I’m in Los Angeles, helping with a discernment retreat, and enjoying walking in the early morning in far more temperate weather than I’ve been used to the past few months. Early Spring in Southern California feels more like late Spring back east.
I have been so excited to walk in a new environment, seeing buildings and vistas for the very first time, anticipating surprises as I round a corner or cross a street, wondering what observations and curiosities will appear and appeal.
In the diverse urban environment of Echo Park, an eclectic neighborhood less than two miles northwest of the city center, there’s a pedestrian-friendly lake across the street from us, but it’s the grittier surrounds that draw me toward them. The common denominator on this particular morning is the graffiti.
Tagger art is everywhere, from the typical walls of underpasses to the sides of aging motorhomes (more common than I’d expect) to stenciled tags on the sidewalks of Sunset Boulevard. This morning I wanted to walk to downtown to see the Disney Concert Hall, the twisted shiny fins and petals that bloomed from architect Frank Gehry’s imagination. In the 4.5 mile round trip, I saw hundreds of tags.
Tagging is often associated with gangs and is considered property destruction by many. That is a sad but limited truth, a bit of fake news discrediting this vital and necessary artistic outlet of angst. So much of tagging comes from impoverished communities whose systemic and multi-generational disempowerment is attacked with cans of spray paint and artistic fonts that embody not just the corporate struggle of these communities, but do so through the expressive artistry of many, many individual’s talents. Each tag represents a soul crying out to be seen, heard, recognized, affirmed, embraced, respected and blessed. Taggers do their work in darkness and in secret because that reflects the underpasses and back alleys that our society has created and forced them into. Tags say, “I am here and I matter! You may not ignore me. You may try to cover over my pain with the hue of uniformity and the tone of conformity, but I will be back with another can of rebellion, or two, or four or more! What you think is the hiss of aerosol is really the release of generations of pressure squeezed through gritted teeth. The fuzzy edges of my art mimic the haze of my place in the infrastructure that I seek to beautify and erode with my angry passion. What you perceive as drips are the tears of my struggle.”
The tags project a cacophony of silent sounds that taunt me and my white privilege as we move to and from the glitter of the glass towers back into the serenity of the lake. I pass through them, past them, trying to listen as I walk. When I am self-aware enough to pay closer attention, I hear voices that are as distinct as each tag.
These are my walking companions and my judges. We may never see each other again, but they intrude into my consciousness as I intrude into their ‘hood. And the hum of God’s presence is voiced in the serifs and shadowed flourishes that sweep across concrete and corrugation, patterns turning the dissonance to harmony as I listen with the ear of my heart, hearing hope and resurrection crying out from what too many others perceive as chaos and carnage.
