Yesterday, while I was walking under the St. Clair Street Bridge (aka The Vale of Avoca), I saw this guy finishing up a “Wave” on one of the concrete supports. He tagged it MXC. I asked if I could take his photo. At first, he didn’t want me to, so I said I’d just shoot his work. But once I’d swapped lenses and set up my tripod, he wandered into the frame anyways, so I clicked away while he dated it.
We got around to talking about Rob Ford. Never has a mayor had such a hate-on for graffiti, even spraying over graffiti underneath bridges and other places that aren’t publicly visible.
I asked him why he does it. The question caught him off guard; he had to pause and think. He started doing this when he was a kid. At first, it was just imitation. He saw what older people were doing and tried to do the same. His early work was shit and people told him so, but that only made him work harder at being better. He tells me maybe he does it for fame, or at least for a reputation. When he puts stuff on a wall, everyone can see it, and if it’s good, everyone knows it. They take pictures and post them online. Word gets back to him. The recognition feels good.
He said that when he was a kid he played hockey like everyone else, but he was realistic. He was never going to be any good. Certainly not professional. But the graffiti gives him a chance to develop a personal style, something unique, even from the rest of his own art, something not many people do or are any good at. He thinks he’s getting good at it, at least by Toronto standards, maybe not compared to what’s happening in L.A. or New Zealand, but we’re getting there.
