Cleaning up: balance needed in never ending graffiti conundrum

We spend a lot of time and effort in cleaning up graffiti.

But we do more than that. We get really worked up about it.

Some people hate graffiti with a passion, something which I find hard to fathom.

Before you get the wrong idea let’s make one thing clear: I am against graffiti as much as the next person. I wish people didn’t splash graffiti everywhere.

It’s obviously illegal and it defaces private and public property, from metal fences to brick walls to car parking sites.

The most outrageous one I know – a car parking site covered in graffiti – is right next to the Casula Powerhouse water towers.

Ironically, the outside of the towers has been a “legal’’ graffiti site, but obviously these giant tanks don’t satisfy the appetite of graffiti perpetrators.

Maybe they should provide them with a bigger ladders so they can reach higher parts of the towers.

Thinking back over the years, I don’t recall seeing graffiti where I’ve thought: Now that’s nice. That’s art.

But then again I’ve been to art galleries where weird  installations, TV screens running non stop and other ridiculous contraptions are formally and seriously  exhibited as “art’’.

In fact, let’s call a spade a spade: there’s a lot of crap in art galleries these days masquerading as “art’’.

I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that graffitists would consider themselves superior “artists’’ to some of the people behind some of the stuff in art galleries these days.

Not that there is any excuse for any graffiti, anywhere.

The problem with graffiti is that it’s so pervasive – it’s bloody well everywhere.

And there is no easy answer about what to do about it or those who practice it.

One of the first places to start is in the home: graffitists are someone’s son or daughter, someone’s sister or brother.

[social_quote duplicate=”no” align=”default”]It would be better all round if a conversation about graffiti was conducted within the family rather than at a police station.[/social_quote]

Or indeed the hospital, considering how risky some graffiti can be.

But these people must understand that they are breaking the law and should look for a legal way to express themselves.

As for the rest of us, let’s look for a balanced approach to this issue.

An approach that is realistic about where graffiti is in the pecking order of twenty-first century problems.

It’s not the worst problem we have and it’s not the most trivial issue we face.

It is really somewhere in the middle and that’s how we should deal with it.