During the summer, many Americans trundle off with friends, family (and dog), or both to visit, spend time or relax at popular East Coast beach towns. If you participate in or witness this annual ritual you may eventually notice that there is a significant amount of homogeneity, predictability, redundancy and eventual monotony in the towns, restaurants, houses, and people who vacation there. In fact, from the Jersey Shore down to the Florida Keys, from Ocean City, MD, Kitty Hawk, NC or Pawleys Island, SC most beach towns look pretty much the same.
How so? The towns have small alcohol, grocery, pharmacy, and book stores and supermarkets like Food Lion, Piggly Wiggly and Publix. Other stores sell beach related items like balls, boogie boards, swim suits, sunglasses, towels, etc. They may also stock t-shirts, baseball hats, or even boxes of salt water toffee with the name of the town emblazoned on them (all manufactured somewhere else). And then there are the “cute” little gift stores that sell all sorts of chachkas.
Outside of town there may be a a trailer park or RV campsite, or a water park, golf, mini-golf or go-kart course, boat dealerships, or a big box store like Walmart or Sam’s club. Otherwise there are a smattering of establishments that rent or sell cars, bikes, jet skis, and fishing related items, and the like.
Most beach towns are also home to “local” restaurants, and drinking establishments. Don’t expect five star, nor authentic ethnic restaurants. The majority of places to eat, are your typical fast food chain establishments, that serve traditional items like hamburgers, subways, steaks, and pizza. Yes there is fish. Rarely is it fresh. It’s primarily deep fried served with a heap of fries on the side. These towns are relatively safe, with low levels of crime and nary a scintilla of graffiti or street art.
The houses, most of them sporting beach sounding names (incorporating types of birds, fish, planets, etc.), are usually designed and built for accommodating more than one family or a large swath of friends, with some erected on stilts, and with large decks that are great for entertaining, and with view of the beach or a dock that extends out to a sound or a bay. Others come with pools and palm trees, and large kitchens for group cooking activities. The furniture inside these abodes consists of large sofas, big beds, with pink and pastel color patterns. Otherwise there’s lots of wicker furniture.
What’s most noticeable, is that the majority of people who visit these towns are white, and most likely middle class and from the suburbs. Yes, occasionally African-American, Hispanic and Asian families will visit, but it is odd to see someone of these backgrounds outside of the service personnel. In short, there is little diversity.
So what? None of what I have described should sound surprising. After all the amenities that East Coast beach towns provide pump money into the local economy. For people looking for a relatively low stress vacation, beach towns may be perfect as they do a relatively good job catering to visitors’ culture and their consumption patterns. Thus the amenities that are available, the types of products that are sold, and the kinds of things that people do for fun in these locations are pretty much what tourists who visit these towns want and expect.
In many respects, however, the towns reproduce the suburbs but with sand, sun and ocean scenery. Most people who enjoy the beach vacations probably also like all-inclusive resort vacations, and cruises for the same reasons they like beach towns. Again, each of these vacation options fulfill a role in our capitalist society.
On the other hand, Why might the beach town vacation be problematic? If you go on vacation, shouldn’t you want a little adventure, to step outside your comfort zone? What about surprises, and taking risks? And I don’t mean the airlines losing your bags. If the beach vacation is your only time to take an extended break, then it might be appropriate to consider why it makes sense for you and other options at your disposal.
Photo title: East Coast Beach Town
Photo credit: Jeffrey Ian Ross
https://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/IMG_6812.jpg378640Jeffrey Ian Rosshttps://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/jeffrey-ian-ross-logo-04.pngJeffrey Ian Ross2021-08-19 16:26:322022-11-13 19:18:58Why do most East Coast beach towns in the United States seem the same?
Some individuals suggest that the origins of graffiti date back to the prolific work of the late 1960s “Old School” New York City subway graffiti writers. Others may interject by saying that one need only look at the political slogans of “wall painters,” that appeared during the numerous domestic and international conflicts of the 20th century. And then there are commentators who announce that clearly the relatively abundent graffiti that was done during ancient times in places like Pompei, Rome, or around Greece.
