Pre-school situated on campus, UKZN, Durban South Africa

Artist name: IWOKE

Inspired by Durban’s legal aerosol squad PAINT THE FUTURE (PTF) is open to any and all 031 ‘aerosolistas.’ PAINTING A FUTURE is a Gangs of Graffiti and Step Up Gallery initiative with simple enough objectives: painting big beautiful walls for schools and shelters and other places of refuge, using our art to recognize the role these institutions play in our society and promoting their work by rewarding them with this unique type of recognition. We’re promoting a professional approach to producing murals and productions from participating artists, to develop our art as a professional pursuit, a career choice as well as a passion.

Wanna paint?

Step 1 – secure a wall: approach a school or a shelter in your area, or that you know of, which would appreciate some stylish paint work and get them to agree

Step 2 – produce a proper plan, including a sketch and some specs of the wall (get a few before shots, measure the space out, play with some ideas in your blackbook)

Step 3 – hit us up at Gangs of Graffiti with the plan and the details of the space and we will hook you up with some paint

Step 4 – rock it!

Step 5 – Send us photos of the finished work and we will blog it and publicize it, far and wide…

I have in honest truth never really been introduced to the culture of graffiti. Not that I don’t like it – it is art – and art is in the end in the eye of the beholder. But I do live for culture, such as skateboarding and surfing where “normality” and the every-Saturday-rugby-scene are not appealing at all. I used to skate, but being a mother and having a career, the body doesn’t seem to fit these days. My own fault of course.

I met one of those involved, spoke to him. And it has been a while since I befriended someone (as most publications in relation hereto would state as “youngster”), who has such good manners and personality… And being described as a vandal and branded as a criminal just doesn’t suit AT ALL! You know that he is after all (as most of the group or maybe even all) an honest working person as well.

But what really saddens me is the fact that I published some poetry and that he actually asked me about it – but never even mentioned the fact that he is so talented himself. If the actions were intended to “destroy and destruct” the city walls, don’t they honestly think these “illicit gang members” would go about bragging? But now their right to their talent is being denied. And silence must prevail … And the label he must carry is as a vandal and nihilist.

I work with REAL criminals quite often and the CHARGES the Metro wants to impose are highly misplaced and I will personally strive to get him the best legal help in my ability as possible, which proper defense all of them deserve!

- Meanie Van der Walt

(Images courtesy of Philip Botha.)

Link to the Facebook event here.

So I get it.  I break it down, making letters that resemble the Malayalam language from Southern India where we started.  The letters say IWOKE, meaning ‘Seek the sun – find the light – open the eye”.  People dig it, especially the religious heads we meetup with while getting busy.  I learn the importance of color in the lives of most locals and thank Jo again for throwing a can of red into my small mix.  I thank the 1UP crew from Germany, I saw work of theirs in GOA, they used a rad splatter fiill technique that I take a hearty bite out of.  The cans play funny but the brushes work just fine.  Pepsi and suntan lotion has me hallucinating that I am on a beach somewhere, kicking back in some sweaty art life living with my wife working the brush with me.  Brushes and some extra solid grey aerosol give up some clouds and characters, and saving the black for last means I can make it as crisp as possible.  The result is a kind of sticker style ‘street art’ piece with all the energy and color of the day that the deed got done.  Seriously, I was willing to paint with a toothbrush and turpentine, so what actually transpired was beyond anything I could have hoped for.

Special mention to my character inspiration Craig ‘FALKO STARR’ from back home.  I saw him in Durban this year and he tripped out on India and how he wanted to get there.  He should.  He would burn these walls left right and centre.  I left him a welcome message for the day he arrives, “Walls for Africa!” which basically means enoough walls for everyone.

Graff writers talk about ‘getting up’ as in getting your name out there, painting a wall, being recognized by your name and style.  My wife pointed out that this wall translates as “IWOKE ‘UP’ in INDIA”.  She’s freakin’ clever.

Thank you Mumbai Wall Project again for this gift.

Shout outs to Sarah D (from AF Durban for making this happen) and all the heads back home who keep a man keeping on…WALLS FOR AFRICA!

Success!  R1500 through the door equals approximately 30 cans of premium paint, plus onetwo outside donations and the generous sponsorship of 100 CANS from Durbans premier underground art store STEP UP GALLERY (Sandy Centre, Pinetown), all together creating a thick rack of color to be lovingly and finely processed and produced upon our awaiting cityscape!

With performances by SPITMUNKY and JET WENTWORTH, customization from FINK and CADE, shirt stencilling from PTF Crew, and a host of heads nodding and chilling and celebrating the postponement of the trial of the 031 Aerosol 7, this evening was a fresh approach to catalization through cans and capitilization on cannisters…much respect to all involved in pulling this off…Durban stays fresh once again!

Until it is clear that these arrests are not an issue of taste or opinion, the conversation is useless. The awareness and enthusiasm and solidarity is nothing more than empty hype unless we open our mouths and speak up, and speak with purpose, on wrongful punishment.

