Graffiti as Art

One of the things I love the most about my creative journey, is that everyday is different!

8 years ago I was asked to work with the Youth Offending Team to create a course that would stop young people from doing graffiti. 

I paired up with a Graffiti Artist called Lloyd Roberts and asked the Youth Offending Team to bring me the ring leaders, the young people who were most known for graffiti.

I designed & delivered a course about entitled 'Graffiti as Art'. We studied artists from Banksy to Picasso ... We looked at the difference between 'vandalism' and 'art' & how these are viewed differently by society.

We wrote a poem about it (disguised as a rap)

Then on day 3 in came Lloyd with boards and paints ... the group were smitten. We spray painted their poem.

I remember stepping back and smiling. Here I had, in the palm of my hand, the hard core most known to the police Graffiti artists, writing and spraying a poem. 

Working in partnership with the Youth Service, I started a project called Keep it Legal with a zero tolerance for illegal graffiti, using youth club walls and an outdoors purpose built wooden wall at a skate park, to enable young people to express themselves in a positive way through Graffiti.

We had a commendation from the Commissioner for Police who said in the local papers that we had reduced illegal graffiti across the county by 70%

We were inundated with work from Police forces, asking us to run the courses. I did the design work through Creative Writing with the Young People and Lloyd did art work.

We have done amazing things together from 30 feet graffiti poems to this week's wonderful project 8 years on.

Working in partnership with Youth Service, Communities First , Artscare Gofal Celf & Parc Y Scarlets Rugby Stadium, LLoyd and I worked with a team of young people from Coed Cae School, Llanelli.

I ran a design consultation via creative writing, with stories and poems, engaging the young with their local heritage ... their history, building a sense of pride and ownership. And translated this into poems to feed back to them.

And then to the evaluation tonight ... Lloyd asked the paint teams to write a word that sums up the experience and paint it. Then I took a line from each young person and fed it back to them as a poem: -

Evaluation Poem

A Line from each Young Person

From good to AMAZING

In a matter of seconds

Learning deep lessons

Like Llanelli is better

Than I thought is was

Like Llanelli is better

Just because ...

We worked well as a team

Creativity, it seems

Brings skills

Kills boredom

Making us feel proud

Of what we do

Lots of people 

Walking through

Saying good things

About us, it's true

And I'm pleased I took part

Happy to paint

To work hard, to fill

Happy to spray together until

There's paint underground

Looking #fab, class, sound!

A new chance to do

Something new

Climbing up high

To paint the sky

A learning curve instead

(Michael feels 'like she said')

So thank you, Diolch

To the new Graffiti Crew

I'll stand up for Llanelli

Guess I'm Scarlet, too

Tonight they are all at the Parc Y Scarlets Rugby Stadium with free tickets to celebrate their achievements. When the work is completely finished, in April we are having a launch with Scarlets Players, the Mayor, Head teacher & most importantly the families and friends of the young people.

If you had have asked me when I was their age what I would be doing in my fifties, I doubt very much that I would have said that  I will be making Graffiti Poems with a gifted friend and groups of young people!

If you would like more details regarding how to have your own Grafiti Poem , feel free to drop me a line: cherylbeermusic@gmail.com