There is a growing war between environmentalists and graffiti artists over “tagging” natural settings and parks. Hiking is my main pastime and I have long been mystified by people who go to gorgeous natural settings and degrade them with their graffiti. However, some “artists” are now heralding the move to add graffiti to natural trails and sites. One of them is Andre Saraiva is an internationally known graffiti artist who showed how he tagged a boulder at the Joshua Tree National Park. In my view, he should be arrested but he and other graffiti artists think that this is a matter of celebration and pride to ruin these sites for the rest of us. Saraiva appears to believe that some of us go on hikes to see his childish scriblings on tree and rock. Most people try to escape such urban mess by taking to the trails and Saraiva and others are committed to degrading nature in the very same way. The solution is simple in my view: arrest him.
Saraiva recently posted his graffiti from Joshua Tree on the website Modern Hiker. He lives in France but traveled to the United States to destroy the site. Such graffiti is surging in national parks. I have personally witnessed the increase all over the country and these juveniles tend to fuel each other in such graffiti.
I have always found it otherworldly that people would come to these natural settings because of their beauty and then degrade or destroy them for others. This includes, as previously discussed, historic locations in Europe and the United States. I was struck by such graffiti in Sicily for example. The desire to mark these sites is so great that some idiot even carved up the local plant life in Agrigento to leave their “tag” on the site:
It is remarkable that the level of insecurity or need for attention is so great that you have to carve your initials even into plant life at historic sites.
We have seen the same type of narcissism at the colosseum where tourists, including two recent Americans, have carved their initials into the wall. Once again, the Italians in my view have insufficient sanctions by not jailing such offenders and only imposing fines. Indeed, the failure to release their names reduces the deterrent effect.
However, the tagging of nature is especially bizarre. In Joshua Tree alone, these ingrates defaced Rattlesnake Canyon with these tags and pictures — requiring rangers to close the trial and ordering a clean up.
The National Park Service believe that the creep who did this is Casey Nocket, 22, of New York. What is particularly disgusting is that these pictures were then proudly posed with the phrase “Creepytings 2014” on California hiking websites Calipidder and Modern Hiker.
Hikers are trying to help out to stop these people. They have also denounced Saraiva who responded by denying that the boulder that he defaced was in the park in an Instagram posting — saying his work was “made with love at friends privet back yard and not your national park! [sic].” Hikers showed the boulder was indeed in the park. However, even after being found out, Saraiva only had to pay a $275. That’s it. No jail time. No serious fine. What sense does that make?
We need new laws that impose jail time for these felons. There is a long-standing theory that deterrence is a balance of the size of the penalty and the rate of detection. As detection rates fell, penalties are increased to maintain the level of deference. Since these are often remote areas, detection is very low. Without serious punishment, creeps like Saraiva will continue to destroy our natural areas in senseless acts of juvenile vanity.
I really wonder why someone would take all the trouble of hiking into a national park just of deface it. Weird.
@Paul: ” How about the ones in Horseshoe Canyon. Are they going to fine the Ancient Aliens who made it?”
OK. Would you care to tell us a little more about the Ancient Aliens?
bfm – you have to see the pictographs for yourself. And watch the program Ancient Aliens. I think it is on Netflix. But it is probably available at your local library.
Isn’t art subjective? Beauty in the eye of the beholder? While I am usually not one for defacement of natural places, the way he wrote ‘Oatmeal’ really speaks to me. You know what I hate? The people who deface nature by stacking rocks on the trails. Just let it be natural! Gah!
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Aren’t humans a natural product of this planet, therefore everything we do is natural?
Paul
I agree, a place for everything. Bansky (sp?) is doing graffiti art in Gaza, on the shards of walls. An old wood school desk with hundreds of initials and stuff carved in, the cannons on the top of Gibralter, Roman soldiers’ marks on the Coliseum, etc. Again there is this gray area. However, painting rocks in an environment that is meant to be pristine is not acceptable. Then there is Bobby Joe loves Mary Sue carved in the old oak tree. Like free speech, eh.
We need new laws that impose jail time for these felons.
We need to take them out into the lava beds, shoot them and drop them into a deep dark hole so the scavengers can eat them. They can become part of nature’s recycling program.
I first discovered George Washington’s vandalism at the Natural Bridge when visiting in 1976 with a girl-friend who pulled out a marker and started to ‘tag.’ I pleaded with her not to do this and with reluctance, she desisted. We rounded the corner and that’s when the official ‘Guide’ proudly showed what George had done, namely, carving his initials into the wall of the park. I shrugged and had nothing more to say. George, George, what were you thinking?
George Washington, that’s right, THE FATHER OF OUR COUNTRY, left his mark by carving his initials into the wall of the beautiful Natural Bridge When you visit the park, the guide shows this with ‘pride.’ GEORGE, HOW COULD YOU?? (Well, this was when he was an eighteen year old). Apparently, the desire to leave our mark is a human trait; how otherwise to explain those handprints at the Caves of Lascaux in France?
BUT, I’m with you Johnathan, these people are vandals and should get jail time. Hmmm, wonder what would have been changed if Vandal George had gotten jail time?