Frequently, however, I read or hear people say that we are all wrong, because the earliest type of graffiti is the cave painting. In fact, many of us who are knowledgeable about graffiti and street art have done this at some point in time.
Why is this wrong?
Although connecting the origins of graffiti to cave painting is both romantic and provocative, it’s a highly flawed assertion. Why?
First, we don’t have perfect knowledge about what occurred in those caves inhabited by our Paleolithic cousins. But even if we did, there is no reason to believe that the markings were done without the consent of the person who lived or worked there and not some sort of an intruder.
Second, some people may have mistakenly inferred that Banksy, the infamous British street artist, has suggested that the origins of graffiti was cave art. To clarify, he has done at least two works referencing prehistoric art. The first, in 2005, was when he (and perhaps his team) smuggled a fake rock art piece of a caveman pushing a shopping cart into the British museum. (This work remained on display for three days before it was discovered and removed). The second, in 2008, is a wall Banksy did that resembled the prehistoric cave paintings in Lascaux, France, but with a city worker who was pressure washing it away. Although these pieces make reference to a continuum, neither of them explicitly or implicitly suggest that they the cave art is or was graffiti.
Third, in order to judge or perhaps legitimate the existence of an action, behavior, or even a body of work, some people and organizations feel compelled to go to great lengths find historical anchors, no matter how flimsy the evidence. We see this with political campaigns, in the web sites of academic institutions, and with large corporations. This may also be the case with graffiti and street art.
Fourth, one of the most important reasons why some people believe that cave paintings are graffiti, is a failure to understand different definitions of graffiti, of which there are many. Although numerous definitions abound, in general graffiti is a type of vandalism that involves the willful and unwarranted act of marking a surface (e.g., wall, post, etc.). And when we examine the prehistoric cave paintings regardless of location, we should quickly realize that the markings are not graffiti.
Solutions
There are a handful of important strategies to combat this sort of thinking. It’s absolutely necessary when one attempts to develop a graffiti and street art literacy, to consult reliable sources. This includes, respected experts and peer review research. An expert is not necessarily a practitioner like a person who does a lot of tagging. The writer may know the best spots to get up (i.e., place their tags), but s/he may not be as well informed as the next guy. And just because someone has lived experience, it does not mean they have deep knowledge about a subject.
Peer review research is the gold standard in scholarly circles. It’s cumbersome and imperfect, but it is better threshold from which to judge the veracity of statements than lots of information that is readily available on the world wide web. More specifically, as of this writing there are two journals that specialize in publishing scholarship on graffiti and street art, Nuart Journal and Urban Creativity, both on-line. But these publications are not the only places to look for peer reviewed research on graffiti and street art. Many of the art, urban studies, and social science journals have occasional articles about graffiti and street art. Also there are an increasing number of peer reviewed books that are published that examine graffiti.
Thus it is time to stop blaming the caveman and do some homework when tracing back the origins of graffiti.
Photo Credit: Chris Beckett
Banksy, Council worker cleaning up the cave paintings – The Cans Festival, Waterloo, London
https://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/2465093025_4a6c9c8ff8_o.jpg608851Jeffrey Ian Rosshttps://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/jeffrey-ian-ross-logo-04.pngJeffrey Ian Ross2021-08-12 05:31:272021-08-12 05:31:27Stop giving the Neanderthals so much credit. Why prehistoric cave painting is not graffiti
Short of asking the writer or artist to explain his or her thought process surrounding the design and placement decisions behind a tag (the most common type of graffiti), piece, throw-up, etc., (or series of them), there are multiple ways to understand this activity.
One way of dissecting graffiti pieces and street art, is by thinking about the lines, colors, shapes, symbols, icons, repetition, and use of shadows, etc. that its practitioners play with.
Initially I try to quickly categorize the work. I ask myself is the piece mainly graffiti or is it primarily street art (i.e., stickers, noncommercial posters, stencils, etc.)? Then again, sometimes the work is not categorizable or easily categorizable.
I then ask, how much effort went into the piece, and this often gives me an indication about whether or not it is simply a tag or throw up, or something else, etc.
