Hello, fellow collegiettes (TM). My name is Ainsley and over the next few months I’m going to be exploring the different forms of art around campus and what they have to offer Ann Arbor, and us collegiettes (TM) in particular. So the next time you head to class, take a second to look around you and check out all of the art that surrounds us every day and we can get inspired together.
We’ve all seen it. The graffiti wall on South U covered with colorful, dripping bullseyes. The ever-changing Graffiti Alley on E. Liberty. The Rock on the corner of Hill and Washtenaw that is covered in so many layers of paint you wonder if there’s really even a rock underneath it at all. My eyes have always been drawn to the street art around Ann Arbor as I walk from class to class, but I have never really stopped to think about graffitists as artists and what they represent. These anonymous creators are producing art in the most public way, through vandalism, in order to get their art to the eyes of the most people. Unlike a museum, where viewers make the choice to go look at art, the brick walls and fire hydrants around town are there for everyone who passes by every day to see – whether they make an effort to or not.
I can say I’ve been to the UMMA a few times, but I can’t tell you exactly which paintings are where or what’s going on with the new exhibit, but if you ask me about the electrical box on the corner of Washtenaw and South U, I can tell you that the paintings covering it are women of different ethnicities on faded green and yellow backgrounds and that it has gone untouched for quite a while. The real uniqueness of graffiti is that it can change at any moment. You have to take a mental picture, get your inspiration from it before it is gone. Graffiti can engage our imagination and evoke thoughts in us that go beyond the literal, unlike our chemistry or biology textbooks, and for this it is an art form well worth celebrating.
I’m sure there are citizens of Ann Arbor who pass by the same exact graffiti that I awe at and shake their heads. I can just hear them muttering under their breath, “that’s not art,” as the image of a clean-up crew scrubbing the wall with their tax dollars appears in their mind. I know they’re out there. I don’t want to say that graffiti isn’t a crime because I think that takes away from the art. Graffiti artists, like any other, choose their media for a reason. If I were to say it wasn’t a crime I would take something away from that media that they chose – public property and straying from the “normalcy” of paint on canvas. I am taking it as the whole package. Graffiti provides a great source of inspiration – for other forms of art like photography, fashion, and writing. Not to mention, the artists remain anonymous. Think about who created the art, what they looked like, what they were wearing, what they were feeling…
Graffiti not only gives your imagination a place to wander, but it also gives the brick and ivy of campus a liveliness that is so crucial to understanding Ann Arbor – and I wouldn’t want my campus any other way. Picturing the city without graffiti somehow makes it emptier, even though thousands of people crowd the sidewalks every day. Graffiti is inspirational, and for that it is an art. So go get inspired! Plan your next outfit around your favorite local street art, or break out that fancy Nikon you got for Christmas but haven’t found the time to use since classes started. (Okay, maybe that’s just me.) I definitely plan on adding my mark to the streets of Ann Arbor before I graduate. Do you?