Creativity in a Can

Go into a big city, and you are bound to see it everywhere. It covers walls, trains, and even entire buildings. It’s graffiti, and the place it has in our culture is debated quite frequently.

Some people feel that graffiti is ugly, that it’s a destruction of property, that it ruins the appearance of the structures that society has worked so hard to build up. I do not agree with this opinion, I think it is an outdated view, and needs to be rethought. Consider how many man made structures are around us that we have just left to rot away. These structures are far more ugly than the creatively painted designs the are graffitied onto them.

Now, I am not saying that all graffiti is great. When people decide to graffiti for a malicious purpose, then it can become a problem. Spray painting meaningless lines or words onto the brand new commuter rail car requires no creativity, and really ruins the perception of our society as a whole; we are seen as a society of destruction, rather than creation.

Fortunately, the majority of graffiti that I see is creative, original, and gets people talking. In many areas, the graffiti is the most interesting and beautiful feature in the area. This creativity, provided by members of our culture, brings creativity and life into what was once rotting steel and crumbling brick, a feat many would only dream of achieving.

While graffiti may be illegal in many areas, I feel that a good majority of it is done for the greater good of the people, and for that I commend the artists who risk legal action to bring creativity and beauty back into our increasingly bleak culture.