Graffiti:Where art and crime collide

According to police officer Ken Utter, graffiti was once a huge problem in Danbury.

Mural along the train tracks bisecting the North End of Main Street in Danbury by Mark, whose crew name is Jick Thanks to the Graffiti Task Force and collaboration between artists and the police, city officials have succeeded in keeping graffiti to a minimum. As Danbury’s facades clean up, artists and police have been working together in creating a legal space to showcase graffiti art. The wall, only a stone’s throw from Danbury Police headquarters, should be nearing completion within the next week.

“The Graffiti Subculture”

In P.O. Utter’s presentation to the Danbury Citizen’s Police Academy, he assured the class that only 2 percent of Danbury’s graffiti is gang-related (visit TheMercurial.com for an in-depth report of each Citizen’s Police Academy class, ranging from Use of Force to Crime Scene Investigations). Many people assume graffiti is a gang symbol and are therefore afraid to report or remove it. Almost all of Danbury’s graffiti is comprised of “tags,” which is an artist’s name within their respective graffiti crew.

Utter explained that a “Throw-up” is a relatively simple and quick bubble letter tag and a “Piece” or “Mas- terpiece” is the name for an intricate and colorful work. He also said that he is supportive of truly artistic graffiti and does what he can do help talented “graf” writers develop their work.

What are the motives behind graffiti? Utter listed notoriety, excitement and a way to thumb one’s nose at society and authority. Graffiti is illegal, hence the rush and the smirk towards society, and once an artist has made their tag “all city,” most everyone will know or recognize his or her name.

Danbury has become successful in moderating graffiti due to Utter’s fulltime dedication to the Task Force. Utter has a database of all of the known area writers and is able to utilize social networks, graffiti websites and even yearbooks in fingering a graffiti artist. If an artist is caught, they are responsible for cleaning up their work.

Utter has created many positive connections within the community of local graffiti artists. He said that quite a few of the kids he once arrested have gone on to work as professional artists.

It is clear that Utter has a respect and admiration for these artists–when The Mercurial went to the legal wall to interview the showcased artists, Utter was there with his son, spray-paint can in hand.

The Graffiti Artist

Mark, one of Utter’s oldest graffiti contacts, attended Danbury High School and now lives in the Bronx. With Utter’s help, Mark, whose crew name is Jick, got permission to create a mural along the train tracks bisecting the North End of Main Street about a year ago. It was around this time that Mark saw homage paid to Robert Di- Nardo all over Facebook, a Danbury police officer who had passed away from cancer.

“Doing graffiti, we don’t have a typically large love for the police,” Mark said at the wall, “but DiNardo seemed like a good guy. People said he was the kind of officer who would bust you for weed then write your college recommendation a few years later.”

The wall is nearly visible from Police Headquarters, so Mark decided to donate the paint for a portrait of Di- Nardo.

“Even though I’m a criminal, I believe in good police work,” Mark said. “A man like that needs to be held in high regard.”

The rest of the wall is a collaborative work by Mark and his colleagues, the DF Crew. Mark is appreciative of the wall and the message it sends to the community, but for him and many other artists, graffiti is not about murals; it’s about vandalism.

“It’s a nice wall,” he said, “and maybe it will inspire some knuckleheads to learn how to do it better. But I love the vandalism aspect of graffiti. Graffiti doesn’t exist without vandalism.”

“If there’s no illegal aspect to your work, you’re a muralist,” Mark continued. “I love running around and writing on shit that doesn’t belong to me. If it ends without illegality, it’s dead.”

Utter is more than willing to secure legal walls for artists, though he said that work on legal walls is prone to running off onto illegal areas. Utter is realistic in the fact that he knows graffiti will never be eradicated completely.

“We always have new graffiti coming in,” Utter said at the Academy. “All I ask is for them to respect me. I’ll get them a wall for the art if they tell the kids to knock it off.” Graffiti has had to evolve with the advent of cell phones, websites, and Facebook, all of which make it easier for graf writers to get caught. But where there’s a will, there’s a way. ‘As long as people want to do it, they will,” said Mark. “It may not be all of us, but some will.”

P.O. Utter and the Graffiti Task Force can be reached at (203)796- 1662.