Graffiti Homework

I took a class this past weekend that focused on the intersection between text and images. One of our assignments was to document graffiti we see in our neighborhood or city. Immediately thought of this shell of a building across the river, but didn't have time to go out there on Friday before class, so I wandered around my neighborhood looking for some graffiti or public art to photograph. Here's what I found:

I started around a bar in NW--

And moved on to PNCA....

Some of these images I doctored or Instagrammed, some not so much. Once I found these though, I started seeing graffiti everywhere, and the next day after class I went to that shell of a building across the river and took these:

"Don't break me, I'm beautiful."

"Beards are Hot."

I love the graffiti trees rising from the plants taking over this building.

I've been noticing graffiti and stickers and other, well, creative vandalism around where I am now, and though I know I probably wouldn't like my property tagged, I do find graffiti to often be aesthetically pleasing, often interesting, and not over-intrusive, when taken as a whole. Of course some places are completely covered in graffiti. I don't know how to carefully impart my meaning here, having no expertise in the politics of graffiti and its removal, but I think the world is a little more interesting with it. As someone who's interested in text and its use, message, and medium, I almost have to find it fascinating: What is the use? Who works with graffiti? Whose voices are being represented, and do they feel heard? As Nance Van Winckel says in her essay "Astral Project Town: Butte, Montana", in Poetry Northwest: "Like good poems, graffiti often reverberate the big emotions: love and grief, joy and anger. But primarily, the messages affirm sheer being, unequivocal presence, a presence that's not only an act of language, but a physical thing: paint flecks and spray paint 'put up' in a mad frenzied rush." These rushes of physical language appear on many surfaces: claiming any blank surface, sometimes covering other graffiti in layers. As an observer, I can't help but wonder who is behind the markings.

The next night, while walking with my guys to get dinner, I saw these:

All within a few blocks. In class the day before, I had noted several sitings of graffiti by Humen. While going to dinner, I see three tags by Humen in a row, and so I'm left with one main question: Who is Humen? Why is he everywhere?

I'll continue to look.