Not graffiti

I am about to give vent to one of my favourite gripes.

Having just watched the tail end of a program about 'saving' (from the consequences of their stupidity? Sorry!!!) young offenders by offering them self esteem in the form of various classes at a youth drop-in centre...a most admirable programme I might add...nevertheless the issue that always gets my steam up is when the programme directors/instructors whatever you call them, refer to the painting these kids do as 'graffiti' just because they use spray can paints.

Whilst these paintings might be in the style and use the mediums used by 'graffitti artists' (an oxymoron if ever there was one) IT IS NO LONGER GRAFFITI WHEN THE WORK IS BEING DONE ON CANVAS, BOARD, OR ANY OTHER SURFACE THAT HAS BEEN GIVEN TO THEM BECAUSE IT IS BEING DONE WITH KNOWLEDGE AND PERMISSION.

Graffiti is by definition something done out of frustration, rebellion or both and usually on someone else's property. Its intent is to 'dis the bourgeois', to revolt against the constraints of rules, it is in short; VANDALISM.

And when one of the aspirant artists then says with a knowing smirk that human beings' first artistic responses were those of graffiti, by which I assume that she is referring to cave paintings, that's when I am glad I don't have a gun so I cannot pull an Elvis on my TV.