Satellite images of the Color Park reveal a nook of beautiful pastels among an otherwise dreary stretch of trucking facilities hugging the Monongahela River in Pittsburgh’s popular South Side neighborhood. The space is a vibrantly colorful delight to any pair of eyes who happen upon that section of Three Rivers Heritage Trail.
There are few boundaries for artists who create in and around the space, and most definitely none within it. Visitors shouldn’t be surprised to see color splashed onto everything from the trail itself to the leaves of the trees that surround the space, making their tango with the wind shockingly stimulating. The Color Park invites beginners as well as seasoned artists to make something that would be bland, beautiful.
It wasn’t always this way.
The Color Park came to be in the spring of 2017. The idea for the project started a few years before that. Local artist Baron Batch had been tagging the area on his bike rides for a while when people started to complain and claim his work was vandalism. Back then, he would ride his bike around the city and stop wherever he got the urge to bust out his paint. Reporter Sarah Kovash for Pittsburgh’s NPR news station, WESA, interviewed Batch and this is what he had to say about the beginnings of the park: “I got so comfortable with painting on things outside, I just was riding my bike and just tagged the trail” (Kovash 2016).
This habit would turn costly as Batch was eventually fined and charged with criminal mischief by the City Police. The monetary cost was far outweighed by the implication that his work was detrimental to the space as opposed to valuable. He set out to prove that the community would support a creatively colorful space rather than a randomly tagged truck lot. Kovash elaborates in her article. “That he’s wanted on an arrest warrant alleging 30 counts of criminal mischief doesn’t worry him, he said, because it’s an opportunity to give a face to Pittsburgh graffiti and the inspiration behind free, outdoor expression.” (Kovash 2016) All in all Batch would spend about $30,000 on fines and legal fees. Most importantly, he got his expressions out into the world for people to see, something that is hard to pin a price tag on.
So, was is worth it? The Color Park represents innovation in the interpretation of our city space. Graffiti often gets a bad rap as it’s interpreted as vandalism by many. But what happens when vandalism makes a space something more than what it was? From Edward Soja we learned that space is actively interpreted in our participation of it. When we are in a space or talking about it, we are shaping the way that space is rendered by the rest of us. City officials came to the decision that the Color Park indeed improved this section of the Heritage Trail and made it a part of the city owned space. Now, if people want somewhere to go and create art, they have a space to do it legally.
Discourse about vandalism versus art has been going on since human beings have been driven to express themselves. Who decides the difference? Where do we draw the line? Denotto enlightens us, “Yet, today the term graffiti means any sort of unsanctioned application of a substance, whether it is spray paint, pencil markings, or even stickers.” (Denotto) Anything “unsanctioned” is graffiti.
Serious graffiti artists are going to create. Some of the suspense itself lies in breaking the law. But another important realization for some artists is to just be a part of the city landscape. In this act they can get their talents out there and known to people who may be looking to employ freelance workers.
Graffiti artists violate laws of different regions for different reasons, sometimes even politically. This has brought on discussion in the academic world as to how graffiti should be understood today. “Graffiti is now recognized as a legitimate source of academic study, and it is being studied as a reaction to injustice and disenfranchisement, a cry for revolution, a way to create awareness of socio-political issues, an expression of hope for the future, an effort to reclaim public spaces, or an attempt to beautify the urban environment, among others.” (DeNotto)
We look again to Pittsburgh’s NPR station to find out what Baron Batch had to say about his additions to the city landscape. "Pittsburgh is just this — this massive urban jungle that is beautiful, but a lot of these spaces just haven't been thought about in a different way and different functionality and beautifying them and bringing art into those spaces changes the way they're used and seen and the function of them." (Kovash 2017) Batch would eventually go on to work on several projects with his arresting officer, culminated by an art show at the Space Gallery – a completely sanctioned event.
Few serious artists come out into the dark city at night with the intention of making something ugly or unsightly. The people who are doing that in Pittsburgh today are not artists, but likely fascists. There have been unfortunate instances in Pittsburgh where hate has been encouraged through graffiti. As recent as August of 2019, a suicide awareness public art project on the cities bridges was tainted with hate graffiti and references to white supremacy. (PITTSBURGH)
There have been others penalized for graffitiing devoid of hate here in our beautiful city. One that sticks out is that of artist GEM$ in Pittsburgh’s Oakland neighborhood who is a talented yet angsty individual. He tagged a lot more places than Batch and in a more invasive way, but that is part of an illicit culture that graffiti has the power to evoke. Beauty finds a way to thrive.
“Earlier this month, 30-year-old Jerome Michael Charles, was arrested after police said he caused $46,000 in damage by tagging several locations, including in the Strip District, Lawrenceville and on Chatham University’s campus. In February, 22-year-old Max Emiliano Gonzales confessed to causing more than $114,000 in damage in the East End.” (Kovash 2016)
Click here to read the full Pitt News article on GEM$.
So, if you’re new to public art and you just can’t help yourself from writing on the walls, it would be best to start your new hobby at the Color Park.
Works Cited
DeNotto, Michael. "Street art and graffiti: Resources for online study." College & Research Libraries News [Online], 75.4 (2014): 208-211. Accessed 22 Nov. 2019
Kovash, Sarah. “Baron Batch On Graffiti Charges: 'Make Something Good Out Of It'.” 90.5 WESA, 28 June 2016, https://www.wesa.fm/post/baron-batch-graffiti-charges-make-something-good-out-it#stream/0.
Kovash, Sarah. “Former Pittsburgh Steelers RB Baron Batch On Art And His Arresting Officer.” Former Pittsburgh Steelers RB Baron Batch On Art And His Arresting Officer | Only A Game, WBUR, 20 Oct. 2017, https://www.wbur.org/onlyagame/2017/10/20/baron-batch-pittsburgh-graffiti.
Map of the Color Park, Image. Pittsburgh, PA. Google Maps, 2019, maps.google.com.
“PITTSBURGH HATE SPEECH: Anti-Suicide Messages on Pittsburgh Bridges Covered with Hate Speech.” WPXI, 3 Aug. 2019, https://www.wpxi.com/news/top-stories/pittsburgh-hate-speech-anti-suicide-messages-on-pittsburgh-bridges-covered-with-hate-speech/972389298.