Fortune Cookie for the Soul
Just one click is all it took.
We are all one assimilation away from
everyone,
anyone.
That's what information and contexts can do to you. Get used to
the (t)expectations.
The difference between blending in and assimilating is like
balancing technique and substance. I'd take a stockcap and a good
idea over pristine colors and choice nozzles any day.
Technique is craft, learned skills. Basic rudiments such as form,
composition and color advance to concepts of erasure, completion, or
rather the skill of knowing what to leave out. Economics.
This is a skill-set that is tactfully inclusive as what is left out
gets filled in by an audience. That's part of the fun. Graffiti
can be an enabling process which (at times) allows for an audience to
see for themselves.
Contributor, actor, victim, hero. Eventually all the humanities
get us blending in as individual strands in the fabric.
To author an idea it is necessary to facilitate a love. I don't
mean that in a hippie-shit sort of way. Just that one must embrace
with deepest sincerity the context and the idea deemed meaningful.
In that sense, a medium may indeed choose its audience and authors
as certain personalities are predisposed to certain media.
All the work we do — above ground, underground — is shaped and
perceived within a context. The graffiti we produce, the films we
direct, the books we write, the poetry we read, the telephone calls
we make, all these events tell us about who we are. And it's done
blindly for the most part. I caution you to be mindful of these
events.
This life, this context that we are trapped in or freed to,
happens like a waterfall. All your love and concern, all your hate
and anger — if they are to consume us then let them do so with
passion and meaning.
These words are not written to vindicate the zealots. In fact
quite the opposite. The foolish want to die nobly for a cause, while the
wise wish to live humbly for one.
So we go on seeking validation, vindication. When fine artists,
auctioneers, gallery owners dismiss the graffiti experience, my
personal outlook becomes clearer. When I find graffiti
becoming accepted and even celebrated I often end up dismissing
it.
Perhaps it's the misanthropic side of me. Perhaps it's the
graffiti writer in me.
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