'Strange Attractions: Exploring Graffiti' - It's All Beautiful

WOODBURY, CONNECTICUT -- What is graffiti? Some say it's tagging--something ugly, a menace, pure mischief. Others say it's art--open creativity, a sharing of heart and soul and mind for all to see.

For Woodbury resident and college instructor Sandy Carlson, graffiti is a wonder of language and power. "Graffiti first and last is language and color and youth," writes Carlson in her recently published work, Strange Attractions: Exploring Graffiti, now available through Lulu.com. "It's about discovering where we are and who we are and who you are. I find this very beautiful."

Carlson's attraction to graffiti began when she lived in Belfast, Ireland, in the early 1990s. There, the writers-muralists-painted walls to convey messages and influence people on political and cultural levels.

Upon her return to Connecticut a short time after earning her master's degree in Anglo-Irish literature from University College, Dublin, Carlson became interested in the graffiti scene in Bethel and Danbury and photographed the legal and illegal walls upon which Connecticut graffiti writers left their marks. On and off since then, she has been photographing writers' work in different cities in the Nutmeg State and interviewing writers, artists, and law enforcement officials on this topic.

Strange Attractions: Exploring Graffiti grew from those interviews and trips to roadside hot spots, obscure graffiti worlds below road level, and along train tracks.

"The writers come along with their paint, their ideas and their sketches," said Carlson. "And they paint, placing upon a wall or trailer container or train car or bridge, what they have carefully refined in their minds or on paper. And they leave for all of us to see and to experience together as art for art's sake.

"They work within a sort of secret society in which there is a history that they learn as they go; in which there is a pecking order and respect," said Carlson. "They write when and where they are supposed to, and only over the tags and work of less established writers than themselves, and they express themselves, sharing their creativity, style, and their flair."

For more about this project, visit the Strange Attractions: Exploring Graffiti blog or Lulu or The Writing Clan by searching through Google.

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