Art scheme backfires

A graffiti wasteland
By Chris Pippos

A MOVE to allow graffiti art on a suburban street has backfired.
Instead of restricting artwork designs to a 200m wall on Pinda St, Kilkenny, as approved by Charles Sturt Council, vandals have sprayed ``tags'' on everything in sight.
Street fences, Stobie poles, kerbs, a nearby toilet block at McInerney Reserve, bollards, trees and even the roadway all have been covered in graffiti.
The gutters are littered with spray cans and other rubbish, annoying nearby workshop staff who say the council gave up removing graffiti from street fences last year.
While artists using the artwork wall have respected the street, their friends often get bored and spray public and private property at night, workers say.
On Numac boilermaker said the company had given up painting over the mess on its Pinda St fence.
``There's always an element . . . that will ruin it for others,'' he said.
Gasfitter Paul Oates said that while the artists took their work seriously and respected others, it was ``their mates that come along'' who were vandalising property.
Mr Oates said the council at first painted over the mess on workshop fences.
``They haven't come down and painted over them for a year now,'' he said.
``We used to see them all the time.''
He said it was the rubbish left behind by vandals that most annoyed him.
Charles Sturt mayor Harold Anderson said the council would now approach schools and police to discuss ways to stop the vandalism.
Mr Anderson said that while spraying the graffiti wall, made available to artists in the 1990s, was technically illegal, it was ``accepted'' by the council as a way for the artists to showcase their work.
He said the council would remove the graffiti tags on public property, but it was up to businesses to clean their own fences.
He said the toilet block would be cleaned next week.
``We need to get back to the police and talk to them, but they're already under-resourced,'' he said.