by Andy Chon
While an audience looked on, Rahmaan Statik brought a face to life with quick, sweeping passes of a spray can. With a forgotten crowd behind him and three vast pieces of plywood in front of him he began his work. A patch of brown quickly became a nose and two eyes emerged from a pair of yellow streaks. Pausing to change cans, Statik seemed to suddenly recall his spectators and he slowly turned to speak.
Statik was addressing the crowd of approximately 40 Grinnell students and visitors who attended a graffiti workshop last Wednesday. The workshop, a part of this week’s hip-hop festival, was designed to promote awareness about graffiti art, one of the four elements of hip-hop culture.
Ned Levy ’04 and Derek Chandler ‘04, the primary organizers of the Hip Hop Festival said that the main goal of the graffiti workshop to Grinnell was to teach people here about the true nature of graffiti art. “These things have a history that is worth knowing,” said Levy, “it is a cultural phenomenon worth looking into.” Chandler highlighted the equality of the four elements of hip-hop. “Graffiti is just as important as the other aspects of hip-hop,” he said, “if you exclude one, you’re doing a tremendous disservice to the culture.”
The workshop featured Rahmaan Statik, Max Sansing and Zeek Crowe, the three founding members of the RK Design, a well-known Chicago based graffiti crew.
Organizations frequently commission the crew for murals that can cost up to $16,000. Their current project will be unveiled and presented to Grinnell College today at 4:15 p.m.
During a brief opening about the history and significance of graffiti art, Statik described graffiti as “ a modern art movement, a network and a scene of its own.” After the introduction, Statik led a 40-minute question and answer session that covered everything from the different types of caps for cans of spray paint to the ethics of graffiti on the street. The workshop ended with a preview of the mural in progress behind the fine arts building.
If Statik seemed slightly self-conscious before his audience in the North Lounge, it was all left behind once he was in front of the mural. With a can in his hand and the plywood in front of him, he was home. He danced back and forth in front of the mural, looking at his work from different angles and adding lines to the wood in what seemed to be an arbitrary manner until an image was coaxed from the surface. As he described the different processes involved in creating a graffiti mural, such as the oil painting technique of layering from dark to light, it was hard not to see his passion for the medium.
As Statik worked, students had a chance to talk to the members of the RK Design. Crowe spoke to a few students about a distinction made earlier in the workshop about the differences between graffiti art and gang graffiti. While gang graffiti is usually just an individual’s name or gang symbol on a wall, murals involve the community.
This philosophy is reflected in the uplifting murals created by RK Design that can be found in many of the impoverished neighborhoods in Chicago. Crowe said it was “important these murals have positive messages that the community can relate to.” He also described the sense of unity and culture that could be expressed through graffiti murals. “You can’t paint for yourself, you have to paint for the people.”
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