Can art be a sport? Gabriel Lacktman describes the thrill of graffiti. He notes the average artist seeks refuge in the blanket of self-expression, successfully avoiding all disconcerting competition. However, in the 1990s, Lacktman's interest in graffiti became a lifestyle, the theme was all about "the art of getting over" or "the…

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…

The homeboy aesthetic is identifiable as an assemblage of key signifiers: clothing (baggy pants and undershirts are perhaps the most significant), hair (or, in the current moment of the aesthetic, lack of hair), bold stance, and distinct language (think "calo" mixed with hip-hop parlance), all combining to form a distinguishable cultural…