Don’t believe everything you read / Ask before you spray paint

Don’t believe everything you read / Ask before you spray paint
Don’t believe everything you read/ Ask before you spray paint
Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Jan 28, 2002 by Gina Perales

Eager taggers couldn’t believe their eyes when they saw a blank billboard two weeks ago that read, “Graffiti Artists Space Available.”

Since then, dozens of spray painters have left their marks on what they called the “blank canvas” in the parking lot of techno-club Industrial Nation, 2106 E. Platte Ave.

But when property owner Stephanie Johnson found out Sunday, she demanded to know who issued the invitation.

“We discourage vandalism of any sort,” said Johnson, the president of the Platte Avenue Business and Neighborhood Association. “If I catch anyone putting graffiti, I’ll have them arrested. This just makes me crazy.”

It took 20-year-old Matt Pflum and two friends three hours and six or seven cans of spray paint to create their masterpieces Saturday: lifesize initials and nicknames painted in bold colors.

“It’s not like we’re doing gang graffiti,” Pflum said Sunday. He thought the billboard was a nonprofit organization’s outlet for the public’s creative expression. “I assumed it was OK. I thought it was something positive.”

But Johnson didn’t. She filed a report with police. Although Pflum and his friends weren’t arrested, police made them promise to paint the billboard white.

“It just upsets me that somebody has such a problem with graffiti,” said Pflum, who wishes there were more walls where graffiti artists could work without breaking the law.

The owners of Lamar Outdoor Advertising, who leased the billboard, were not available Sunday. It was not known whether the company put up the invitation.Matt Pflum works Saturday on a piece of graffiti art he and friends Petey Sisson and John Midkiff had painted. Pflum thought the invitation on top of the empty billboard meant it was OK to paint in the space. The owner of the property thought otherwise.

Bibliography for “Don’t believe everything you read/ Ask before you spray paint”
Gina Perales “Don’t believe everything you read/ Ask before you spray paint”. Gazette, The (Colorado Springs). Jan 28, 2002. FindArticles.com. 30 Sep. 2007.
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