Learning How To Write Graffiti With Dad
Graffiti is an art form that I love but I always knew better than to tag a wall.
The South Bronx was littered with graffiti when I was growing up during the ’80s and ’90s.
It was everywhere, from the side of abandoned buildings to the trains to random box trucks. When I say everywhere, I mean everywhere, and I loved it!
I loved seeing art everywhere and even tried to get my hands dirty with it myself. My pops caught me and gave me one of those stern talks that scared the shit out of me.
He taught me about the consequences of tagging a wall and bought me my 1st black book. I still suck at it but when Chris Penn aka Tekstthc of Projectivity told me he wanted to host an event teaching the art, you know I had to get the dads involved.
Why Graffiti?
I am a Hip Hop Dad, everything about me screams hip hop. I love the culture and everything it stands for, graffiti was always a huge part of it.
Dads like me, need events that speak to who they are and graffiti paired with Hip Hop is my thing. I wanted to share my love of hip hop and graffiti with my son and what better way to do so than together.
Other dads love it also so it was time to get us all together for a day of reminiscing but also educating our kids about this particular art form. Our motto is to teach without the kids knowing we are teaching, graffiti was perfect for this.
Art is a form of expression so is graffiti
When you think of graffiti you think about kids or even adults tagging things illegally. That’s not what I wanted to teach the kids but it was very important for us to show them the positive and negative side of the art form.
The education system has basically cut off most of the funding it had set aside for the arts, so who better to teach our kids than dads?
Our main goal was to show that graffiti is still used by all street artists to tell a story. Graffiti just like drawing comics is a form of expression and kids need to know that. They need to know that they can show the world who they are through many different ways and art, especially graffiti is a great way to do so.
People use graffiti to express themselves and to also tell stories in a dope creative artistic way. The schools aren’t teaching this anymore, but we will with our #ArtOfFatherhood series.
Spending time together, doing art can go a long way
Some of the dads at our event had skills, some like me, well we were lacking ?
However, no matter our skill level we all started from the beginning. With our kids, we learned the history of graffiti and then how to make our own pieces of art incorporating it.
We spent about an hour learning about it, sketching it on paper and then about 30 minutes actually putting our work of art on a canvas.
The best part, we did it all together. Kids couldn’t jump on their phones to play fort nite and they couldn’t run around smacking each other. It was our time to bond and everyone took advantage of it.
Doing art with your kids, even if you’re not good at it, is definitely a Cool4Dads Certified Activity.
Learning from the dads and their kids
I love hosting events like this because I get to see dads really interact with their kids. They don’t just interact, but by doing graffiti together they were able to learn about their kids.
Kids got to show their dads how creative they could get while dads showed them their own creative side. Everybody won that day by “Catching A Tag” together. If the artwork isn’t proof, just look at the smiles on the dad’s faces ?
We all got to share our love of Hip Hop and Graffiti together while getting to know other kids and their dads. Friendships were made and you never know, the next Banksy might have been in the room. Worst case, dads got to create dope memories with the people they love the most while teaching them something new.
And that right there is always a huge win for me! For more pictures, check out our FACEBOOK Page!