I will be attending the wedding of a young man who I’ve known since he was a kid. He is a graffiti artist and very passionate about it. He has been arrested for his tagging. My job is to read people, and knowing this guy since he was a kid makes it easy. He truly sees himself as an artist and his work as art. He would pass a polygraph. He is not narcissistic, hard working, otherwise a good citizen. This guy has not changed my thoughts that this is criminal, but he has given me some perspective. I will ask him about this when I see him.
First, stop calling them “graffiti artists.” They are vandals. Second, don’t let them buy their way out with a fine. They should have mandatory work crew sentences, cleaning, scrubbing, picking up trash, and painting over defaced property. I would start with a 30 day minimum jail sentence which requires an 8 hour day, 5 days per week assignment to a supervised work crew, wearing a striped prison uniform and cleaning public places. No t.v. or socializing in the evenings. Study hall, then lights out. Second of fence would double the sentence.
TinEar – Banksy is an artist and does incredible graffiti. Any place would be honored to have on of his pieces.
There is a tremendous amount of graffiti at Newspaper Rock. How about the ones in Horseshoe Canyon. Are they going to fine the Ancient Aliens who made it? I think not. From the time of the pyramids we have found graffiti. Who gets to decide which stays and which goes.
His First Amendment right to expression boils blood as much as someone screaming “Fire!” in a theater. I backpack and fish on and around a section of the John Muir Trail each September, and I’m always amazed at how the literally tens of thousands who hike that trail annually leave no trace. It’s a fellowship of genuine respect for land set aside for us to escape the “urban mess.” I hope Saraiva grows up soon.
Graffiti is vandalism. Want to creat art; buy some canvas and paint on it. You have no right to destroy other people’s property or natural sights. It is the ultimate in narcissism to think that your scribbling will improve a sixteenth century building or a majestic mountain or someone’s newly painted home.
You are absolutely right.
Community service in the form of cleaning up their own mess plus the mess of others not caught and a fine that compensates for the cleaning supplies and the pay of the person supervising them while cleaning and escorting them out of the area when done.
I am going to Amsterdam in a month. I will venture over to Paris with my half blind guy for whom I give guidance and I will drop some turds on the Eiffel tower. But seriously. Why arrest the perps. God made rifles. Shoot them. Cut their fingers off while they are still alive and then shoot them. Punishment must fit the crime.
Narcissism at its finest. But today many need to feel ‘special’ in order to have meaning on social media. How can you separate yourself from the attention grabbing throng without doing something more ‘special.’
Their heads are stuck where the sun does not shine and in front of a 5-inch traveling entertainment screen that demands constant content that one-ups the previous 2-minute Go Pro clip, or clownish selfie.
What’s next for these clueless cretins? Dropping 55-gallon buckets of paint over the edge of Mt. Rushmore, jackhammer their initials on the Lincoln Memorial, or maybe a drone-drop of sticky glitter and confetti on the Statue of Liberty may sooth the social love needs of the ‘artist’ egomaniac.
As civility and respect go the way of cursive, you can only expect more of this moronic behavior. Then again, the banksters were not prosecuted or jailed for plunging the economy into the Great Recession (that’s still alive and crushing economic lives in many places). A ‘corporation’s are people, my friend’ can freely destroy a mountaintop and contaminate the local waterways, frackers can stick unsightly, noisy wells anywhere and pump toxic waste who knows where, and high rises can block old views and cast shadows where the sun once shined in the name of progress….
My god, he lives in France. Nick!
Graffiti has always been around and poses a problem, both in the fact that it sometimes blatantly defaces where it should not be and that it can be an art form. Allowing it as an art form gives credibility to those who simply want to ‘tag’ every place, especially when it is provocative.
The pink geyser is an example of an art installation. It is temporary and does not harm the environment. The bandit aspect is really the only flaw. One could defend it. It reminds me of when kids, I won’t say who, used to toss a box of high sudsing laundry detergent in a public fountain. However painting on rocks for the sake of ‘expressing’ oneself does permanently ruin the rock for most. The problem lies in the all or nothing area.
A comparable issue is pot. Pot is a drug and heroin is a drug, therefore the pot users get locked up with the heroin users. There is next to no connection between the two.
In LA there is/was an old ‘Red Car’ station and a yard outside of a tunnel through Bunker Hill. The area used to be abandoned and had a ten foot, in some places, wall all around the inside. The graffiti there was as close to art as one can get. I photographed it weekly for a while. Artists would paint a section white and create phenomenal works, then walk away. Within a day or two other less talented kids would ‘tag’ the graffiti. Eventually the original work would be covered with ‘tags’. The the process would repeat itself. There is a perfect place for graffiti.
I agree with JT on this one except for the jail time. They should be arrested and made to do community service, cleaning up messes made by their ilk. Scrubbing off initials all day long might make the point. There are many more beautification/restoration jobs that need doing.
Personally I have always been a fan of graffiti that is well done and well placed. The problem is that art is in the eye of the beholder. This tagging of rocks in parks is in no way, art.
Put guys like this up against a wall and give them twenty shots with a paintball gun.
Bravo! This is not art, this is vandalism. Worse still, it is ugly. Personally, I believe we are drowning in unnecessary laws, but this is indeed an instance where we need to strengthen laws and impose jail time.
Outrageous. Have you seen what another polluter did to the geyser in Iceland?
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-32496258
He then says that no one owns nature as it belongs to everyone: thereby completely undermining his very actions.
When someone approaches a pristine setting, those who follow should have the same privilege.