Art History

It is interesting to be that there are not a lot of schools that offer art history classes on graffiti. Graffiti happens to be a part of the history of art no matter how illegal it is. I am approaching my senior year of college and this the first college class that I have had on graffiti. This also happens to be the first time that my university (West Chester University) is offering the class. I that it is crazy that we have not been taught these things before. I feel like my art history minor is not complete without learning about these forms of art. There are also so many new terms that are associated with this style of art too that are not used in other forms of art. Graffiti is also interesting. That is the biggest reason why I love it. I is another way to express yourself. I think that its an amazing way to do art. Its creative to say the least. We need to be taught about this!

Mural Arts

In my summer class we went to Philadelphia were we had a chance to learn about the mural arts program. We learned that in the beginning, 1984, the program was not simply for the purpose of  putting up murals in the city. Its first purpose was to  be an Anti-Graffiti program to "fix" the graffiti problem in the city. This was an effort started by Mayor Wilson Goode. Jane Golden, a mural artist, was asked to be a part of this program and allowed the graffiti artist to work with her because she saw that they really did have talent. The city really needed something for these artist to do and what Jane turned it into was just that. With the murals that they were putting up the are able to touch the hearts of these young people in the city, and even those hearts of their family. The program is still going strong today. I think it is important for this program to stat because they are removing art from a lot of the schools in the city. Kids need art in the early stages of their life so that they can develop. Art teaches children different ways of thinking and problem solving skills that can be applied to other subjects. It is a way to express yourself without words. If we don't have more programs like this and remove art from schools there will be more graffiti in the city.

Mural Arts Program of Philadelphia

Copy Cats...

This piece is simply amazing to me. The problem with this that since Banksy is so secluded and private that many people do not believe that this is his art. It is hard to ask someone if this is their art when you don't know who he is. I like this piece because of the underlying message. That message to me is to face your fears even when everyone else is telling you to "run for your life". If you have love on your side you can conquer anything. To me the lion represents all of your fears, problems. and doubts that you may have.

CLAW

CLAW

Commonly known as "Claw money or claw" Claudia started doing graffiti work in the late 80's. Her signature sign was a big paw with three claws.  Her mentor while she was really influenced by Zephyr who taught her a lot of the things that she knows about graffiti. She now has a very successful clothing line and collaborates with many different well known brands. It is very nice to see that a graffiti artist is still doing what she loves to do but has really achieved great success in another artistic area. 

R.I.P. Graffiti and Hip Hop

     I was not around when hip hop first started but I did get to exprence parts of it. Hip hop was a big part of my life because of my family who are very much intuned with this movement. Many people have linked graffiti to hip hop. Hip hop was not only a style of music it was much more than that. It included rhyming, djing, breaking and graffiti. Some people believe that hip hop started graffiti however, we know that graffiti started in the 60's before hip hop. Over these past few days we have seen countless movies about the history of graffiti. Some of the graffiti artist have said that they believe that graffiti is DEAD. This is really interesting to me because there are many people that say Hip Hop is dead too. I believe that both are dead unfortionatly. There are a lot of new artist but I feel that they are more POP than anything. I am no expertbut I do believe that hip hop and graffiti are both dead weither related or not.