The Power of Your Name

“Reputation”

A reputation is developed through repetition of a specific action or style of action.

Reputation is the sum of the effects of all of your actions, ie: One who writes repetitively on the property of others is a ‘graffiti writer’, a graffiti writer who repetitively paints freights is a ‘freight writer.’

What is the value of your reputation? What is the point? Why do we work for a reputation?

Your reputation as I see it is an extension of ego, for better or worse it is the definition of your most prominent characteristics. Notoriety as it relates to art, typically coincides with a check. in graffiti that is usually the case and more often than not your rep gets you a visit from the police along with respect from your peers.

There are multiple layers of consistency in painting graffiti. In major cities like New York we’ll see the same writer use the same tag and throw up in the same sorts of location for years on end, sometimes the same location can mean the same neighborhood, or borough, or sometimes it can mean a series of spots of the same style. For example you can build a reputation by always floating fill ins, your rep is carried further by spots in certain geographic locations.

For example if you float a fill in beside a prominent highway everybody passes through in your city the weight of that spot gains you more recognition versus a spot found in a trash ridden alleyway. These sorts of out the way spots carry their own weight and in conjunction with a fill  in the middle of your city square provide the graff enthusiast with a feeling of omnipresence for the writer of this kind.

Some writers possess a natural knack for variety, whether this means a variety of styles, a variety of placements from billboards, to fire hydrants, and train tunnels and some showcase variety in time as their respective styles develop. The ladder forces me to consider narrativity as it relates to these types of writers.

Narrativity is a major contributor toward the feeling of omnipresence. When did they do this, how, what time of day? Graffiti by nature shrouds those who are a part of it in anonymity however whatever menial assessments you can make about a writer from their street bombing, is just enough to allow the graff enthusiast to fill in some blanks on their own and cast a perception of somebody based off their own interpretation, outside knowledge, and psychology.

This is where the value of reputation comes in, when you’ve worked at something so often the work speaks for you and even proceeds you. Then the psychology of others will put your name in a positive light in such a way that people won't need to see your work, they'll only need to speak about it. If I talk about you, then I see you in a tunnel, then I see you on a gate by my house, then in a bathroom in a bar, I, the graff enthusiast have been tricked into this feeling that you are everywhere. Ones desire to advertise themself at the risk of safety and legal trouble gives the uninformed public good reason to make one large summation of all graffiti writers. Only those with a certain degree of involvement in the community have the required knowledge to make presumptions based off another's artwork, personal advertisement, or graffiti.