WA 7 second

Adam was a journalist and photographer working for the local newspaper. Or at least he was for now. Last Tuesday his editor mentioned that his stories were flat and uninteresting. His editor suggested Adam should find a more interesting topic, something more artistic and something that the local crowd didn’t know about or understand.

It was a Saturday and Adam’s deadline was in 10 hours. But procrastinating and working under pressure was something Adam did well. Adam had always worked up right to the deadline and then turned in his work. That was another reason why his editor didn’t like him. But this time it would be different.

Adam left his apartment and hopped on a bus going downtown. He got off where he got off every morning near his office. But this time instead of turning left into the lovely neighborhood with nice houses and bright green lawns, he went straight onto a street he had never been on.

Strolling down the street Adam looked around and felt uncomfortable. The unkempt houses and messy trashed neighborhood made him feel insecure. Here, he was determined to find something interesting. He saw old abandoned buildings broken glass and dumpsters and he knew he was on a totally different track than usual.

He turned down an alley and saw a huge drawing on the building. Vandalism, he thought was such a terrible thing, why do people do that? What did it say? Adam backed up and looked at it again. He looked down the side of the building, covered in a graffiti mural. Bold colors stood out on the dull, cracking concrete building. Inch by inch foot by foot Adam inspected the mural. He looked at all the messages, illegible, obscene and the ones in various languages. He was inspired; there was a story behind each writing, symbol and scribble.

As he reached the end of the wall and looked at his watch, he was surprised to find out that it had already been two hours since he had left his apartment. Immediately he started worrying, he needed to get a good picture and subject soon. How silly he realized he was when he came back to his senses and realized a story was already written for him among the mural in front of him. It was an interpretive art form with such feeling behind it. This kind of art, most people saw and recognized as vandalism.

Adam returned home, feeling ahead of schedule for once, and developed his pictures. He sat down and poured out the story of his adventure. He looked at his photos, reinterpreted the drawings and fought on the side of the artists, like he was. Every form of art, he wrote, should be expressed freely and if this art required a wall then a wall should be available. He proposed the idea of a wall in a popular place downtown where people could draw what they wanted to.

When the article was published that week, many people started to look at graffiti in a different way and agreed about the idea of a public wall for graffiti. In a few months, sure enough, there was a wall covered in graffiti and stories that anyone could enjoy.