I have always appreciated raw talent. I remember being about 4 and staring at some protégé or another who could play the piano or violin or maybe sing a song beautifully or even calculate a math problem in a flash. This fascination for raw talent has stuck with me through the years and I still appreciate many forms of various arts.
Not least of these art forms is graffiti. I love graffiti. Mind you, let me rephrase that so that you understand me correctly: I love REAL graffiti. Not the stuff I am left to purvey every morning when doing my usual drive in. What is that anyway? You find a can of spray paint in the garage and you happen to pass a wall and you stand there for a while thinking to yourself: “Hmm, what shall my statement be for today?” I can’t help wondering what kind of moron you need to be to come up with “fuck”. Like it’s never been done before! Ooh, I am rebel, hear me roar! Not even an artistic “fck” or “fcuk” in a specific and recognisable style of graffiti, but just “fuck” in the scrawl of a 5-year old, which is seemingly the norm for these supposed “gangsters” of dull repute. It’s you giving this art form the bad publicity, so sod off and get some training, you git!
And then I avert my eyes from this random and thoughtless art crime to the grey canvas (a.k.a. the wall separating the incoming from the outgoing traffic on the N2) and I get to thinking: Why not actually allow real aspiring artists to paint this fugly wall (which is taking 4 years from my life to build)? Give each artist a section and give the lot of them a running theme to work around. Nothing wrong with making a global statement, getting talented kids off the streets and decorating a rather dreary world all in one go. Why not nurture talent rather than condemn it outright?
And since we, as a race, are so easily bored and need instant gratification in a rat-race world (okay, so maybe I am talking about ME), archive the art-works, paint the canvas white again and pick a new theme next year.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder … so give me something to behold.
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