What Graffiti Gives to St. Louis

Graffiti is often associated with old crumbling buildings and urban decay, but I think it is just the opposite of that. Graffiti serves a much greater political, cultural, and creative purpose that can only be noticed once we stop to actually observe what’s around us. As human beings we filter the majority of sensory information we receive from our environment. It’s just not possible to process everything, but if you start making the effort to look for graffiti, you will see it everywhere and start to understand its importance.

If we accept graffiti as art, and not vandalism, the possibilities it holds for St. Louis are endless. One thing that makes St. Louis truly unique is the legal graffiti exposition on the floodwall in downtown St. Louis. Colorful murals and tags cover the two-mile stretch of wall along the river. The graffiti wall was originally part of an event called Paint Louis, which celebrated street art by inviting artists to St. Louis to spray-paint murals. The graffiti wall really is a beautiful attraction worth visiting, and one that St. Louis should maintain and promote. Only a handful of cities across the country have designated legal graffiti walls.

The floodwall is not the only section of St. Louis that is host to street art. One of the most eclectic shopping streets in America, the Delmar Loop has a wide variety of murals, stickers, and tags--tags are a graffiti writer’s unique pen name. The Loop attracts many graffiti artists from the St. Louis area, but on Delmar, stickers are the most prevalent form of street art. What’s great about the graffiti on the Loop is that it’s always changing, and there are new stickers up every week. Websites, artists, and local shops on the Loop use stickers as an inexpensive but creative marketing tool to promote their businesses.