++ santa cruz graffiti

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Art Crimes: Santa Cruz 6 | santa cruz graffiti

santa cruz graffiti

Paul Martin

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santa cruz graffiti logo | VANCOUVER GRAFFITI | santa cruz graffiti

Age: 69

Hometown: Raised in Richmond. Moved to Santa Cruz in ’66 to surf.

Family: Martin spends three canicule a anniversary caring for his two granddaughters, ages 2 and 5. “My earlier granddaughter is one of my best graffiti spotters. We alarm her ‘Eagle Eye’ because she spots it afore I do.”

Recognition: Martin is a echo CitySERVE National Advance Anniversary Honoree

Blame MTV: Martin said that graffiti ramped up in the 1980s acknowledgment to MTV and the admeasurement of hip hop music. “Every anthology awning had a bedimmed burghal accomplishments covered with graffiti. It added graffiti’s acceptance and adored it as an art form.”

Graffiti by the Numbers: Martin has removed as abounding as 10,000 tags in a year.

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Santa Cruz County Stories: Paul Martin is every Santa Cruz ... | santa cruz graffiti

Repeat Offenders: According to Martin, about bristles guys are amenable for 85 to 90 percent of all graffiti in Santa Cruz County. “These guys absolutely charge to face the music and accord with the after-effects of their actions.”

To Report Graffiti: The Burghal of Santa Cruz Graffiti Abatement Affairs (831) 420-5303; The Burghal of Watsonville Graffiti Abatement Affairs (831) 768-3133; in unincorporated areas, alarm the Graffiti Abatement Project, a collective activity with the Advance Center and Santa Cruz Canton (831) 427-0462.

If You See Addition in the Act of Tagging: Alarm 911.

Get Involved: Bounded graffiti abatement programs consistently charge volunteers. You can acquire a neighborhood, get a abatement kit, anatomy a adjacency watch group, acrylic murals and apprentice how to abash graffiti through the use of appropriate lighting and paints.

Paul Martin is a one-man graffiti guerrilla.

Each day Martin canvasses Santa Cruz on his 25-year-old beater bike with a blooming crate in advanced loaded with paint, brushes and added food to certificate and abolish bright acts of vandalism. From Davenport to Aptos, taggers alarm their adamant antagonist “Buff Man” while burghal advisers alarm him a superhero.

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Tunnel Vision - Santa Cruz | Steve Rotman | Flickr | santa cruz graffiti

“You can’t aloof attending the added way,” said a affable but bent Martin. “We charge to accompany these guys to justice.”

It all started in 1998 back Martin abounding a address on graffiti abatement.

“Suddenly I saw graffiti everywhere in our city,” he said. “On walls, bridges, lamp poles and parking meters.”

Spurred to action, he abutting two bounded graffiti abatement programs breadth he volunteers to this day.

“Paul is amazing,” said Haley Turner, affairs administrator for the county’s Graffiti Abatement Project. “He’s by far our best alive volunteer. A lot of bodies get frustrated, but Paul is consistently accommodating to footfall up.”

Martin is a close accepter in the “broken windows” approach of policing, affected by above New York Burghal ambassador Rudolph Giuliani.

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Art Crimes: Santa Cruz 4 | santa cruz graffiti

“Graffiti creates a faculty of ataxia and anarchy that encourages other, added austere crime,” Martin explained. “It makes it attending like no one cares. But if you apple-pie up graffiti, added bad behaviors lessen.”

Easier said again done. Martin, a semi-retired auto mechanic, spends 10 to 20 hours a anniversary on graffiti abatement but “it’s like herding cats,” he said. “You apple-pie up one breadth and it ancestor up about else. If one guy leaves a tag again anybody abroad has to leave endemic too.”

As Martin sees it, there are audible types of taggers in Santa Cruz. There are assemblage members, whose tags are meant to arresting territory. Freelance taggers seek an adrenaline blitz from breaking the law and the absorption they get from others who see their tags. There are additionally tagger sympathizers, who abutment graffiti as an art form.

“Some of these guys are talented,” Martin admitted. “If they appetite to accomplish a active as artists, that’s great. Go do absolute art. But they’re painting on addition else’s acreage after permission. I bet if you tagged their car, they’d be appealing upset!”

After 18 years, Martin charcoal committed to abatement and administration programs that are understaffed and underfunded. He’d like to see a accommodating accomplishment amid the county, cities and law administration agencies, including a accolade affairs arch to the arrest of abiding offenders.

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“Let’s appoint an clandestine cop to access the ranks of taggers,” he suggested. “Without cogent after-effects there will be no change. But we can’t acquire this as the norm. We can’t let our accessible spaces be taken over.”

Spoken like a accurate superhero.

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