Grappling with graffiti

Santa Fe struggles to get a grip on illegal markings some tout as art

Julie Ann Grimm | The New Mexican

7/6/2008 - 7/6/08

Angled lines of black marker appear on a pole, a water meter cover and a mailbox.

Six-foot tall letters explode in tangled color, dashed across the concrete foundation of a warehouse. A civil rights leader stares from cinder blocks.

Spray-paint scrawl crosses out another gang's mark.

It's all graffiti. Some of it is art. Some of it is simple vandalism. Some blur those lines. Almost all of it is left on someone else's property or the public's.

No matter how you define it, Santa Fe city government responses, such as requiring private cleanup, sending out paint-over crews and trying to catch offenders, haven't stopped it. Perpetrators who want to move from tagging to art say there aren't enough legal outlets for such self-expression. Others see their hobby as a form of cultural resistance and aren't ready to quit.


Last February, Conrad Crespin moved out of obscurity and into notoriety. A lifelong fan of graffiti, he got caught in the act. The night before Valentine's Day, the 21-year-old wasn't thinking about the potential consequences. He was bummed about a recent breakup. He wanted the world, and the girl, to know he still had love in his heart.

Crespin hit the streets near the Santa Fe Plaza with a couple of cans of red paint, marking walls at a bank, a gallery, a former restaurant — even a street sign — with his message: Amor Libre, or free love. Police, alerted by a security guard, caught up with him as he ran. The story of the rare graffiti arrest made front page news.

Next week, 22-year-old Crespin, who also tagged "Artone" than night, is scheduled to stand trial on four counts of unauthorized graffiti on personal property, facing a sentence that could include community service and jail time.

In the months since his arrest, he said in a recent interview, he has given up the illegal late-night projects and spent more time pursuing fine art. He also serves on a committee of the city's Anti-Graffiti Task Force, as an advocate for places where people can paint without worry. He also volunteers with the nonprofit Fine Arts for Children and Teens.

"For every one graffiti artist that does beautiful art work, there are probably five kids who are just writing their name," he said. "Where I see graffiti going in the future is that the city leans more toward street art."

Crespin still has a soft spot for unauthorized displays. He has traveled overseas to look at graffiti and is working on a book about graffiti in Santa Fe. He calls himself and others like him "writers," as opposed to "taggers." He does not see scribble, but communication. Someone was there. Someone has a message.

"A majority of the masses don't get to tap into that because they can't read it or because they are not necessarily looking for it. Trying to decipher is part of the fun," he said. " ... And I don't deny the fact that it is vandalism, and that is kind of what gives it its appeal."

Crespin's mother worries that her youngest child might see the inside of a jail cell if convicted of the crimes. She visited Santa Fe last month and attended the opening reception for a show of his artwork at the Aztec Cafe.

Jayna Crespin, an art student in college, was an influence on her son's artist expression. She allowed him to take over the walls of a master bedroom closet in their Portland, Ore., home as a child.

"That was his space and there were no restrictions. The only thing was, it never left the closet," she said.

It's safe to say his painting is out now. Of the 22 works in the show, 16 sold right away. Jayna said she respects her son for continuing his work on canvas and knows he will weather whatever punishment he receives for the Valentine's Day drama.

"We don't consider this indecent," she said, surveying a room full of graffiti-inspired pieces that drip with paint and feature tattered paper from old books. "We consider it an art form and feel like there should be more opportunities available."


Art isn't a word that comes to mind when Pilar Faulkner talks about her mission to attack graffiti in Santa Fe. A Tierra Contenta block captain with a career as a lobbyist, Faulkner volunteered to chair a new city group on the topic last year.

She was fed up with the increasing number of gang tags and other sprayed-on nuisances in her southwest-side neighborhood. She even videotaped a group of taggers, zooming in on their faces and graffiti. But when she turned the tape over to police, they told her the crime was a low priority.

The task force, which has conducted community outreach and learned about experiences in other cities, will advise the City Council this year about an action plan that is likely to include city staff, policy changes and education programs.

"Graffiti is a catch-all for a lot of things," she said, "but the thing that irritates people the most is tagging. That's what the big issue is, and it's vandalism. There is no artistic value in that. Any time you mark up someone's property without permission, I don't care how beautiful an art job it is, it's still vandalism. They don't want that on their property, and they have to pay to remedy that."