I also look at where the piece is located (also known a spot theory), in particular what type of surface is the work located on? Is it placed on a door, a mail box, a light pole, and where on that object? It is at eye level, or at foot level, or high up forcing the observer to ask the all too familiar question how did they manage to place the piece in that location without risking injury or death? The piece of graffiti or street art may be found on a street with a lot of pedestrian or vehicular traffic, or it may be in a back alley. Each of which sets up a dynamic of possibilities presented to the writer or artist.
If the piece is a tag or bubble letter design, I look at the size and try to determine what type of element or tool (i.e., marker, aerosol spray paint, paint brush, or even etching solution) the writers used to make their mark on the surface. I look for something called hand style; this embodies where the tag starts, where it ends, are there drippings, and were these drippings intentional? Are they simply lines or are there dots too? If so how many? How fat or narrow are the lines, dots, and does the writing try to emulate any know type styles. How many tags or stickers, posters, or stencils (in the case of street art) are there in the neighborhood? Is it a basic color scheme, or is it the same tag or sticker with different colors. I look for various recognizable symbols and patterns like crowns and dots and where they are located in the overall design.
I try to figure out how old the piece is; is it recent or old? Is it being crowded out by other works of graffiti and street art? Is it about to be overtaken by other pieces. Has anyone tried to buff it, by either scrapping off, or painting over it. Does it rest upon other tags, or fresh paint by someone who covered over other pieces.
Another thing to consider is the color. Most tags in a neighborhood, by the same writer may be of a similar color, but again as pieces become more complicated there are often more colors and more intricate designs.
With more complicated pieces I try to ask if it embodies some verbal or iconic representation (i.e., who or what is it trying to represent). Is it a caricature, what aspects is the individual writers/artists characterizing, is it a saying is it a joke etc.?
Does it play off something that currently exists like a window, piping, venting, a protrusion, landscape, natural or otherwise.
If it is a more intense piece of graffiti (more work than a tag) or complicated or intricate piece of street art, did it involve the participation of others and how did they do it?
https://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/49736494221_61ff77b196_o-scaled.jpg14852560Jeffrey Ian Rosshttps://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/jeffrey-ian-ross-logo-04.pngJeffrey Ian Ross2021-08-05 21:40:512024-01-07 12:59:27Attempting to understand the aesthetics of graffiti and street art pieces
Why do most East Coast beach towns in the United States seem the same?
/by Jeffrey Ian RossDuring the summer, many Americans trundle off with friends, family (and dog), or both to visit, spend time or relax at popular East Coast beach towns. If you participate in or witness this annual ritual you may eventually notice that there is a significant amount of homogeneity, predictability, redundancy and eventual monotony in the towns, restaurants, houses, and people who vacation there. In fact, from the Jersey Shore down to the Florida Keys, from Ocean City, MD, Kitty Hawk, NC or Pawleys Island, SC most beach towns look pretty much the same.
How so? The towns have small alcohol, grocery, pharmacy, and book stores and supermarkets like Food Lion, Piggly Wiggly and Publix. Other stores sell beach related items like balls, boogie boards, swim suits, sunglasses, towels, etc. They may also stock t-shirts, baseball hats, or even boxes of salt water toffee with the name of the town emblazoned on them (all manufactured somewhere else). And then there are the “cute” little gift stores that sell all sorts of chachkas.
Outside of town there may be a a trailer park or RV campsite, or a water park, golf, mini-golf or go-kart course, boat dealerships, or a big box store like Walmart or Sam’s club. Otherwise there are a smattering of establishments that rent or sell cars, bikes, jet skis, and fishing related items, and the like.
Most beach towns are also home to “local” restaurants, and drinking establishments. Don’t expect five star, nor authentic ethnic restaurants. The majority of places to eat, are your typical fast food chain establishments, that serve traditional items like hamburgers, subways, steaks, and pizza. Yes there is fish. Rarely is it fresh. It’s primarily deep fried served with a heap of fries on the side. These towns are relatively safe, with low levels of crime and nary a scintilla of graffiti or street art.
The houses, most of them sporting beach sounding names (incorporating types of birds, fish, planets, etc.), are usually designed and built for accommodating more than one family or a large swath of friends, with some erected on stilts, and with large decks that are great for entertaining, and with view of the beach or a dock that extends out to a sound or a bay. Others come with pools and palm trees, and large kitchens for group cooking activities. The furniture inside these abodes consists of large sofas, big beds, with pink and pastel color patterns. Otherwise there’s lots of wicker furniture.
