West Seattle Graffiti

[Caduceus]

I’m sure we’re all familiar with graffiti. But lately I’ve been noticing an interesting trend.

Awhile back I was on the 21, going down 35th and we went by a Gasco that read.

Listen… [picture here] and Be Happy

Love, Nautilos (I think that’s how it was spelled.)

The picture was the head of a young woman listening to music (headphones), with a warm, comfortable expression.

Then, again waiting for the 21 I saw a brick wall on the apartments by the Pizza hut with graffiti as well as a postage sticker in the bus stop itself that said

“HOPE”

Then this weekend I was walking in the junction and took a right at the senior center and there was a fence that said

“Influence LOVE”

I’m used to seeing tags around like LERNS and SEMER and I’ve even seen some 13-gang graffiti before. But they’ve all really just been elaborate versions of their nicknames, these are the few recent instances (that I know of) where the tags seem to be trying to reach out and touch people.

Do you think there’s a shift within’ the “Urban Art” community making headway into the positive? Is anyone on here part of the graffiti community that can fill me in?

That is, do you consider it positive? I do personally, having seen some fairly obscene things written on the walls of our beautiful city.

Your thoughts?

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[RonM]

Perhaps senior citizens have found a venue…

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[JenV]

I saw the “influence love” graffiti in the alley behind Menashe’s this weekend…I too thought it an odd choice for graffiti, but much nicer than the alternative!

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[WSMom]

The circle instead of a dot over the “i” in influence makes me think we have a female tagger spreading her “love”. The garage behind the Senior Center was hit and it looks awful.

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[Kayleigh]

Well, to me, grafitti is vandalism, no matter how lovely someone thinks the message is.

I’d rather see the artistic and, er, humanistic? tendencies channeled productively…and not have the vandalism reinforced at all.

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[Caduceus]

WSMom I never even thought that a girl might have done it!

I suppose you’re correct Kayleigh but I don’t think there will ever be a “solution” to graffiti. There will always be kids/people doing it and personally I’d rather look at a picture of a lovely woman with headphones on or “LOVE” vandalized in the city rather then…

“F**K THE POLICE” or a swastika

Kind of how running sneakers, and high heels are both a pair of shoes, but serve different purposes.

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