Santa Fe businesses spend tens of thousands of dollars every year cleaning up painted graffiti and replacing windows and glass doors that have been ruined with etched graffiti. Taxpayers also pay a hefty bill. The city spends nearly a quarter-million dollars every year on its graffiti abatement program.

James Martinez has been painting over graffiti for about 14 years on his city job. Although every summer people seem to get interested in the problem and the graffiti task force has raised some public awareness, he says, the faces change but the tagging remains the same.

His division received about 6,000 reports last year, including small marks on stop signs and large pieces along arroyos or on building walls.

City statutes call for the graffiti office to contact a property owner about graffiti to ensure it is effectively removed or obscured within 10 days. While the rules from 2006 call for convicted graffiti offenders to be pay administrative fines, no such fines have been levied, Martinez said.

A teen court sentences juvenile graffiti offenders in Santa Fe County to help with repainting, and the county's code enforcement section distributes donated paint to private landowners to help with cleanup.

One reason for repeatedly painting over of graffiti is to wear down offenders, Santa Fe County Sheriff Greg Solano said.

"One of the goals for (those who create graffiti) is to keep it up as long as possible," he explained. "So if you clean it a lot, the taggers get frustrated and go elsewhere." Conversely, he said, if private property owners leave graffiti untouched, it tends to multiply.


For nearly everyone involved in the discussion, gang tagging is in a decidedly distinct category from graffiti art and from the markings of rookies who put their name on everything that stands still.

Detective Matthew Martinez of the Santa Fe Police Department said about half the graffiti in Santa Fe is gang-related.

"Those tagging gang signs are members of gangs. They are the problem people in problem areas. They commit the burglaries. They commit the armed robberies," he said. "They are definitely involved."

Those outside the graffiti culture can't tell the difference. The general population just wants all of it curbed.

City police often are blamed for not vigorously going after vandals, often failing to file criminal complaints and administrative citations. Martinez said there's a simple reason for that: Lack of manpower.

Until recently, he was the only investigator for the department's gang unit and was also assigned unrelated cases, leaving practically zero time for preventive policing.

Trying to see that graffiti isn't simply an unpunished property crime takes both stakeouts and luck. "It's going to take us being in the right place at the right time," he said. "It's very hard to roll into an area where you know somebody is going to tag and sit on it for an hour or two hours. It's ironic, but that would be proactive. Actually sitting there."

For those graffiti vandals who do get caught, Martinez doesn't advocate that punishment is the only way to deal with them. He said he's working with the city attorney on an idea to waive prosecution for convicted offenders who volunteer for cleanup crews.


Noah MacDonald's spray-can antics led him to a level of artistic accomplishment to which many aspire and fall short. He branched into other mediums, including watercolor and digital video, and has permanent representation in a New York City gallery.

Although he moved to Marfa, Texas, this spring, MacDonald evolved as an artist in Santa Fe for about seven years. Before that, he honed his skills on the streets of El Paso and Las Cruces.

He has long since given up a life of nocturnal tagging, yet MacDonald resents Santa Fe leaders for what he sees as their criminalizing graffiti and resisting change. He appreciates the style and form of the marks he spots on the street and says viewing all graffiti as a problem won't lead to solutions.

"I look at the way some kid broke down the letter, and I am inspired," said MacDonald, 31. "I am a designer, and I am into fonts and things like that."

Granted, he says, tagging is a gateway. "It either makes a graffiti artist, or it makes a vandal," he said, "It's really what you want to get out of it and what you want to do."

In a landscape littered with sanctioned corporate advertising, cleansed of gritty expression, he figures, what's the harm in a little paint?

"This is a city that has quote-unquote prided itself on being one of the art capitals in America, and we don't even have legal walls here," he said. "... These kids don't want to paint howling coyotes anymore, and they don't want to see it anymore, and there is nothing that the city can do. This city is really trying to keep it old, you know what I mean? But it has to change, things have to adapt, to, like, grow and modify."

MacDonald said there are many reasons people get started doing graffiti. He sees it as more than simple rebellion. He sees it as a sign — conscious or unconscious — that youth want a sense of ownership.

"I think that is really how youth feel," he said. "There is this wall that is put up there by the ... elders of our society, and the youth are taking spray cans and hammers and are trying to get in. And those older people are like, 'No. We set this up. When you get older, you can set up your own wall.' "

Contact Julie Ann Grimm at 986-3017 or jgrimm@sfnewmexican.com.