Local youth exhibit in Longmont features tagging

Denver,CO,USA

Longmont - When young cavemen first etched pictures into the walls of a cave, did their fathers smile proudly through thick facial hair or chastise the youths as vandals?

The urge to put images on walls has not waned, although the tool of choice is now the spray can. As the images have become more sophisticated and intricate, so has the debate evolved: Is graffiti art or crime?

In an effort to further that debate, the Longmont Museum is exhibiting graffiti works, also known as "tagging," by local teens. The exhibit is the product of an education program that sought to teach teens art and bring them into the museum.

Beginning last fall, Jill Overlie, a program director at the museum, and Laurie Ohs, who worked for the Longmont Youth Center, teamed with two artists to offer teens classes in graffiti.

"A lot of people ask us if we're here to teach the kids to go out and tag," Overlie said. "This is really about teaching them texture and color and use of the canvas."

The program offered two multi-week sessions before the city cut Ohs' budget for art programs. Ohs estimates that the art programs, including the graffiti classes, served about 150 youths.

The first piece in the museum display is by Lorenzo Acosta, 12. It is a tribute to his older brother, who was killed in a car accident.

In the picture, his brother stands with one hand in the pocket of his jeans and the other grasping a can of spray paint. Angel wings protrude from his back, and his brown face wears a contented grin.

"When my family first looked at it, they liked it," Acosta said. "It was a relief."

His family now plans to hang the painting in the living room.

Lorenzo said he had little interest in art before taking the graffiti classes. "As soon as I started doing it, I was just having fun," Lorenzo said. "I definitely want to keep doing art."

Lorenzo works under the name "Flex," an abbreviated reference to the flexibility he shows when break dancing.

In some ways, Ohs said, the class came to mirror the classic graffiti subculture in which the taggers use pseudonyms and work in groups known as "crews."

The Longmont youths decided to call their crew "S.W.A.T.," which stands for Spraying with Advanced Technique. In a mural painted by the whole group, several people clad in paramilitary garb and armed with cans of spray paint rappel from a helicopter into a Longmont housing development.

The pieces feature carefully crafted shadows and words hidden in intricate patterns. Like those who tag subways and business walls, the Longmont youth removed the commercial caps from their cans of paint and replaced them with custom-made caps with names like the "New York Fat Cap."

"We're usually struggling to get teens into the museum," Overlie said. "This brings them in, and it challenges older visitors."

"Rhythmic Chaos: Graffiti As Art" will be on display through Sept. 5. Overlie and Ohs hope to find funding to continue the education program.

Staff writer Marcos Mocine-McQueen can be reached at 303-247-9948 or