag murals?<\/p>\n
Rootz said that\u00a0 a writer would only tag the work if they had a personal problem with the artist.<\/p>\n
\u201cMurals are the best anti-graffiti there is. I was screaming that when I first started doing murals in Richmond. It\u2019s not a concept made by me. \u201cIt\u2019s the history of the mural arts program in Philadelphia. They got graffiti artists to do murals to stop the tagging. Murals hender graffiti. That\u2019s just the way it is.\u201d -Hamilton Glass<\/p>\n
\u201cThats another reason Richmond embraces street art, to deter illegal graffiti. If I\u2019m walking by a building late at night and i have spray cans, I might be tempted to paint on it, do a tag, throw up a piece, whatever. But if I\u2019m walking by and I see a mural, I\u2019m not going to touch the building. Unless I had a personal problem with the artist.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The War of Art. by Tracee Carter \u201cStreet art is a vandalism deterrent and it brings excitement to the city.\u201d -Hamilton Glass Grafitti. graf\u00b7fi\u00b7ti (gr\u0259-f\u0113-t\u0113) n. (used with a sing. or pl. verb) Drawings or inscriptions made on a wall or other surface, usually so as to be seen by the public. -American Heritage Dictionary Read more about The War of Art<\/span>[…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2933,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[53769],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-project-artva"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7o53H-bi","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2933"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}