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Where to Paint Street Art LEGALLY

Artist: Alex Allen, painting a legal wall in Fort Wayne, IN. Photo: Sabrina Lombardo

More and more towns are realizing the benefits of public art—but just as attitudes to street art are constantly shifting, so are the local ordinances as to where and when it can be painted legally. So check before you bring your paint.

Here’s database of some legal street art walls, though it’s by no means an exhaustive list: https://legal-walls.net

Some additional legal art walls:

Free & Center Streets, Portland, ME

Scott Carpenter Park, behind the skate park, Boulder, CO

30th St, Boulder, CO

Venice Art Walls, Venice, CA (weekends and by permit only)

CIA Wall (alley southeast of the Colorado Institute of Art), Denver, CO

Legal graffiti spots map of Colorado Springs, CO

215 Tully Street, Syracuse,  NY

Fort Wayne, IN

Artist: Final Girl on the Ohio University Graffiti Wall, Athens, OH. Photo: Final Girl

Many colleges and universities have a graffiti wall—or even just a big rock where people paint. College towns are also a good source for finding street art spots, such as:

Keith’s Alley, Yellow Springs, OH

Ohio University Graffiti Wall, Athens, OH

University of Florida 34th Street Graffiti Wall, Gainesville, FL

  Spread your message--but stay safe.

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A Teenager with Promise

Incredible new street art by Alexandra Bell. Photo credit: Bené Viera. Installation video here.

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Dear United States,  You are not the only America.

Essay and paintings by Patri Wisland, in Terrain.

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Frances Bean Cobain and the Graffiti of Privilege

A friend saw it, driving in Los Angeles. A billboard for tony fashion line Marc Jacobs, featuring Frances Bean Cobain as the model, had been defaced with graffiti.

 And then the news: Cobain had done it herself. There are pictures of Cobain and giggling friends in action with rollers and paint, and a video of the defacing, posted by none other than Marc Jacobs, which suggests, if the graffiti wasn’t sanctioned, it was at least fine.

Nobody’s getting arrested. Nobody seems to be mad.

 Photo: Frances Bean Cobain’s Instagram 

As a graffiti fan and a visual artist, I should love this. Right? In a way, I do. It’s mixed media, incorporating large paste-ups, including one of a Marc Chagall-esque face which was plastered over Cobain’s image, and dripping painted letters that read: Witch, witch, she’s a witch. It’s well-designed and should be: Cobain’s collaborators were “creative consultant” Abreea Loren and artist Illma Gore.

 But in another way, in a deeper way, I view Cobain’s defacing of her billboard as a gigantic waste.

 For most artists, the stakes are high in graffiti. You could be arrested, fined. Mugged or assaulted if you’re out at night, sexually harassed or worse. I’ve had artist friends cut by thrown bottles, attacked by passing drunks. You risk a lot to make art on the street. Why make it bland? Why make it for no reason?

 My gut response to the billboard: So?

 Art shouldn’t make you shrug. It should make you shudder. It should make you push your face against the window, as I did the first time I saw Keith Haring’s Crack Is Wack, I was looking so hard. It should make you weep, as I did the first time I saw the Shoreditch walls in London, with graffiti on every corner: colorful and strange. It should matter.

Artists unknown, Shoreditch. Photo: Alison Stine 

Cobain’s graffiti isn’t saying anything. It doesn’t have a message, other than I can. It’s just fun—but it’s fun that wealthy white people are most able to get away with. After its defacement, the message of the Marc Jacobs billboard remained the same: It was still an advertisement for privilege.

 Of course it’s not surprising that the most popular graffiti artists of today are white men: Shepard Fairey, Banksy. They got rich on graffiti. Like so much of non-white cultures, graffiti has been co-opted, commoditized—and banalized.

 But the contemporary graffiti movement owes its life to young people of color, poor kids of the 1970s and 80s, who popularized the art in New York and Philadelphia. In its history and at its core, graffiti is the voice of the voiceless, the oppressed and forgotten. Young graffiti writers and artists of color such as Lady Pink started covering subway cars and billboards with paint to prove they existed, that they were here, that, despite what the culture at large was saying, they mattered—a motive that just doesn’t work for Cobain: We know you exist, you’re famous.

