The writing on the wall

   In an effort to drive home my point last week that the city of Portland has about as much right to charge me when my home is written upon without my consent as they would if a crack deal occurred in my driveway while I sleep, I lumped all purveyors of street markings, whether it be writing, ‘blowing bubbles,’ or bona-fide art all together into a less than savory category. I was wrong to do that.

   That is because the biggest thing I took away from the PACA’s Creative Conversations on graffiti Tuesday night at SPACE was that there are different levels of skill and varying states of mind behind the marker of every marking throughout our city. The panel at Tuesday’s event, made up of two people on each side of the issue, included two local artists who both have been participating in the street art scene for the last twenty years.

   Tim Clorius, one of the panel members and an impassioned, eloquent speaker on the subject, told the audience that there are eight levels of skill when it comes to the people marking properties in Portland. When shown pictures of markings throughout town provided by panelist Jay York, who on his morning walk pictorially chronicles the trespasses, Clorius explained that most of the writing shown, where it occurs on private pieces of property nailed down or not, is performed by younger people, usually in high school or just out, that feel disenfranchised.

   Well imagine the shock of the anti-graffiti side of the aisle at the suggestion that teen males could feel disenfranchised by ‘the system.’  I got the feeling sitting in the audience and seeing the facial expressions of artists reacting to property owners, that Portland’s street art community feels that most baby boomers, and even some X’ers, are in a general state of denial when it comes to the future of the system. Older citizens, having grown up in an era, save a few years in the 1970’s, that featured continuous, sustained economic growth is hard for some to imagine not continuing.  We’ve all bought in to the argument originated by former vice president Dick Cheney in one way or another that ‘the American way of life is non-negotiable,’ and are now just as complacent with the line of current leadership that ‘recovery,’ ostensibly to the ‘way things were,’ is underway. I think the graffiti artists and their younger protégé nuisance writers are trying to tell us that maybe the ‘American way of life’ needs to change and that going back to the way things were just isn’t going to happen.

   Panelist Kyle Bryant added that the problem, as perceived by the detractors in the audience, was not going to get any better – and being in tune with that community, he is probably right. Young people, who have been treated to a high standard of living over the last fifteen years that makes the gilded 1920’s look like a piker decade, are starting to get the sense that perhaps their future won’t offer the same opportunities. It could be because older leaders in the federal, local and state governments let them down, and took all the cake for themselves and mortgaged their futures. With this in mind, these young Portlanders are acting out, and as Bryant says, “It’s only going to get worse.”

   And that to me is the real story behind the graffiti. The same anger that has united the disenfranchisement of young people around the globe to rise up against oppressive and corrupt governments is being presented to us at home in the form of what is, by current system standards, illegal writing and for the more seasoned, beautiful art. The youth of Portland are disenfranchised. Some teenagers don’t know the details of why, some do. Even without knowing the details and just having the sense that ‘something isn’t right’ is leading many of them to act out. Some hide the pain with drugs, and some take it out on the ownership class with a marker.

   However, until something occurs to address universal fairness, those not in the wealthy 2%, the halls of government, or the board rooms of large too-big-to-fail banks are forced to abide by the rules and regulations established by the system. The writing remains illegal, when performed on my property without my consent, in the same way a drug deal in my driveway while I sleep does. The city of Portland does not have the right to fine me, or any other property owner for certain crimes they deem inconvenient because the people that don’t bother to learn the significance behind the graffiti writing, which included me until Tuesday night, are forced to see the result of the crime in broad daylight. But I predict this ordinance will pass and they will begin to fine property owners for the crimes of others, because the system is stacked against all of us.

   Maybe, unlike the graffiti community, we just haven’t come to terms with it yet.