Jeloe started appreciating graffiti in 1983. He and his father were leaving a San FranciscoCandlestick Park, on a bus headed home. At 5-years-old, he looked up, and on the roof of the bus he saw an entire world of colorful lettering and characters. His dad explained “tagging,” and that it was “wrong;” and also that people get away with it by just hitting anyone who gives them any lip. Jeloe remembers thinking: “cool…” 49ers game, at
Since then, Jeloe has become a recognized graffiti artist in the bay area, and all over the world. But San Francisco was his training grounds; his alma mater, if you will. He’ll never forget the graffiti scene that The City breathed for most of the last three decades. It was an open-minded melting pot of crafty colors, arrows and flow; moving doo-dads and bits blasting into a free-formation of art, birthed in the city by the bay, by way of paint and ink, and the minds of its young creators.
Like the city itself, San Francisco street art has transformed a lot over the last 25 years. Between 1993 and 2000, people from all over the world flocked there to do graffiti, and the scene they found was already in full bloom. The local styles became internationally known for their diversity and unique flare. The City was a serious Mecca for the art form. But things have changed. Harsh penalties keep only the heaviest risk takers active on the streets. It’s not what it once was. And it will never be that again.
“It’s in a stagnant phase now,” says Jeloe. “A lot of the people who were into it got pushed out because of the risk of catching a strike on your record. Some of the people with a lot less to lose stayed behind.”
Jeloe says there are still a lot of talented people grinding out graffiti in San Francisco, but a lot less than there used to be. It’s just a lot different now, he says; this was before the dot-com boom, and post-millennial gentrification set in. Nowadays, just about every piece of property is protected by some anti-graffiti watchdog.
“It was a fun and exciting place to be,” says Jeloe. “The schooling I got from paying attention to, and being a part of, what was going on there is priceless. You can go to DeVry or you can go to Harvard. For graffiti, San Francisco was Harvard.”
“But, I don’t have anything to show for it except my pictures and my words.”
Because of the inherently temporary nature of illegal graffiti, many artists photograph their work whenever possible. But gathering a comprehensive collection of media that truly illustrates San Francisco’s graffiti movement is not a task to be taken lightly, and especially not without the right connections.
Nic Hill’s film “Piece by Piece,” part of KQED’s “Truly CA” series of independent documentaries that showcase The Golden State, delves deep into this rich history alongside the people that lived it. Over 100 hours of interview and footage have been cohesively edited into a journey through art, culture and controversy. Piece by Piece is a living record of a time lost. It premiers Sunday night at 6:00 p.m. on KQED channel 9.
“The film offers a good opportunity to learn what the movement was all about,” says Hill. “It’s a celebration of the beauty of art that is gone forever, and the lives of the people who created street art in San Francisco.”
Hill says it’s more difficult than ever to do graffiti in San Francisco. Mayor Gavin Newsome’s zero tolerance position on graffiti has driven a lot of talented writers out of town, he said. And while new graffiti emerges almost every night, The City tries to paint over as much as possible, almost every day.
“The entire N Judah tunnel used to be covered with burners; it was like a preserved art gallery in there,” says Hill. “But about a year ago, the city painted over everything; and now anytime someone gets up, it gets covered up right away.”
“Graffiti is an important part of our society. It’s free artistic expression in a land of consumerism and big business control. It’s arguably the last form of free speech.”
Hill used to write graffiti in San Francisco, but found that his artistic expressions were not limited to that medium in particular.
“Graffiti was sort of a stepping stone for me,” says Hill. “I was really able to gravitate toward graffiti, and I got into filmmaking from there. It’s all about channeling creativity—there’s a similar connection.”
On Monday afternoons, Dave Warnke, a local street artist who recently “retired” to start a family, teaches high school students to look at their own graffiti a little bit differently. At Street Styles, an after school visual arts program at Root Division in San Francisco, teenagers explore the line, color and composition techniques used by popular graffiti artists and taggers.
