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| Toronto's Yorkville |
Newmarket, Ontario has a
Tour & Art Show coming up, offering a tour of works located at various locales around her Main St locations. Newmarket also apparently has a graffiti problem if a
local paper's story is to be believed. Perhaps the event could someday become a bridge for youth to graduate in their choice of medium if you will. Or at least more respectful of where they display it.
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| Perfect canvass for allowing youth graffiti art |
Recently, a front page Newmarket Era newspaper article focused on recent graffiti, purported to be on increase of recent times. Well, it's not like
graffiti is a new entity...it's been around since long before I was born, first for war type protests before morphing into modern day messages on walls and buildings, often or mostly by a youthful 'artist". The news article featured a crime stoppers reward with a grainy surveillance photo of the "suspect" and a copy of his message....exactly what he wants...to be noticed! But that's only part of it.
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| Beats this canvas |
Youth come from all backgrounds, and we are educated enough now to know that some kids behave certain ways for various reasons. kids act out and are punished with grounding and so forth but some are a tougher sell and often the ones who themselves have experienced some sort of trauma. Trauma such as a death or a molestation or an undiagnosed illness eating away at them. Now I'm not suggesting "hugg a thugging" these guys, but I am suggesting we engage them early before they become hardened and create ways to include them, by creating "graffiti-okay zones" and maybe linking the more interested / talented to other types of arts.
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| Town of Aurora Ontario's famous wall untouched |
Perhaps start with having a huge designated wall available that is part of a design contest - similar to what was attempted by Myers costumes to combat graffiti after the town ordered them, yet again, to remove it. Too bad they deemed the
winning design itself a "sign" - therefore squashing the mural from being done. Too bad. I liked it.
At any rate, it's a different train of thought, but studies have proved that graffitiists are less likely to mark up a spot with a mural, and I could see bringing some into the fold once a few cool designs were up.
To start "it" off they could use a wall inside or out of a spot that fits the bill, with a design they all have a say in creating, along with getting the store owners final approval.
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| Guess which one is the Newmarket Youth Centre? |
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Not considered a sign or graffiti @ The Newmarket Youth Centre?
By today's bylaws this old Newmarket business sign would not be allowed |
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| Winning contest wall mural rejected by Newmarket bylaws as a sign |
I don't think criminalizing these youths is serving the community, as it only pushes them further 'underground' into a subculture that doesn't communicate with the everyday world, and, for some, escalates them to other real crimes in time. Crimes such as
PC Corner the
Main St computer store ransacked of all his best Mac laptops and other equipment over a 3 days in a row span. Despite
video evidence, there's
no crime stoppers reward on him, no sir, what's $20,000 worth of equipment and a new door and windows vs $20 worth of paint to a business to cover up graffiti?
One way to pull guys out of the shadows and into the light is through getting to know them, and that influence alone can sometimes be enough to reel them in close enough to affect positive change.
TP
