News Rachel's Take On Teen Life
Rachel Taylor from Goole is the new Goole Times teen correspondent. She will be regularly gracing our pages with news and views affecting Goole's teenage community.
I was fairly surprised to see such negative views by the people quoted on the front page of the Goole Times last week in reference to graffiti in the town.
In this article, I hope to portray both sides of the argument on this contemporary art form, and ask the question whether it is vandalism, or indeed art.
Graffiti, messages and artwork sprayed on by aerosol spray cans, originally burst onto the scene in the early 1980s as part of the hip hop sub-culture in America, particularly used to put across political and social messages, and indeed to mark territory. Therefore, it is pretty obvious why graffiti has such negative connotations over twenty years later, with people constantly debating whether or not it should be classed as an art form.
Of course, nobody in this town would miss the ugly Vicky Pollard-esque messages such as 'I woz 'ere '07' ignorantly branding our town, with Kingsway Bridge and the nicknamed 'Monkey Bridge' seemingly being targets, yet I'm sure many people will agree that a lot of graffiti art is clearly produced by artistically talented people. For example, near the Salt and Pepper pot, a clearly gifted artist has produced a picture of a skateboarder through graffiti art, which many of my friends alone have applauded.
Laura Wynne, 17, says: "I understand where the police are coming from, but I actually like some of the town's graffiti. It shows talent and adds character."
I believe people tend to brand these people as 'thugs' and 'ignorant', as I suppose I did to an extent, until I talked to past Goole resident and graffiti artist Andrew*, 17. He said: "I really enjoy graffiti art; I've been doing it for about four years. I don't understand why they class it as vandalism as it isn't hurting anyone. But obviously, it's unacceptable on people's property."
What I personally don't understand, however, is why the police are using so much of their precious motivation and attention on graffiti when one only has to flick through the newspaper to see how much crime goes on in the town, for example regular bouts of violence taking place in particular on a weekend.
"Surely they should tackle the existing problems that are prospectively endangering the town's citizens, rather than preventing artwork which many members of the town actually find worthy?"
As I pointed out earlier, I'm sure many will agree that there is a lot of negative graffiti with no artistic influence whatsoever, of which I can come up with no justification for. An infuriating example is recent attack on Elsie Street convenience store Londis, with suspected youngsters scattering offensive material on the store's front.
Internationally renowned graffiti artist Robert Banks - 'Banksy' - whom many graffiti artists aspire to, once tried to describe his viewpoint on why graffiti artists have such desires: '"t all comes from that thing at school when you had to have name tags in the back of something. That makes it belong to you.
"You can own half the city by scribbling your name over it. Not getting caught is part of the buzz."
Clearly this may come across as fairly ignorant, yet one only has to visit his official website to see how truly amazing this guy is at what he does, and is crazily described as a wanted criminal.
I myself believe that the police stating they are going to "clamp down on such unauthorised artwork" will only make matters worse against teens, and they are practically declaring war on us youngsters. As many people will agree, a stereotypical teen won't tend to abide to imperatives. For example, if my parents say I absolutely have to do something, I'll particularly go out of my way to do the opposite to be deemed more mature and adult - it's just in a teen's nature! Instead, I believe they should strongly consider working alongside the young people.
My suggestion would be to use some of the Youth Arts funding to build a giant wall or blank board of where teens are actually permitted to express their artwork legally. I think it would be appreciated being located around the skate park area, as graffiti is stereotypically associated with the skateboarding culture, with indeed the popular skate park neighbouring marker pen-plagued Kingsway Bridge. I'm not saying it would stop graffiti completely, of course not, as there are clearly people who just graffiti for the sake of wrongdoing.
Yet people who possess actual graffiti-art talent will have an opportunity to be applauded of expressing themselves in a specific teen-based location. Andrew* agrees: 'I think it would stop graffiti in other places, or at least definitely reduce it dramatically'.
Anyway, who said it was only us young people who are the 'art terrorists' of Goole?
* Not his real name
Published on 16th August 2007 in News.
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