By ROBERTO SCALESE
The Beyond Walls Mural Festival is set to give Lynn a face lift. Artists from around the world are set to ply their craft, bringing graffiti and mural art to 15 walls across the city’s Cultural District.
This weekend’s festival celebrates an art form that Lynn wasn’t always ready to embrace. In April 1986, the Daily Item ran a package on graffiti, talking to the young artists who would transform walls under the cover of darkness and to the city officials who didn’t see the value in the makeshift designs.
Reporter David Liscio went to the source, getting to know the teenagers behind the street monikers responsible for the city’s best illicit graffiti murals. Artists known as The Mighty Bandido and, Juice took time to explain how the new form was an outlet for creativity for a community that lacked other options.
“A bag slung over his shoulder contains markers, acrylic paint and spray cans. He works to the sound of rap music — hip hop — the breakdancing sound of the Fat Boys, the Beastie Boys, and RUN DMC,” Lisco wrote of a night watching Juice work. “It’s all part of an urban, graffiti art scene that fuses funky music, energetic breakdancing and elaborate spray painting.”
On the other end of the spectrum, reporter Ralph Nelson spoke with city officials who weren’t open to the idea of graffiti as a proper artistic expression.
“It has to stop someplace,” Lynn’s then-Park Department Superintendent told Nelson. “These kids can’t just go put things wherever they think they should. If they want to do this, fine, let them do it on their own property or someone else’s. They can paint their own house. Just don’t vandalize city property.”
Scalese can be reached at [email protected]. You can follow him on Twitter @BertoScalese.
