Banksy

Banksy on New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

One of Banksy's favorite sayings.

Banksy on the Israeli segregation wall, "the ultimate activity holiday destination for graffiti artists." This is a subject I'm pursuing as a proposal for a travel grant at my school.

While the purpose of my project is to document the murals of Baltimore, I will still be looking out for graffiti, in both the sense of spray-painted art work and unsanctioned murals. My brother just ordered this great book that I've begun to sift through called Graffiti World: Street Art From Five Continents which essentially covers all the big names and history of graffiti, focusing primarily on the evolution of the art form starting during the 1970s in New York and Philly. Of course though, my true love is the notoriously reclusive Banksy. In the book Banksy: Wall and Piece, he writes:

"A wall has always been the best place to publish your work.

The people who run our cities don't understand graffiti because they think nothing has the right to exist unless it makes a profit, which makes their opinion worthless.

They say graffiti frightens people and is symbolic of the decline in society but graffiti is only dangerous in the mind of three types of people; politicians, advertising executives and graffiti writers.

The people who truly deface our neighbourhoods are the companies that scrawl giant slogans across buildings and buses trying to make us feel inadequate unless we buy their stuff. They expect to be able to shout their message in your face from every available surface but you're never allowed to answer back. Well, they started the fight and the wall is the weapon of choice to hit them back."

While Banky's words may be much more politically charged than the thoughts of inner city residents, the essential message nevertheless rings true. In fact I see a dialogue occurring on the walls of Baltimore; I see people using paint to express their hopes and dreams and worries; I see murals.