What’s most noticeable, is that the majority of people who visit these towns are white, and most likely middle class and from the suburbs. Yes, occasionally African-American, Hispanic and Asian families will visit, but it is odd to see someone of these backgrounds outside of the service personnel. In short, there is little diversity.
So what? None of what I have described should sound surprising. After all the amenities that East Coast beach towns provide pump money into the local economy. For people looking for a relatively low stress vacation, beach towns may be perfect as they do a relatively good job catering to visitors’ culture and their consumption patterns. Thus the amenities that are available, the types of products that are sold, and the kinds of things that people do for fun in these locations are pretty much what tourists who visit these towns want and expect.
In many respects, however, the towns reproduce the suburbs but with sand, sun and ocean scenery. Most people who enjoy the beach vacations probably also like all-inclusive resort vacations, and cruises for the same reasons they like beach towns. Again, each of these vacation options fulfill a role in our capitalist society.
On the other hand, Why might the beach town vacation be problematic? If you go on vacation, shouldn’t you want a little adventure, to step outside your comfort zone? What about surprises, and taking risks? And I don’t mean the airlines losing your bags. If the beach vacation is your only time to take an extended break, then it might be appropriate to consider why it makes sense for you and other options at your disposal.
Photo title: East Coast Beach Town
Photo credit: Jeffrey Ian Ross
Stop giving the Neanderthals so much credit. Why prehistoric cave painting is not graffiti
/by Jeffrey Ian RossSome individuals suggest that the origins of graffiti date back to the prolific work of the late 1960s “Old School” New York City subway graffiti writers. Others may interject by saying that one need only look at the political slogans of “wall painters,” that appeared during the numerous domestic and international conflicts of the 20th century. And then there are commentators who announce that clearly the relatively abundent graffiti that was done during ancient times in places like Pompei, Rome, or around Greece.
Frequently, however, I read or hear people say that we are all wrong, because the earliest type of graffiti is the cave painting. In fact, many of us who are knowledgeable about graffiti and street art have done this at some point in time.
Why is this wrong?
Although connecting the origins of graffiti to cave painting is both romantic and provocative, it’s a highly flawed assertion. Why?
First, we don’t have perfect knowledge about what occurred in those caves inhabited by our Paleolithic cousins. But even if we did, there is no reason to believe that the markings were done without the consent of the person who lived or worked there and not some sort of an intruder.
Second, some people may have mistakenly inferred that Banksy, the infamous British street artist, has suggested that the origins of graffiti was cave art. To clarify, he has done at least two works referencing prehistoric art. The first, in 2005, was when he (and perhaps his team) smuggled a fake rock art piece of a caveman pushing a shopping cart into the British museum. (This work remained on display for three days before it was discovered and removed). The second, in 2008, is a wall Banksy did that resembled the prehistoric cave paintings in Lascaux, France, but with a city worker who was pressure washing it away. Although these pieces make reference to a continuum, neither of them explicitly or implicitly suggest that they the cave art is or was graffiti.
Third, in order to judge or perhaps legitimate the existence of an action, behavior, or even a body of work, some people and organizations feel compelled to go to great lengths find historical anchors, no matter how flimsy the evidence. We see this with political campaigns, in the web sites of academic institutions, and with large corporations. This may also be the case with graffiti and street art.
Fourth, one of the most important reasons why some people believe that cave paintings are graffiti, is a failure to understand different definitions of graffiti, of which there are many. Although numerous definitions abound, in general graffiti is a type of vandalism that involves the willful and unwarranted act of marking a surface (e.g., wall, post, etc.). And when we examine the prehistoric cave paintings regardless of location, we should quickly realize that the markings are not graffiti.
Solutions
There are a handful of important strategies to combat this sort of thinking. It’s absolutely necessary when one attempts to develop a graffiti and street art literacy, to consult reliable sources. This includes, respected experts and peer review research. An expert is not necessarily a practitioner like a person who does a lot of tagging. The writer may know the best spots to get up (i.e., place their tags), but s/he may not be as well informed as the next guy. And just because someone has lived experience, it does not mean they have deep knowledge about a subject.
