El Paso: Segundo Barrio: A Graffiti Gathering

Borderland Jam, graffiti weekend, El Paso, Texas. October 2016.

October 2016.

The day came for me to do the self-guided mural tour of Segundo Barrio. A sunny Sunday in October. 'Course, most days in El Paso are sunny.

Borderland Jam, graffiti weekend, El Paso, Texas. October 2016.

Anyhoo, I'll publish the results of that visit soon, but first I want to share about the graffiti gathering that a Segundo Barrio resident turned me on to while I was walking around. He said if I really wanted to see some art on the walls, to check out the sumthin'-sumthin' happening right now up thataway and then take a left and then up-aways.

Borderland Jam, graffiti weekend, El Paso, Texas. October 2016.

I'd kind of had my mind on lunch, but I didn't want to miss the sumthin'-sumthin' about which I wasn't entirely clear, but sounded interesting and time-limited. So I scurried my directionally-impaired self over to the general direction of where the neighborhood gentleman sent me.

Hoo boy.

Borderland Jam, graffiti weekend, El Paso, Texas. October 2016.

What is graffiti, anyway? 

The Urban Dictionary offers a selection of thoughtful definitions of graffiti, all of which have in common the statement of graffiti as an art form.

Here's one sample:

Graffiti is a commonly misunderstood form of illegal art. Graffiti is done on walls, buses, trains, and other forms of private and public property, often without permission (thus the 'illegal' part). Ink, paint, scratches, and other ways can be used to do graffiti; spray paint cans with special tips being the favored way, since they are easily carried and do not require brushes and other equipment. Note that not all things sprayed/written on a wall are graffiti! Gang markings, crude bathroom writings, and other less artistic forms of wall-markings are NOT graffiti.
Graffiti (also called Graf) is a form of self expression, and while it is illegal, is NOT vandalism.

Borderland Jam, graffiti weekend, El Paso, Texas. October 2016.

Graffiti gatherings

Back in 2009, El Paso was one of the hosts of a nation-wide graffiti gathering tour - the Pieced Together tour, on which Texas graffiti "all stars" worked their art on 15 unused silos on West Paisano. Two El Paso graffiti artists, David "Grave" Herrera and Nathan "Sloke" Nordstrom, are two of the all stars.

Borderland Jam, graffiti weekend, El Paso, Texas. October 2016.

The graffiti weekend event I stumbled into was the Borderland Jam. Another notice about it here. And a fellow blogger was there at the first Borderland Jam in 2015.

Borderland Jam, graffiti weekend, El Paso, Texas. October 2016.

In this interview, "Grave" talks about the art of graffiti in El Paso. An excerpt:

El Paso's climate is heated by the passion behind the people. You get a real sense of modest, humbleness here. The work is packed with a heavy dose of aesthetics only known to our area. It's an El Paso /Juarez thing. You can feel it. No words are necessary. During an 8 year tour as a 48 state driver and artist you learn to appreciate your home town for all the distinctive qualities that make it special. ...

Borderland Jam, graffiti weekend, El Paso, Texas. October 2016.

This article, about a graffiti gathering in Connecticut, notes the communion of the visual art, music, and tattoo work. Graffiti is an art that one can watch as the artist creates it, as explained by an aficionado:

For local writer and bookseller Ken Anderson, who came out to see the artists and watch their process, graffiti art is about not just the art as a record, but about the activity of creating it as well.

Furthermore:

"What I like about it is that it's so dynamic. It keeps changing," he said. "T. S. Eliot said, 'Fine art is the refinement, not the antithesis, of popular art. Some of the things we are seeing here today are approaching fine art."

Borderland Jam, graffiti weekend, El Paso, Texas. October 2016.

 A slide show of El Paso's 2016 Borderland Jam: