Graffiti As Fine Art

DeAngelo Raines is giving a series of workshops called "Graffiti As Fine Art" at various Multnomah County Libraries. I decided this was just the sort of thing we needed- a chance to check out something completely different.  This turned out to be one of the best things we've done in a while.  

Mr. Raines started the workshop with lots of big sheets of paper and markers for everybody.  He showed us lots of spectacular photographs and videos of graffiti, graffiti style art, and street art.  But mostly he asked us to think.  

He wanted us to consider how we would define terms like "art", "graffiti", "vandalism", and "street art".  He asked us to consider the problem of making something two-dimentional, such as the flat surface of a piece of paper, look three dimensional.  He asked us to think about the difference that it makes when you decide if a line should be thick or thin, or if the thickness should change.  He showed us how a partially dried up marker can make a great tool for created graduated shading.  And he efficiently explained one, two, and three point perspective, so that everyone, including my son, got it. He talked about the history of graffiti, and what it has in common with the earliest cave paintings.  The workshop was really inspiring, to learn more about graffiti and street art, and to explore the idea of perspective in more, well, depth!

Portland isn't a magnet for the kind of graffiti that has high ambitions beyond just a being a single color tag.  But interesting graffiti is out there, as you can see in this blog.  There are only two months of posts, but it  proves that some pretty neat stuff is there, once you start looking.

The video below is a stop motion animation of the work of David Ellis, making graffiti style art.