Graffiti Wall for Taos Youth Sparks Concern

By Kathryn Holzka
For the Journal
    TAOS — Good fences may make good neighbors, but a plan for a so-called "free expression" wall for local kids — and maybe gang members' tagging — is drawing the ire of some in the community.
    The issue has been heating up since the beginning of the year, when the Taos Community Foundation announced it had given a $1,500 grant to the Rocky Mountain Youth Corps to create and maintain the "free expression" wall for use by young artists and to give a voice to the youth in the community and nurture their creative talent.
    The foundation raises funds and provides grants for projects in Taos County and western Colfax County.
    "We are not trying to promote graffiti," said Daniel Montoya, foundation director, who views any disagreement over the wall as a matter of semantics and misunderstanding.
    "The project is intended to give our youth an opportunity to express themselves and have a voice in the community," Montoya said. "This is something that has always been dictated to them. Young people with artistic talent can't get into galleries to show their work."
    But the man leading the campaign against the project wonders why the money can't be used to promote a more traditional form of art.
    "Why don't they just buy them some canvas and paint and find a gallery to show the art work?" asked Mike Salata of Questa, about 20 miles north of Taos.
    Salata, a former manager of Smith's Supermarket in Taos, now runs Anti Graffiti Specialists, a company that sells a graffiti removal system. He sees the "free expression" wall as nothing more than a legal sanction for graffiti vandalism.
    "Just look at the grant's guidelines as posted on the Taos Community Foundation's Web site," he said, "and tell me what will be the result."
    Both the guidelines — and a survey of 200 children conducted by the foundation — call the project a "Community Graffiti Wall For Use by Young Artists," but the guidelines say the goal is "to stem unwanted graffiti in the community."
    The guidelines, however, say "gang tagging should be allowed as a means to increase discussion and include gang members in those discussions."
    Montoya said he is confident the Rocky Mountain Youth Corps will come up with appropriate guidelines to see the project is carried out to benefit the community.
    Carl Colonius, youth corps director, said that is what the group plans to do.
    "Why not give young people the chance to do good and not make the assumption they will do bad?" Colonius said.
    Colonius said the wall will create a space for young artists to express themselves and give them a place where they will be accepted "and show the best use of young energy."
    He said the committee handling the grant is thinking in terms of murals and other forms of artistic expression and said no aerosol painting will be allowed.
    Colonius said the plan is to build a concrete-block wall covered with adobe approximately 40 feet long by 8 feet high where youth can have free access to express themselves. He added that the youth corps also would conduct outreach programs to educate children on the destructive impact and costs of graffiti.
    The group is working with the town of Taos to identify a "place in public view" where the wall can be built.
    But the guidelines also call for kids to have access to the wall 24 hours a day, seven days a week, if possible.
    "And that's the problem, just one of many, I might add," Salata said. "Who's going to control it? What's going to stop gangs from all over the state coming up here and expressing themselves, maybe even with a challenge to local gangs?
    "This is a disaster in the making," he said.
    Salata said the cost of graffiti damage locally is difficult to estimate, but said a homeowner having to repair graffiti damage to a 1,000-square-foot wall might expect to pay between $1,000 and $2,000.
    "Get tagged two or three times in a year and you are looking at major repair costs," he said.
    Taos Police Chief Neil Curran said he has serious concerns.
    "I don't support it at all," Curran said. "It's one thing if it would be used for murals, but how are you going to control what is painted and who paints it if the (wall has) 24-hour access?"
    Curran said there also is the problem of established laws.
    "It is illegal for anyone under 18 years of age to possess spray paint, and we have a teen curfew in Taos besides," he said.
    The wall, he also believes, might be used by gangs to send messages or ignite conflict, and he said he believed youngsters encouraged to use the wall would simply "move on to other areas and express themselves there."
    Curran said in the past three weeks, Taos has been the target of "extensive graffiti, all throughout the town."
    The high school, police cars, town equipment, the skate board park at the Youth and Family Center, and Kit Carson and Fred Baca parks have all been hit, Curran said.
    The police chief said he doesn't think a community-sanctioned wall will reduce the area's graffiti problem at all.
    "Most graffiti is related to gang-type activity," Curran said. "Are we now going to provide an avenue to the gangs by doing this?"