Whether art or vandalism is in the eye of the beholder

Some paint with permission, others are outlaws

Tyrone Walker
The Post and Courier

Jermaine Pinckney of James Island uses his cell phone to get word out about a graffiti mural painted on the back of a building on Folly Road. The 10 panels, painted with permission, draw steady traffic.

Tyrone Walker
The Post and Courier

A mural painted by Doug 'The Sheepman' Panzone graces the College of Charleston's freshmen dorm complex. Painted on the inner wall of the complex, it cannot be seen from the street, thus passing Board of Architectural Review muster.

Video

Sandy Logan, VP LS3P Associates, talks about the mural College of Charleston commissioned from mural artist, Doug Panzone. Watch »

Tag, you're it. If you're a graffiti artist.

Spray-paint street art is the underground rebel art, getting popular recognition as police and local communities try to wipe out the "tagging" vandalism that inspires it. While the city of Charleston cracks down on vandals defacing historic buildings such as McLeod Plantation, colorful emblems and fresco-like fantasy figure landscapes are getting shipped across country — cell phone to cell phone, Facebook to Facebook, Web site to Web site.

The artists have their roots in tagging, the act of scrawling initials, symbols or images across any blank wall as a way of marking territory or saying, "look at me, look at what I did." The best of them work with property owners' permission. But not all of them do.

For some sprayers, the thrill is charged with the in-your-face rush of getting away with it. They try to put their mark on the most brazen spot possible. Others are working legally, but partly because of the stigma, they keep their heads down, and many of their fans don't know who they are.

But the fan base, mostly young people, is growing. They hunt out walls for the latest find, snapping a cell phone photo and hitting the send button. That Internet exposure has more people hitting town to gape for themselves.

Vandalism is giving way to a vanguard.

"It's a double-edged sword," Charleston Police Cpl. Ed Robinson said . "You're talking about a commissioned piece of art, whether it looks like graf-fiti or not. Does it promote graffiti? I would assume it does. But it would also give them ways to express themselves legally."

Destination wall

Ten wall panels behind the Buffalo South shopping center on Folly Road are now a counterculture icon, painted with images such as a river landscape and a woman with dark, haunting eyes. On a recent midweek, more than a half dozen cars turned off the road to cruise past it in less than a half hour.

Why?

"One word: Amazing," Jermaine Pinckney, 20, of James Island, said as he held up his cell phone background image of the dark-eyed woman with the wall mural behind him. He sent that image to friends across the state after his cousin took him to see it.

Mary Ann Sullivan of Greenville didn't really want to drive out Folly Road and was a little intimidated at driving behind the building. But her daughter, Courtney Sullivan, had heard about it as a student at College of Charleston. Courtney said her mom had to see this. Then mom had Courtney turn around and drive by a few more times.

"It's a gallery in itself," Mary Ann Sullivan said.

That kind of attention is pushing people like Doug "The Sheepman" Panzone, who did the mural, into the mainstream — even as he does his best to stay out of it. Besides a brief e-mail, Panzone, of Mount Pleasant, didn't respond to requests for interviews for this story.

"It's a subculture movement growing exponentially," Seth Curcio, Redux Contemporary Art Center director, said. He has hosted an exhibit by Panzone, his friend.

"Graffiti was born as a form of rebellion," Curcio said. "We started trying to refine the skills, how to paint with aerosol, working intuitively, being able to cover a huge amount of space in a short length of time. The interest is in pushing it as far as you can using that tool."

Most illegal graffiti that Charleston police see wouldn't qualify as art, Robinson said. It's symbol tags. Panzone worked with the property owner's permission, but others are spraying across the misdemeanor line.

The tag

Last year, after graffiti tags spiked to nearly 300 per month, Charleston Police went after the vandals and made about a dozen arrests. Since then, incidents have dropped to fewer than 100 per month, Robinson said.

Vandal or not, graffiti is scribbling its way into popular expression. After a 9-year-old trying to cross Ladson Road in Summerville was killed by a hit and run driver in July, roadside mourners set out a wreath and other symbols on the curb where it happened. Some also spray-painted messages to the victim.

Keeping the art underground is part of the mystique for the artists and audience, Brian Muller, 24, of Charleston, said. "You do have to go 'behind the building' to see it. Only people in the know, know about it."

But it's not staying underground. Muller is one of the founders of tagrecord.com, an online repository for artistic graffiti imagery. The Web site allows people to post and view on-the-street exhibits, legal or not.

"We vociferously oppose illegal graffiti. If it's illegal, it shouldn't have been done. It is, nonetheless, art, and as such can be recorded," Muller said. The site urges opening more legitimate venues.

Just recently created, the site already is getting a few hundred hits per day. They're getting out-of-town submissions and thinking the site might go national.

The site includes a how-to on using non-destructive graffiti such as vinyl stickers. Muller also is beginning to see digital graffiti — literally photos of bare walls digitized on a computer, creating complex images that couldn't be done in spray paint.

The mainstream

One of the people who has stumbled across the Buffalo South mural is Sandy Logan, vice president of the design firm LS3P Associates. He first saw it while doing early design work for the new College of Charleston freshmen dorm complex.

He knew he wanted something like that. He didn't have a concern over it being considered graffiti.

"It's a language in the spirit of the students. It would just do so much for the spirit if you could wake up in the morning and see that rather than a blank wall," he said.

Logan had to convince the Board of Architectural Review in a city that has a law restricting wall art visible from the street. He and Panzone worked out a vast mural where images of the school's "left brain" and "right brain" academic departments merge. It was painted on the inner wall of the complex; it can't be seen from the road.

The Buffalo South building owner, Ken Berlinsky, said Panzone approached him about doing the 10-panel mural on the back wall because Panzone wanted room to practice large scale. Berlinsky agreed, for a telling reason — he wanted to do something about the taggers' scribblings that had been defacing the wall.

"I figured they would respect each other," he said. "And I'd rather have something pretty back there instead of graffiti."

Reach Bo Petersen at 745-5852 or bpetersen@postandcourier.com.