Living in Lowell the past 3 years, I've never been one to doubt the city's thorough street cred. As far as gray little cities go, the city's got both the grit and the talent to be expected of the hustle and bustle.
There's dance studios downtown where an urban dance crew from Lowell made it to America's Best Dance Crew finals. Everyday, the skate park just past South Campus cradles some of the most skilled skateboarders outside of Boston. These hidden gems are the Lowellites I've met outside the school, and outside the ephemeral populating effect of those temporary kids at the University. One thing I had never given any attention to though...
There's little to no graffiti to be spoken of. Sure, there's tags, but in recent years it seems that the growing city of Lowell has always known its boundaries. The city's street art community hasn't quite arrived to the level of painting gleeful children and deceased musician murals on the walls.
Why now Lowell? Is this how we inaugurate ourselves into the sociopolitical guerrilla art community of the millennium?
Well I don't buy it. Lowell can do better. I believe somewhere downtown there is a town hall of citizens in uproar about this graffiti on the wall. "We weren't ready to go public yet!" "Who exposed us?!"
It was the blasted students at the University, not some disenfranchised diamond in the rough. They saw a documentary on Banksy and wanted to take their own stencils to the streets.
They'd rack their suburban brains for something profound until the divine idea comes to copy something out of the sociology textbook. Soon, black and red spraypaint is purchased from the 24-hour CVS just a hop away from South Campus, and then "Bling Bling Dollar Store" needs to repaint their walls. "TV Kills." Nah, Lowell's got bigger problems, dude.
Poor little dollar store. They can't afford that.
But maybe we can't afford to stay out of the graffiti game any longer. How else is this little soot city gonna grow big and strong again?
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