He shook the can a few times and didn’t hesitate to start spraying. His heart was pounding as the smell of paint forced its way through the bandana covering his face. He put down the spray paint, peeled back the paper stencil and stepped back to admire the first layer of his work.
That’s when he noticed the man standing in the parking lot nearby, watching him. The kid grabbed his paint and ran.
A few minutes later, he was in handcuffs on the front lawn of the school. Then he was in the back of a squad car on his way downtown.
That kid was me about ten months ago. And trust me, it was not fun. I had always imagined that I would feel kind of bad-ass if I ever was arrested (which of course I wouldn’t be, because I was pretty much invincible). All I felt that night, though, was scared and really, really stupid.
I have always had a stable home life – maybe a little bit boring at times – and I never got in trouble too much. So my parents were shocked when they got the call from the Portland Police Bureau, and honestly, I never imagined I would be in that position either.
Once I started doing graffiti, it didn’t take long for the addiction to settle in. I would sneak out whenever I got the chance, with whoever would come with me. Sometimes I went alone.
One of the first things I ever put up was an image of an Xbox controller. The design was going to be for a T-shirt, but why not see what it looked like on the school?
I had a lot of other stencils, some meant for shirts, some designed for graffiti. In my mind, I was an artist, not a tagger. But by the time I was arrested, the line between art and crime had blurred.
Why did I get into it in the first place? At the time, I had no place to show my creativity. I’ve always been into art, but when I started doing graffiti, I hadn’t taken any art classes since middle school. I had no way to express myself, so graffiti became my outlet.
That outlet just happened to be illegal.
There was definitely some insecurity in the picture for me back then. I didn’t feel like I was recognized by anyone and I wanted people to talk about my graffiti, to talk about me. In my mind, I had a vision of having this cool secret identity, kind of like a superhero.
But it was not cool when they were taking my mug shot and fingerprints at the police station. And I didn’t feel too great about my identity, either. When my parents came to pick me up, my dad couldn’t talk and my mom was crying. I couldn’t look either of them in the eye. I remember begging them not to tell my younger brother, thinking about what he would think of me if he knew what I had done. The car ride home still stands as the least favorite moment of my life.
For a few days afterward, the only lesson I could take away from the experience was the Golden Rule of doing anything illegal: don’t get caught. But after a while, I stepped back and looked at myself a little deeper. I saw more clearly how my mind worked and I’m still surprised at how irrationally I was thinking.
It might sound weird, but I’m actually glad I got caught. If I hadn’t been stopped as early as I was, there’s no telling where I would have ended up. Probably nowhere good. And if I hadn’t been arrested, what would I be writing about now?
It’s important to take risks and gain life experience, but make sure to think about how it will affect you and the people around you.
I still make stencils, by the way, but I only use them for legitimate art. ♦
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