Graffiti Lesson

​I signed up for a three-day graffiti workshop, and knew after the first hour that what I was looking for was un-teachable.   Sure, I learnt that spraying is hard on your hand and forearm, that it’s difficult to forget about the uncomfortable mask pulling on your face, that fumes irritate your eyes.  My disappointment had less to do with the challenges of the technique—which, as in any art form, one needs to master—but with my realization that graffiti is, in essence, all about layering, about writing (or spraying) over a surface already shaped by others, about the aesthetic of chance. I recognized that most of my life I’ve been looking for the blank canvas, the blank page, the starting from scratch, when graffiti is, quite literally, about “scratching” into something already there.  About dialogue.  It’s about letting the earlier shine through, not painting it over.