All Stories
Shopping centers struggling to fill vacancies are losing more than leasing income; they are also losing money to restore property that has been defaced by taggers who see easy targets in the empty spaces. Some centers, however, have found an interesting solution to the problem: paying local artists to paint murals relevant to the neighborhood culture. Wide Open Walls is a wonderful non-profit program that coordinates putting art out in public spaces, and the program has realized surprising success at reducing graffiti. Research has shown that taggers avoid painting over another artist’s work, seeing themselves as keepers of the open space art community, protective of others’ artistic story.
“Research suggests that painting multi-colored designs or murals on surfaces will discourage graffiti, since tagging is more difficult.” — pps.org
The tagging community itself has come a long way since it first emerged in the 80’s. I used to drive by overpasses and wonder how taggers could crawl up there to leave their mark. I discovered this is known as “Heaven” and is considered an accomplishment because the tag is so difficult to remove. I also found out about “Blockbusters,” huge spaces peppered with gang rivalry messaging.
Blockbusters often incorporated the letter “K” at the end of the tag to signal the desire to kill or be king. But over time, things have slowly changed. Once an expression of rage and daring, taggers have come to see themselves as contemporary artists telling personal stories of struggle. That doesn’t mean that taggers are no longer affiliated with gangs or that their work is not sometimes destructive. It does mean they may be less likely to deface other artists’ work when they come across it.
Our marketing agency started producing murals for clients 15 years ago when we began with a high school art project. Students from eight San Jose schools submitted their creative renderings to be displayed on empty store fronts. At first I was a skeptic, paranoid someone would paint or tag over these beautiful works of art. We put additional dollars into the project to apply graffiti protection on each mural. Much to my surprise, not one mural was ever defaced.
“Such mural projects, especially when they involve local artists and high school students, have solved many graffiti problems.” — pps.org
With this knowledge it is clear to me that murals are integral to our communities. We try to commission artists who tell a story and represent the markets we are communicating with. Our vision at CMA for the next two years is to begin producing more murals as an additional service for clientele. The projects are not low budget, and they are not easy to manage. Artists can be difficult to supervise and often have a different vision; they often tell me, “Hey, Kim, you can’t rush art” or “Art isn’t cheap, and you can’t rush the process.” Those of you who know me well, know I want it fast, cheap, and wonderful. But the point of this blog is that I think local art is worth the time and money, and I value the result of putting something wonderful on our walls for our guests to enjoy.
And it is a lot less money in the end if we have a visual display of beauty less likely to be defaced. I hope we can continue to explore new ways to protect our investments while bringing the community together with an important message of supporting each other through creative ways of communicating, listening, and respecting one another.