My Public Art Post

I would have love to post a particular picture of art but unfortunately my neighborhood has been strictly erasing a lot of art work from particular stores or places due to the gang grafitti posted on the walls.  I live in Astoria Queens where a lot of gangs were formed. I can remember back in the days in 2007, I used to write on walls the letters of my gang to let people know that we control that area. I always passed by the block seeing exactly where I wrote those letters. Now all I see are gray marks covering but letters but inside I already knew where I marked my spot.

Alot of people would get offended by what we write on the walls or even in their stores. It was like they say, "We have no life". Thinking about how I was, a rebelious child with a sharpie in my bookbag all the time and just thinking on where I was going to "tag up" next, I too, agreed that I had no life. In every street, a gang sign would be written telling you where you were and what you were getting yourself into. I would ignore all the signs and trespass and tag up my gang sign telling others that we own this part of Astoria now. There have been a lot of art works done by children in public schools but thanks to our acts, we killed a lot of great painting done by schools. We would only respect the barbershops tagging up and letting people know where we at.

Around 2009, I noticed a lot of streets were perfectly clean from graffitti and other types of tagging. It was also the year where many gangs died out and where most kids would either join another growing gang or catch up with their school work at the final minute. I left the gang life in 2008 and convincing others to leave and to think about their lives and continue being in school. I regret writing on the walls because now most places that had artwork are mostly plain. Monumental works have been painted over all due to our dumb selves. If Astoria still has some type of art design or painting in a wall, it would pretty much be a tattoo parlor.