I Don't Know Art, But I Know What I Ride

As mentioned on Monday, skateboarding attracts people from all walks, with all manner of interests outside of, yet often ultimately tied to skateboarding. A good portion of these people are visual artists. Given the abstract, often undefinable nature of both, the combination of the two is oftentimes inevitable, with examples of skateboarding crossing over into one's artwork becoming exceedingly more commonplace, amid everyone from professional artists who skate,

Lance Mountain, Pro Skater who makes Art

to professional skaters who make art, and everyone in-between.

Equally noticeable, of course, are examples of art crossing over into skateboarding; that is to say rather than a canvas being used to depict skateboarding, a skateboard can be used as a canvas. In cases such as this, it's not in any way uncommon to see one skater's art with another skater's name on it.

Mind you, an artist's work, is not limited to canvas, or seven-ply Canadian maple. Indeed, much like in skateboarding, many an artist will use whatever is at their disposal as a forum for their creative drive. Just as their skateboarding counterparts have different decks, trucks, and wheels for street spots, pools, vert ramps, and skateparks, visual artists may have various brushes, inks, paints, and spray cans for canvas, wood, paper, and yes, skateparks.

Shepard Fairey, Professional Artist who Skates

Now, for anyone who has been reading this blog with any kind of frequency, some of you may have caught on to the way I've been writing recently, and the most perceptive will be able to tell that the above preamble now segues into the topic I really intended to talk about in this post's outset. It was spurned by a recent call I got from my friend Brad, informing me that his heavily graffitied local bowl, the notorious Vanderhoof, was in the process of being coated in a layer of matte white paint: a layer of paint that he assumed would be re-covered with graffiti by the week's end. He subsequently sent me the following e-mail regarding the cover-up job:

Out with the old...

"... it defiantly pisses me off of when bowls get graffitied... for reference I sent you the picture I sent on my phone.. I didn't take any photos [with my camera] though. But I did learn the boardslide fakie on the face wall."

Now, I understand, graffiti is inherently rebellious, skateboarding is inherently rebellious. Skaters want to hone their craft, graffiti artists want to hone their craft. I am, by no means, using this post as an attempt to admonish respectable graffiti artists for wanting a right to make art. On the other hand, however, is the case that while not everybody can ride a skateboard, anybody can buy a two-dollar can of black Krylon. The reason Vanderhoof is now coated in a layer of white  is not because of the Autobots insignia carefully crafted on one wall of the hip, nor because of the clever "Vansderhoof" name-tag sprayed along the top of the tombstone's lip. Rather, Vanderhoof is likely looking more like Blanderhoof because some pubescent genius thought they were being clever by coating whatever  free concrete was left with all manner of obscenities and genitalia, likely scrawled with about as much artistic skill as the neanderthal cave drawings scattered amid the prehistoric caves of modern France. Those who aren't offended by the content ought to be offended by the abhorrently poor "artwork".

Let this be a lesson to those of you out there who think that it is cool and clever to go to your local skatepark to spray paint an eight-year-old's representation of Mommy's last gynecological appointment, with a certain four-letter word describing the view: Bad graffiti is not cool or clever, it is a lame, juvenile, eyesore, and will ruin a potentially well-graffitied park for everybody. It could be repainted a dull white, or worse:

The alternative kind of speaks for itself...

Respect your local skatepark.