Peer review research is the gold standard in scholarly circles. It’s cumbersome and imperfect, but it is better threshold from which to judge the veracity of statements than lots of information that is readily available on the world wide web. More specifically, as of this writing there are two journals that specialize in publishing scholarship on graffiti and street art, Nuart Journal and Urban Creativity, both on-line. But these publications are not the only places to look for peer reviewed research on graffiti and street art. Many of the art, urban studies, and social science journals have occasional articles about graffiti and street art. Also there are an increasing number of peer reviewed books that are published that examine graffiti.
Thus it is time to stop blaming the caveman and do some homework when tracing back the origins of graffiti.
Photo Credit: Chris Beckett
Banksy, Council worker cleaning up the cave paintings – The Cans Festival, Waterloo, London
Attempting to understand the aesthetics of graffiti and street art pieces
/by Jeffrey Ian RossUrban dwellers pass by graffiti and street art every day without stopping to take notice, but during those rare moments when we have time and motivation it’s useful to examine the aesthetics of this type of urban art in our community or the places we travel to.
Short of asking the writer or artist to explain his or her thought process surrounding the design and placement decisions behind a tag (the most common type of graffiti), piece, throw-up, etc., (or series of them), there are multiple ways to understand this activity.
One way of dissecting graffiti pieces and street art, is by thinking about the lines, colors, shapes, symbols, icons, repetition, and use of shadows, etc. that its practitioners play with.
Initially I try to quickly categorize the work. I ask myself is the piece mainly graffiti or is it primarily street art (i.e., stickers, noncommercial posters, stencils, etc.)? Then again, sometimes the work is not categorizable or easily categorizable.
I then ask, how much effort went into the piece, and this often gives me an indication about whether or not it is simply a tag or throw up, or something else, etc.
I also look at where the piece is located (also known a spot theory), in particular what type of surface is the work located on? Is it placed on a door, a mail box, a light pole, and where on that object? It is at eye level, or at foot level, or high up forcing the observer to ask the all too familiar question how did they manage to place the piece in that location without risking injury or death? The piece of graffiti or street art may be found on a street with a lot of pedestrian or vehicular traffic, or it may be in a back alley. Each of which sets up a dynamic of possibilities presented to the writer or artist.
If the piece is a tag or bubble letter design, I look at the size and try to determine what type of element or tool (i.e., marker, aerosol spray paint, paint brush, or even etching solution) the writers used to make their mark on the surface. I look for something called hand style; this embodies where the tag starts, where it ends, are there drippings, and were these drippings intentional? Are they simply lines or are there dots too? If so how many? How fat or narrow are the lines, dots, and does the writing try to emulate any know type styles. How many tags or stickers, posters, or stencils (in the case of street art) are there in the neighborhood? Is it a basic color scheme, or is it the same tag or sticker with different colors. I look for various recognizable symbols and patterns like crowns and dots and where they are located in the overall design.
I try to figure out how old the piece is; is it recent or old? Is it being crowded out by other works of graffiti and street art? Is it about to be overtaken by other pieces. Has anyone tried to buff it, by either scrapping off, or painting over it. Does it rest upon other tags, or fresh paint by someone who covered over other pieces.
Another thing to consider is the color. Most tags in a neighborhood, by the same writer may be of a similar color, but again as pieces become more complicated there are often more colors and more intricate designs.
With more complicated pieces I try to ask if it embodies some verbal or iconic representation (i.e., who or what is it trying to represent). Is it a caricature, what aspects is the individual writers/artists characterizing, is it a saying is it a joke etc.?
Does it play off something that currently exists like a window, piping, venting, a protrusion, landscape, natural or otherwise.
If it is a more intense piece of graffiti (more work than a tag) or complicated or intricate piece of street art, did it involve the participation of others and how did they do it?
By forcing oneself to answer these kinds of questions, it may lead one to better appreciate the skill and risks that people take to engage in graffiti and street art. It may also enable us to more fully understand the numerous types of art, and our urban public spaces.
Photo credit: Aaron Yoo
Title: Microscope