The Cardinal Greenway and the White River Greenway are trying to find the answer to a question that has plagued man since he began to draw: Is graffiti art? Greenways Executive Director Lenette Freeman said she believes graffiti is art, and the greenway is letting graffiti artists decorate its walls.
The greenways have decided to allow approved graffiti in an attempt to get rid of unapproved graffiti along walls, bridges and railroad overpasses.
Graffiti and vandalism have been problems along the greenways since it opened -- walls and bridges have been spray painted with gang signs and swear words. Freeman said graffiti is an expression, and the only way to prevent it is to allow it.
"You can either work with them or work against them," Freeman said. "We feel like graffiti is an expression, and if they find a place to do that, then they're going to do it."
Two graffiti artists, Alex Peace and Dustin Peterman, contacted Freeman in June about painting murals on the greenway walls. Freeman, however, could not make the final approval because Delaware County owns all of the underpasses along the greenways. Freeman, Peace and Peterman met with county commissioners to approve the project. Peace and Peterman showed pictures of their previous artwork to the commissioners who liked what they saw, Freeman said.
"The commissioners were all highly in favor for it," Freeman said.
Both artists began to paint immediately and brought 10 fellow graffiti artists from Muncie and Indianapolis to join them. Peace and Peterman don't preview their work with Freeman.
"The agreement with the commissioners is that I would oversee their work, but I have not asked them for an exact replica because part of the creative process happens when they're out there," Freeman said.
The new paintings along Cardinal Greenway and White River Greenway are garnering different responses from residents. Freeman said that most of the feedback she has received was positive, though some people still don't like it.
"Some say that nobody should be writing on the walls," Freeman said. "They feel like any time you're writing on the walls, you're encouraging other people to write on the walls. But we haven't taken clear walls and started from there. Everything we've used has already been painted."
The community is offering to help with the painting, too. Over 60 gallons of paint were donated to the greenway for use as background paint for the artists. Even after days of painting, gang signs still pop up. In July, a swastika was painted on a railroad overpass over the greenway, but greenway officials painted over it as quickly as possible.
"What we do is get rid of it immediately," Freeman said. "So, the faster you can get rid of it, the faster you're going to stop kids from doing it because they want to see it stay up."
The new walls painted by the graffiti artists are the first time the greenways have thought of the idea. The first step toward putting graffiti on the greenways were when a children's mural was painted two years ago. Kids from around the Muncie area were asked to present sketches that would be picked to go on the children's mural wall along the greenways. The main reason for the mural was to paint over bad graffiti Freeman said.
"There was a lot of bad graffiti in that area," Freeman said, "and it was also a way to get youth involved in the community."
Richard Lee, a groundsman for Ball State University, rides his bicycle to the Prairie Creek Reservoir every day. Lee said he understood what the children's mural meant, but he didn't like Peace's and Peterman's graffiti mural on the other side.
"It looks like they just went out and got high," Lee said. "I guess it means something to them, though."
Graffiti isn't only seen on the greenways, it's been popping up in Muncie. For years, graffiti artists in Muncie have been painting on building walls and on signs around the city. Most of the graffiti painted around the city is illegal art, and Freeman said it is not good graffiti.
"I think it's a problem everywhere," Freeman said. "Stop signs say stop, and then they write in vandalism under it."
Gang graffiti was a major problem for Muncie during the 1990s, according to Muncie Police Captain Chuck Hensley. He said gangs have stopped painting graffiti because they don't want to bring attention to themselves.
"We don't have a lot of bad graffiti anymore, Hensley said. "It's more decorative-type instead of gang-related."
Graffiti is a legal issue in many cities around the world, but graffiti can still be found all around most cities -- on street signs, abandoned buildings or walls. New York City began a large anti-graffiti campaign in the mid-1990s.
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani set up the Anti-Graffiti Task Force, a multi-agency initiative to combat the perceived problem of graffiti vandals in New York. This began one of the largest anti-graffiti campaigns in United States history, according to Wikipedia Encyclopedia. That same year, New York also banned the sale of aerosol spray-paint cans to children under 18 year of age. The law also requires merchants that sell spray-paint to lock it in a case or to display the paint cans behind a counter, out of reach of potential shoplifters. Violations of the city's anti-graffiti law carry fines of $350 per count.
Muncie doesn't have a graffiti problem like New York does, and instead of working against the graffiti artists, Muncie is beginning to work with them.
The greenway's graffiti project will not be complete soon, either. Together the greenways span 60 miles from Marion to Richmond, and Freeman said there are still plenty of walls left along the greenway, including a six-mile stretch along the White River, that need to be painted over by graffiti artists. If Peace and Peterman decide to stop, Freeman said she will find someone else.
"If they get tired, then we'll go to the next group that comes in," Freeman said. "For me, it's like a public art."
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