I took this on a recent bike ride near McCormick Park in Missoula.

Three years ago, I wrote a post about the California Street Bridge graffiti wall in Missoula. That brief post engendered a interesting conversation in the comments thread between myself and a couple of local graffiti artists. It was particularly fascinating to me because I was taking an Art Appreciation class at the time. The discussion largely focused on the merits of legal versus illegal graffiti.

I don’t pretend to be at all knowledgeable about graffiti or the scene, but my conclusion is that thoughtfully done artistic or message graffiti can be really cool, while thoughtless “tagging” is just stupid and ugly.

I think graffiti artists should respect private property and confine their work to legal walls or ask for permission. (I confess I’m undecided about public places such as trains, freeway overpasses and bathroom walls. Technically, they’re privately or collectively owned, but it seems harmless enough.) The California Street Bridge wall is a fantastic, legal outlet for local graffiti. The owner put the metal wall up with a note that said people were welcome to use it as long as it did not degenerate into profanity, racism or hate speech. How cool is that?

Local artist and blogger Marc Moss has written a couple of thoughtful posts about graffiti:

It should make you think.
Street art should be witty in its message (and sometimes subtle).
It should be political.
When possible it should combine all of the above.

The age-old question is: What is art? I’ve pondered this question a lot over the years, and the conclusion I’ve come to is that life is art. Life, in all its beauty and ugliness. Life and death, love and hate, nature and urban trash (remember the plastic bag scene in “American Beauty”?), flowers and rotting flesh. It’s all art.

I think our challenge as human beings on this planet is to turn the ugly into beauty. Despair into joy. Hate into love. Chaos into purpose.

I believe good art is art that is beautiful or meaningful — preferably both. Good art should make you feel or think. Graffiti certainly has a place there. From vivid painted murals to scribbled hilarity, it brings a little light, a little spark, into our daily lives.

Tagging, on the other hand, is the modern equivalent of scratching your initials in a school desk — just an immature expression of ego. “I exist. Pay attention to me.”

“Kilroy Was Here,” the ubiquitous phrase and illustration popular in my parents’ generation, at least added a little humor to the urge to mark one’s territory. Even more hilarious is that the linked Wikipedia article speculates that the real Kilroy may have been from Butte, Montana, of all places. Who knew?

Links:

• My Graffiti set on Flickr
• Style Wars (Killer website and documentary history of NY graffiti)
• Echo (Missoula graffiti artist and one of the California Street wall’s biggest users)

Book report
Web designers will find this one handy: “Web ReDesign: Workflow That Works,” by Kelly Goto and Emily Cotler. It offers an organized, coherent framework for designing and redesigning websites.

Falling into fall
This time of year always makes me a little morose. It’s so beautiful, but I dread the coming months of snow, ice and mud. The leaves are hurrying down from the trees. Farmer’s market is over for the year. Dressing oneself becomes a chore. The holiday gauntlet approaches.

Los Dias de los Muertos
I went for a walk in the Missoula Cemetery yesterday. It’s beautiful in autumn. I love this quote, etched on one of the gravestones: “Do not harbour grief. Behind the curtain are hidden secrets and games of which we are not aware.”