 Lady Pink. Photo: http://www.ladypinknyc.com/murals/

Artists lost their freedom to make graffiti. They lost –and still lose—their lives. One of the teenage graffiti artists in the 1983 documentary Style Wars, about hip-hop culture of the late 1970s and early 1980s, had lost his arm in a subway accident—and still he painted.

 I don’t think Cobain will continue in graffiti—but I wish that she would. I wish she would use the platform she was born with to give others a lift: paint endangered animals like Mutiny, or paste-ups of people experiencing homelessness like Blek Le Rat, or even anti-consumerism slogans like Banksy. I wish she would trade on her relative safety to stand up.

 Mutiny. Photo: Alison Stine

Maybe next time—if there is a next time—she could say something.

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“We the People” street art by Appalachian graffiti artist Final Girl.

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Outdoor space is a male world,” Rond says. “Women have [had] to look at outdoor space in a different way than men because of personal safety.” Often, young boys have more experience sneaking out. Finally running around in the dark to make art is incredibly liberating for women. I began studying graffiti six years ago for my PhD dissertation. Because I was crawling into alleys or entering abandoned buildings, photographing art, I had to have a knife. I had to learn how to use it. I had to learn to hop a fence. These skills were enormous confidence-builders. I know I can go anywhere now, even where women are traditionally unwelcome. Graffiti gives women such confidence. The artist often works alone, under the heightened tensions of darkness and dangerous settings. As Rond says: “I live my life facing my fears.” “I was raised to fear certain types of confrontation, to fear being a disappointment or displeasing to anyone,” Simione says. “Working on the street has definitely become a method through which I can conquer those old lessons… Be polite, be patient, smile pretty, sit quietly, wait your turn, be accommodating, don’t ask for anything, don’t draw attention to yourself—these are all things that were instilled in me. Street art can absolutely be interpreted as spitting in the face of all that.

Alison Stine, “Graffiti and the Girl: The Sisterhood of Street Art,“ at The Toast. 

In 2014, I profiled Stephanie Rond, the artist who made the Resist cat T-shirt, along with other street artists for a piece in The Toast. Here’s a link to that essay in full. Thanks to irisreadsthings for reminding me.

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Stephanie Rond, an Ohio street artist, gallery owner, and educator, is making these stencil-inspired Resist Cats shirts. 100% of profits go to the nonprofit Americans for the Arts in their fight for the National Endowment for the Arts.

https://stephanie-rond.myshopify.com

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A video on the creation of “Portraits,” now the longest mural on the East coast.

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Another piece by “Fearless Girl” artist Kristen Visbal. 

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A Primer on the Protest Sign

I have glitter in the floorboards of my house, paint on every item of clothing I own, no matter how “new,” and am secretly happy every time my son has an art assignment and asks for my help. But what if art is not your thing, and you want to raise your voice in protest? How do you make a sign that speaks your mind and grabs attention?  Here’s a short primer on the protest sign. 

Durable

You’re going to be walking, standing, putting your sign down, waving it. It’s going to get bumped, beaten by the wind, maybe dropped a few times and stepped on. Maybe you’d like to re-use it for another action? Make sure it lasts.

I recommend foam board—heavier than ordinary poster board, which tends to fold over, especially if you use a large sheet, or if it’s going to be windy. You can also use cardboard, either a project display board you can buy at an office store, or a panel recycled from a box. You can paint the background before starting to letter.

Readable

Your letters need to be large and clear. Readability is important. Can someone see your message from a passing car? Would it show up in a photograph of the event?

Use a ruler and pencil to make lines on your poster if you’re worried about keeping letters straight; you can erase the lines later. Start lettering in pencil first if you like. I draw the “skeletons” of letters, flesh out their outlines, then shade them in. Paint pens, various-tipped markers with acrylic paint inside, are my favorite for projects because of their vivid colors.

When it comes to picking colors, again, visibility should guide you. What color do you love, and what shades can be seen? Making every single letter a different color is overwhelming. But perfect is boring, and the quirks make it interesting. If you really don’t like your handwriting, you can buy paper letters at craft stores and glue them on, like this sign from Olivia Locher: 

Personal

Your message should matter to you. In these code red days, organizers recommend choosing just two or so issues that are extremely important to you and directing your energy like a laser.

