Graffitti artists fight tagging epidemic
After eight months and 10 murals, the San Francisco Art Commission’s pilot program StreetSmARTS, is ready for its second year with triple the funding according to its affiliates.
By Isaiah KramerThe Guardsman
After eight months and 10 murals, the San Francisco Art Commission’s pilot program StreetSmARTS, is ready for its second year with triple the funding according to its affiliates. Over the course of next fiscal year, artists will complete an additional 20 murals as part of the program. The locations are undecided even as more property owners become willing to participate. This is partly because property owners are subject to fines for graffiti on their buildings, and responsible for the removal of said graffiti.“The program is funded by the Department of Public Works and they were happy with the results,” SFAC representative Robynn Takayama said of the increased budget. The SFAC contacted the DPW, which spends $22 million annually combating graffiti, and proposed StreetSmARTS with the hypothesis that more murals equals less graffiti. With an open mind to an alternative approach, the DPW agreed to fund the program. The DPW provided contact with property owners afflicted by chronic graffiti vandalism, and the SFAC auditioned 82 muralists. Only 22 artists were chosen to paint for this first round. The murals are spread throughout the city. Most are in the Mission, but there is one each in the Tenderloin, the Bayview, and the Outer Sunset. “I got really tired of cleaning up graffiti,” participating property owner Leslie Hollingsworth said. There has been no vandalism to the mural side of her building, but some on the unpainted building front, she said. “I expect to have the mural extended around the whole building.” Painter Bryana Fleming completed a mural at the corner of Third and Palou streets, though her wall wasn’t blank. “He told me to paint whatever I wanted,” she said referring to the property owner. “I was the only person who painted over a mural, one that had been there 15 years,” Fleming said there were objections, “but by the end people were like ‘Oh my God,’ even this guy that initially ostracized me ... A lot of the neighborhood’s energy got put on that wall.” Fleming’s mural depicts the environmental atrocities and community destruction that Bayview and Hunter’s Point neighborhoods have suffered as a result of their close proximity to the former Naval toxic-waste dump.Initially conceived as a possible method to combat “tagging” and graffiti vandalism, the program also promotes local artists and beautifies San Francisco’s colorful neighborhoods.