“A vast majority of the kids are, or have been active vandals,” says Warnke. “The goal is to tunnel their interest in art into something more legal.”
Four years ago, Warnke created Street Styles to offer a class that he never had the opportunity to take. And by actively separating the art and the act, he helps students find a middle ground between graffiti and vandalism.
“Graffiti is very fashionable now, and accepted in the mainstream culture. It helps sell movies, clothes and even sodas. It’s getting more respect than ever, from the art world, but the act is still illegal.”
Warnke says the goal of Street Styles is to get young artists off the streets and away from other crime. He wants to teach them skills and create a positive safe place to create and share their work, with context. He helps them understand the concerns of property owners, as well as the laws and other risks associated with graffiti.
According to Warnke, The City’s Graffiti Advisory Board is getting increasingly “hardcore” about cleanup and punishment. He plans to meet with the board’s chairperson, Mohammed Nuru, this week to discuss graffiti issues, and to advocate on behalf of young graffiti artists like his students.
“These kids want to make art,” says Warnke. “Many cops, teachers and residents want to stop them. I want to be a bridge between those two warring factions.”
Nuru is also the Deputy Director of Operations with San Francisco’s Department of Public Works. Under his leadership, the 25-member Graffiti Advisory Board meets once a month at city hall to share information and advise the city on possible legislations and ordinances to abate illegal graffiti activity.
“Graffiti is not art. The main difference between graffiti and art is permission,” says Nuru. “There’s nothing good about going and defacing someone’s property.”
According to Nuru, the number of graffiti related arrests the city makes increases every year, and more often than not, the apprehended artists are from out of town.
“Our city is a destination for a lot of these vandals,” says Nuru. “We’re spending millions of dollars fighting graffiti, when we could be using that money to make the city more green and clean, and to help the homeless.”
Nuru says that the city is doing everything they can to arrest as many illegal graffiti artists as possible, and that they’ll follow up with prosecution. That can mean a minimum of 100 hours of community service, probation, curfews and restraining orders from certain parts of town, a year without a driver’s license; and even time in prison.
“This isn’t about us not accepting the art; it is how it’s done that’s the problem,” says Nuru. “Without permission, it’s completely unacceptable.”
In the early 1990s, with the closure of such legally overlooked graffiti venues as “Psycho City,” which was a series of empty lots on Market Street where artists threw up huge burners and tags in broad daylight, illegal street art exploded in San Francisco. This was when many young artists became overnight criminals.
The San Francisco Police Department states that up to $400 worth of graffiti damage is punishable by up to 1 year in jail and a $10,000 fine. More than $400 worth can be punished as a felony, even for minor, by up to 3 years in state prison and a fine of up to $50,000. Parents and guardians of minors arrested for writing graffiti can also be fined, and even jailed, for failing to supervise their children.
San Francisco residents are also being encouraged to help the city curb illegal street art on their own. The city offers its residents monetary compensation for anonymous tips leading to the conviction of anyone doing illegal graffiti in San Francisco. Other programs give local volunteers the ability to paint over street art themselves.
Merle Goldstone heads the Department of Public Works’ Graffiti Watch Program, through which residents are encouraged to adopt four city blocks where they would work to prevent and remove graffiti from public property.
“We notify private property owners of graffiti, and give our volunteers the training, supplies and permission to remove it from public property,” says Goldstone. “We want the city to look clean, and keep people feeling safe.”
But beyond the immanent threat of graffiti, and beyond cleanliness, there is also the soul of a city to worry about. There was a time when a local a grassroots art movement grew into a microcosmic legacy that is purely San Francisco. This was when tolerance and appreciation of abstract beauty seemed to take precedence over the status quo, and over urban development; before “quality of life issues” became such a high priority problem.
“When graffiti is done right, it’s a reminder of the liberality of the city, where there really is diversity and options,” says Jeloe. “Graffiti is physical proof that there are people who are deeply rooted in culture, and they’re not just sheep.”
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