The economic state of California is representative of the larger financial health of the United States. The budget cuts and the faltering status of art education in public schools has contrasted much of the rhetoric and statistics for art education and employment in the visual arts. Yet, contemporaneously, California has also witnessed the largest…

Street artist Morley describes how his perspective on graffiti changed when more cosmopolitan art school peers introduced him to what at the time was being redefined from "vandalism" to "street art." Morley explains that, as fascinated as he was, his untrained suburban eyes couldn't make out the words or their meaning in…