Wildstyle old school graffiti numbers3/24/2024 BUBBLE LETTERS A type of graffiti letters, usually considered to be an older (and sometimes outmoded) style. To cover an area with your tag, throwups, etc. BMT Train line in NY that had only ridgys and ding-dongs (except for the As and Cs.) BOMB Prolific painting or marking with ink. Blade and Comet claim to have invented these. Mainly invented to cover over other people and to paint whole trains easily, but they are effective on smaller walls for maximum coverage. BLOCKBUSTER Big, square letters, often tilted back and forth and in (usually) two colors. This is considered a no-no and is looked down upon, even though writers often borrow imagery from cartoons and comics. The terms of losing and winning are usually negotiated by the crews involved and can be payment in paint, pot, a sock in the jaw, the losing crew has to stop writing their name, etc., etc. For both kinds of battle, an outside crew or writer judges who is the winner. A getting-up battle is when the writers take a certain area of a city and whichever crew can get up the most in that area within a certain amount of time (say a week to a month), wins. A skills battle is when two writers piece a wall within a certain time period (usually a day or a few hours) and whoever does the best piece is the winner. The battle can take two forms: skills battle or getting up – essentially quality vs. BATTLE This is done when two writers or two crews have some sort of disagreement. Also can refer to throwups that are one after another. BACK TO BACK A wall that is pieced from end to end all the way across. Backgrounds were used to make the piece stand out from all the tags and assorted scribbling on a subway car that make the piece hard to discern the color or design painted behind the piece to make it stand out from the wall or train. BACKGROUND Originated on the subways out of neccessity. BACK IN THE DAY Refers to the “old days”, old school, or when a writer first started writing. Can also refer to a crew instead of just one writer. Many people can be “up”, but only a select few could be considered “all city”. ALL CITY What a writer is considered to be when he/she is “up”, but this term implies more status than being just “up”. A newer glossary has been compiled by 149th Street.Īn effort has been made to keep to some of the history of each word, its origins and its current application to graffiti culture. So terms in use in your area may well be different. Note that this list is quite dated and somewhat NYC-centric. Thanks to RaskeL & Celtic (for info on homemades and Griffin shoe dye), Eros (for old-skool NYC/subway info) and Subway Art by Henry Chalfant for basic info and references. Slapped together by Chad with help from Schmoo. Real Writers Wouldn’t Deface a Small BusinessĪlso in Japanese! and a new one: translated by Takuya Hiramoto Lesser artists can only gain status by impressing a (‘king’)” (What is street art? Top 5 street artists in the art world- Part II). The most visible or skilled artists are known as ‘kings’, and iconography of crowns within their work is a reference to the writer’s status. “Although the graffiti art community may seem unstructured, it adheres to a stricthierarchy among its writers. “Paradoxically, graffiti, which prides itself in being one of the only true subcultures in so much as its practitioners are in it not for the money but for the fame, could in fact be, a direct result rather than a by-product of advertising, the glaring antithesis to notions of purity and altruism” (Kataras). Graffiti Is Advertisement (Space Used is Important) Communication is Usually to Other Writers Not to the General Public The Ultimate Offense is Writing Over Someone Else’s Work
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