From the never ending metropolitan cityscape scattered across Southern California, to the vibrant erratic colored walls in Venice Beach; graffiti is as natural to us as catching traffic on the 10 freeway during rush hour. Just walking into downtown LA you will see billboards “bombed out,” or bus stops covered in tags. Graffiti art often gets a well deserved negative connotation to them; however, sometimes graffiti transcends the stereotype and becomes art.

There are many forms of street art out there that people use. Murals, bombs, tags, stickers(slaps), and others are used everywhere and on everything.Thankfully Cities throughout the southland recognized the beauty of these artforms and set up “legal walls” throughout the area. Angelenos see huge beautiful murals everyday. The Los Angeles Great Wall is a collaborative mural in Van Nuys, that has been up since 1976, and has been added onto ever since. It was designed by Judith Baca, coordinated by the Social and Public Art Resource Center(SPARC), with 400 community artists, and depicts the timeline of the Earth from a Los Angeles point of view. The Arts Council for  Long Beach has a program for legally perfecting the craft of graffiti murals and it is the only place in Long Beach where graffiti can be practiced within the ends of the law.

Steven Garcia is a 22 year old ex graffiti artist that practiced the craft for nine years. Garcia grew up in the Montebello, East Los Angeles area. He started out in graffiti with his friend in the fourth grade, doodling and tagging in class with his friend Gilbert. From there it progressed to painting walls in the eighth grade.

“At first I would do it because people would see my name. But then it became a stress reliever, and a way to vent. I had a lot going on then; I felt like people did not listen to me, so it was a way for me to have a voice,” stated Garcia when asked on why he would tag. Garcia said that his favorite places to paint were abandoned buildings, hospitals, malls, and train yards. Garcia would walk into these locations and feel like the place was an entire exhibit.

“I felt like I was in another world when I would walk into these places, another world just for me,” Garcia said. Most practices of graffiti are considered vandalism in the eyes of the law. Even other people that practice graffiti will often compete with space with others causing conflict. Gangs often use tagging to evoke illegal activity by marking their territory, claiming what is their’s while “disrespecting” any other tags there.

Tagging, bombing, call it anything you want- around the negative stigma it receives, graffiti has been an outlet for many people around the world. Although many use this art for the wrong reasons, for some it has become a way of life. A mechanism of escapism through self expression and skill.