The same is true of your sign. Pick a single issue that you’re passionate about and focus on it. What if someone asks you about your sign? Can you speak to it?

Play to your strengths. If drawing is a strong point, illustrate. If you’re witty, some of my favorite protest signs have been funny.

Positive

The brain ignores the negative. Avoid words like “don’t”—we tend to skip over them. Instead, try to keep your message positive and active: Ban Fracking Now. Let Refugees In.

Steal a trick from advertising: Rhyme can sometimes help your message stick. Here’s the messaging I came up with for an anti-fracking protest: Our Water, Our Lives; Their Poison, Their Lies.

Practical

In January, I participated in a small but vocal women’s march in Indiana. After an hour or so of standing around in the cold, my arms got tired. My sign was painful before we even stared marching. I forgot to make a handle. 

 Consider using something like a cardboard tube for a handle. Tape it on. Paint stir sticks seem perfect for a sign handle, but some towns ban wood in demonstrations, due to safety concerns, so familiarize yourself with local regulations before you finalize your sign.

Give yourself enough time to make mistakes and be creative. The important thing is that you show up—and keep showing up.

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For many, then, the initial glimpse of New York was art—enormous art

I wrote “The Statue of Liberty as Radically Feminist, Pro-Refugee Art for the People” for GOOD

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Sign by Natalie A. Rogers

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Episode 1 of TUNDRA: Cold Journey to Justice by Jeremiah Chapman highlights some of the art of the Women’s March.

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much of her work has been lost, since she could mostly afford to cast only in plaster...

Keisha N. Blain, on Augusta Savage

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Piece by Rob Reilly. Photo by Bianca Bello.

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Sunflowers in the Windstorm

We visited the Columbus Museum of Art for the first time when I was a child. The painting I remember most was famous, though I didn’t know it then: “Sunflowers in the Windstorm” by Emil Nolde, a simple-looking piece: three large sunflowers, petals blown out in front of them. There’s a dark purple, almost black sky, terrible weather brewing in the background.

 It looks simple, but Nolde, who was German, painted the piece in 1943, in Nazi Germany. He painted secretly, under great threat of persecution. The story is that he would paint with watercolors, which don’t have a strong smell, so the Gestapo wouldn’t find him.

 But “Sunflowers” is painted in oil.

 Paint is power. In the piece, a storm is coming from behind the three sunflowers; they’re bowing in the wind, but the stems don’t break. Even before I knew the story, the painting made me feel emotional. Once I knew the background of the piece, what it made me feel was strength.

 As an artist and writer, I’m not just interested in the art in museums. I’m much more interested in art that will never be shown, never published in books, never reviewed by critics. Art done by the inexperienced, the untrained, and the justified. Art done by the people for the people. Art that is sometimes ugly, sometimes scrawled on walls or dripping down them.

 Art that some people wouldn’t call art at all: street art. Murals, banners, installations, yarn art, stickers, paste-ups, throw-ups, posters, and pieces.

 When we have no words, art can speak for us. When we have no megaphone, art can amplify our pain—and also, our greatest hope. When we have no voice, street art is the voice of resistance. It’s the voice of people who have no other platform.

 This blog will features images of social justice art, especially street art, as well as articles, videos, and tips on how to make it; and features about artists working with art as protest, particularly women artists, LGBTQ artists, artists of color, and artists with disabilities.

 You can switch off a radio station, turn off the TV or computer--or turn away from a protestor on a corner, a person trying to speak at a rally or in a crowd. Art on the street is unavoidable, reaching its audience the same way billboard advertising does. But unlike advertising, street art isn’t selling you anything. Only love. And hope for change.

 And at a time when graffiti is being used by vandals to spread hate, bigotry, lies, and violence, the need for justice-motivated art is stronger than ever before.

 As one of my favorite street artists recently wrote in a call to other artists: “You know what covers up graffiti best? OTHER GRAFFITI.”

 Graffiti of love. Graffiti of resistance. Street art of change. Paint is power.