There has been some pretty important, and some pretty banal conversation since word about the arrests spread. Many of us have developed relationships because of it, from no commonality besides being pissed off on their behalf. Some, particularly those juiced up on the vitriol of Facebook, have voiced their suspicion of the whole affair, that vandals are vandals and art in public property needs a different set of standards and rules, it’s not all free-the-artist and let-love-rule. Some have said we’re making martyrs out of graffiti writers and called it laughable.

The Aerosol Seven should not be charged because they had permission to paint that wall. It’s too obvious, this oppression of innocent people issue, when it comes to people holding cans. We have so much more to worry about? Not if you’re one of them, though. Not when you’re watching money swirl down the legal-fee-bail drain.  Not if you’re waiting for September 14^th and considering the consequences of a criminal charge on your record.

This doesn’t seem to be an issue of policing or misspent municipal funds. I already knew about that. I questioned our police the first one, two, three occasions I felt a gun in my back or met a burglar in my home and met either no, or indifferent response. I questioned municipal transparency and efficacy each time I read about accounts (mis)management debacles this year. Have you attempted to use a municipal helpline? Don’t.

We know all this is happening. Are we really so surprised it’s happening here?  It doesn’t surprise me that they want to lock up people with paint on their hands while people wearing blood walk free. We all know. It’s so easy to theorise and roll eyes and talk about how things should be better. I guess it’s not the same, throwing a few words together, rolling eyes, when you’re sitting in a holding cell. When you’re caught in the gross reality of a farcical situation. For another easy line- blood and paint don’t mix in cells.

I don’t feel like this is an issue about graffiti art, either. As an aesthetic or philosophical preference, I find it understandable that people would have problems with ‘street art’. If it’s a conversation about art we’re having, we’d be stupid to try and reach a singular conclusion. But everybody knows that we aren’t having that conversation. Because everybody knows that there is a large faction of individuals discussing this issue who are choosing to ignore the fact that the people crying for support of these seven individuals, are not people who are advocating vandalism. There is a difference.

It’s interesting, that media consumers are willing to accept the divide between say, paparazzi photographers and photojournalists. We’re willing to accept the idea that a person making a career of stalking and recording another person because of their celebrity status, is a person turning a pretty cheap trick. We’d hardly call it art. We understand why it’s needed because popular culture means consumers have a vested interest in celebrities; we say things like, “they should understand that when they become famous they sign their lives away, they become public property.” We condone it – not in theory, in consumption – but we’d never align this kind of photographer with the photographer who captures moments on the frontline, or the photographer who exhibits in a gallery.  Why, then are we so unwilling to accept the difference between graffiti vandals and graffiti artists? And on this, why are we so quick to applaud individuals who make right their past actions by sharing their new life choices with the public? Why do we allow ex-addicts to give drug awareness talks in schools; why do we make novels about criminals-turned-clean bestsellers, but we aren’t capable of lending the same applause to a vandal turned artist? It’s insane to make these comparisons. Everything about this is insane. If we’re so quick to accept change and education in one area, why aren’t we willing to accept an individual’s attempt to turn a background of vandalism into a future of art? 

There are double standards at work and the problem here is that the double standard is harder to expose because it is being imposed on a misunderstood culture. There was a kind of jargon hovering over the initial coverage of these arrests, which made many of us uncomfortable. Language sways opinion, that’s another thing we know. Strong opinion sells newspapers. Outrage is the strongest of opinions. It’s not a complicated equation. I’ve heard countless versions of the story now, in which the seven men are referred to as vandals, boys, youngsters and their behaviour deviant, and speculation replaces fact in almost all of these versions. A reporter’s ability to turn a phrase, or to colour a sentence with adjective and hyperbole, becomes – perhaps unconscious, perhaps not – a weapon against these men. Because let’s face it, it is likely only the people who stand behind these guys who have visited this website. The rest took in the mainstream report and shook their heads, made up their minds and forgot about it.  Because we are consumers, we ingest and regurgitate; the mainstream do not produce or create.

These writers aren’t martyrs. They’re victims of a kind of corruption. It’s corruption which shouldn’t be overlooked simply because it doesn’t sit way up in the hierarchy of issues the mainstream cares about.

 This is the week of the trial for the Aerosol 7 and Gangs of Graffiti is looking for your voice.

Please send your opinion through to Gangs of Graffiti:

misslibbyallen@gmail.com 

[One trend I wish would go away is] the way that brands take over the artists, sometimes not supporting them but using them. I believe there is a very fine line and a frame to respect if you want to keep your ethic. As most of the financing from states has disappeared, the only way left to live from your art, for the ones who don’t sell in galleries, is through brands.

Most of the brands don’t actually support the artists for the purpose of the artists’ goals, but for their own communication beliefs. I am still dreaming of patronage and philanthropy, but all I see is sponsoring.

 

Inside Out Project