The Writing is on the Wall by Courtney Baker
The Arts Station is excited to be bringing one of Canada’s top street artists to Fernie for a weekend workshop and live painting event this coming January. This artist is passionate about the promotion of graffiti as art as it allows for more people to be exposed to the stunning talents of the artists and the motivations that propel them. Graffiti, like all art, does have its boundaries; the wall of a building just offers more expansive ones.
The Writing on the Wall
Graffiti is a funny thing. Usually, people encourage creativity in children and youth but with graffiti usually people call the police. David Brunning, a.k.a The KidBelo, a Calgary-based street artist, is seeking to change the public perception of graffiti as a nuisance on the built environment. Brunning is passionate about the history of graffiti as an art form and is serious about educating people, especially youth, to the roots and stylistic movements of the medium throughout the decades.
One function of street art is to encourage people to connect with their emotions. Emotions are intricately tied to graffiti as the work is a fleeting expression created by a few and experienced by many as an individual moment. Brunning is fervent about teaching “graffiti kids” to respect the history of the art form and research its roots. He's sick with how tags get etched into shop windows with an aggressive behavior that can only be considered vandalism. According to Brunning it is one thing to“bomb” all the best spots in town with classic letters and personal flare, but something else altogether to splash your tag all over fences, mirrors and doors. He is dedicated to promoting the long-term effects that the education of social values and respect for your neighborhood provide.
Very few new art forms are encouraged by the mainstream until they garner financial value and are accepted in elite social circles as “acceptable”. Brunning feels that if people participating in the art form recognized the difference between legitimate expression and senseless acts of public and personal damage than more outlets would be made available for artists to claim as their own. Location accessability and creative encouragement would allow for conversation around the socio-political, environmental, sexual, or general issues that matter today as they did in the past.
Having begun doing graffiti through his admiration for writing and the English alphabet, Brunning has had a love affair with words his entire life and seeks only to expand upon that love by sharing it with the world. Hence, buildings and walls are the natural canvas upon which to place his passions for design, self-expression, freedom, people and most-importantly love. People may never fully understand what the work has evoked in them, be it anger at the sight of graffiti or admiration of the image, but the fact remains that public art was put there by a person—a living being with something to say and who deserves to be heard if even for a fleeting moment.
If It’s Good Enough for New York, London, Paris and Prague….
Graffiti – Public Art : Personal Space is offering people the chance to learn new skills, enhance existing ones, discover the history and stylistic movements of the medium and take home a fresh completed work. Instruction is taking place on January 14 and 15 with The KidBelo doing a public live painting event on Sunday, January 16. Thanks to the support of many we were able to keep the workshop cost down-- youth 15 to 19 years pay $25 and people 19 and over pay $50. Materials are extra but participants get a KidBelo designed t-shirt. All registration is through The College of the Rockies.
As a wrap-up to this amazing workshop The Arts Station is planning to exhibit selected works created by the participants. This multi-media exhibit is augmenting the exhibition of works from two talented local street artists on display from January 27 to February 21. Everybody is invited to attend the opening reception for these two vibrant exhibits on Thursday, January 27 at 7pm.
The Arts Station would like to thank all of those involved in helping to bring The KidBelo to Fernie: Clyde Platt, Carolyn Dillon, The Fernie Fix, The Stanford Inn, Giv’Er Shirtworks and Commit.
