MR. KOJO NNAMDIFrom WAMU 88.5 at American University in Washington, welcome to "The Kojo Nnamdi Show," connecting your neighborhood with the world. Some see graffiti texts sprawled across alleys, storefronts and overpasses as vandalism. Others see art, not to mention an outlet for local graffiti artists and restless youths. A few years ago, the District decided it would co-opt these creative types, launching a program to work with local artists to create commissioned murals for neighborhoods.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIAs in most cities, street art and graffiti have a long history here, including notable murals and not-quite legal graffiti in visible places, like along the Red Line. Joining us to discuss this is Nancee Lyons, spokesperson for the District Department of Public Works for the MuralsDC program. Nancee Lyons, thank you for joining us.

MS. NANCEE LYONSThank you for having me.

NNAMDIAlso with us in studio is Saaret Yoseph, an assistant editor at The Root. She's also filmmaker who's working on a two-part documentary film about the graffiti along the Red Line. Saaret Yoseph, thank you for joining us.

MS. SAARET YOSEPHGood to be here.

NNAMDIAs usual, you can join this conversation by calling us at 800-433-8850. Do you notice the murals around the city? Do you have any favorites? 800-433-8850. You can send email to kojo@wamu.org, send us a tweet, @kojoshow, or simply go to our website, kojoshow.org, and join the conversation there. Saaret, the stretch along the Red Line is arguably the most heavily graffitied in the region. It's a mecca for graffiti artists. What's the draw?

YOSEPHWell, many things are the draw, to be honest, Kojo. I will say -- first of all, let me just back up a little bit. I was working as assistant editor at The Root when I first had the idea for the Red Line D.C. project. And over the summer, before I joined graduate school at Georgetown University, I had the idea to kind of investigate the ride that I was taking pretty much twice a day.

YOSEPHI would see these kind of colorful testaments to different people's names that I had never met, and I started noticing these very elaborate colorful images of things like the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and the Kanye West Bear and even President Obama. And I really became curious about who was behind these, you know, graffiti images that I was seeing every day and decided to kind of turn this investigation into my graduate thesis.

YOSEPHFrom there, it just kind of evolved into this transmedia effort, this documentary project that's taken on a life of its own to really just talk to graffiti writers, talk to commuters, talk to property owners along that space, especially now that it's been changing in the past few years with the development of the Metropolitan Branch Trail, and really kind of explore the aesthetic changes that are happening between this very specific space -- Union Station to Silver Spring -- and find out kind of the meaning of this aesthetic changes and what they meant to the rest of the city.

NNAMDIIt's a two-part documentary.

YOSEPHYes.

NNAMDITell us about what part will be dealing with what.

YOSEPHOK. Well, the first part that I released, the rough cut for was called "See Something, Say Something," and that was really just kind of exploring the indirect dialogue that I thought graffiti created between these kind of anonymous artists, these assailants some might call them, and the commuters that were seeing their graffiti every single day. Some were, you know, very kind of curious about them themselves, like I was.

YOSEPHOthers really didn't care. And a lot of people kind of were noticing the legal murals that were coming into that space and starting to kind of pit them against the legal graffiti, which I thought was very interesting. So I tried to kind of prod at those issues and start this conversation between the writers and the commuters kind of behind the scenes in the editing room by asking commuters what questions that they might have for these people that they had never met and getting the graffiti writers to, in turn, respond to those questions.

NNAMDIAnd the second part?

YOSEPHThe second part is going to really focus on the space and the changes that are happening right there and how people are accessing that space with the development that's happening. The graffiti writers, of course, were kind of accessing it on their own terms, appropriating it and kind of trespassing, as some might call it. Many people probably would call it that.

YOSEPHAnd the people who now have access to it with the development of the trail and pedestrians, bikers who are coming into that space, and there's obviously development that's happening with construction of different, you know, newly developed buildings and condos and the like. So it was really about kind of focusing on how that space has changed over the years and what that means.

NNAMDIIn case you're just joining us, we're discussing murals and street art. You're listening to the voice of Saaret Yoseph. She is a filmmaker who's working on a two-part documentary film about the graffiti along the Red Line. Also in studio with us is Nancee Lyons, spokesperson for the District's Department of Public Works for the MuralsDC program. Nancee, like most cities, there's -- or there was a real problem with graffiti, and the District got a lot of complaints from businesses and building owners. Can you talk a little bit about that?

LYONSRight. Well, when the program was started, it was started by Councilmember Jim Graham who is the Ward 1 councilmember. Ward 1 has the most amount of graffiti in the D.C. -- in the District, and so the whole goal was to find something that sort of helped to prevent and abate what was going on. And last year, we probably abated maybe about 4,000 instances of graffiti.

LYONSAnd, you know, it ebbs, and it flows. But we've found that the properties that we've targeted for this program, most -- a lot of them have had habitual problems with graffiti, and they haven't continued to have the same problem. So, you know, our whole thing is we like the idea of doing something creative to try to find a way to abate graffiti. Sometimes when you...

NNAMDIWell, how does one abate graffiti?

LYONSWell, we have two things that we do. We have a graffiti abatement team. And they go out, and they either apply a solution and wash the wall and use a high-powered nozzle and try to clean it off as much as possible. Or we'll use paint and try to paint over it. The paint may not be the exact color of the building. And sometimes, once you remove the graffiti, it doesn't, you know, it doesn't look as it did before. And so sometimes, it's nice when you can have, you know, a piece of artwork that actually covers that space and not only...

NNAMDIIs there such a thing as legal graffiti?

LYONSWell, that's an interesting question.

NNAMDIIt may be nice, but is it legal?

LYONSOur program is legal. That I could say. And in that case and in that instance, it is legal graffiti, but, you know, we've had discussions about that. There's a large population of residents in the city who do believe that graffiti should be legalized, that they should be able to paint graffiti and their thoughts and their expressions.

NNAMDIWell, let's ask our listeners. Do you think graffiti is vandalism, plain and simple, or do you think it's a form of public art? 800-433-8850. You can also send email to kojo@wamu.org. Saaret, you interviewed a number of the graffiti writers for your film. What surprised you about who they were?

YOSEPHWhat surprised me -- there were many surprises along the way and definitely a lot of kind of nuances and contradictions that I really enjoyed finding out. But one of the bigger surprises for me -- I think a lot kind of assumptions are injected into graffiti. I was surprised to find out that a lot of writers were white kids, white suburban kids coming into the city to really kind of stake their claim to it, especially on the Red Line, and kind of gain some notoriety there.

YOSEPHBut I also got a lot of interesting findings talking to people like Nancee. I got a chance to interview her and learn a bit -- a little bit about the incidences of graffiti and also the kind of different perspectives that are -- there are when it comes to legal walls and to legal graffiti because that is something that is also part of the graffiti culture, approaching different business owners and asking them to use their walls and to incorporate graffiti style into these kind of community murals.

YOSEPHAnd that's definitely what's happening with MuralsDC in the sense that a lot of times there are people who are asked to do these projects who have gotten their skills and who have developed their careers doing illegal work.

NNAMDIAnd you got some surprises when you talked to people about who liked graffiti and who didn't. The usual...

YOSEPHDefinitely.

NNAMDI...I guess, stereotypes didn't hold.

YOSEPHThat's for sure. I mean, again, I learned very early on to stop romanticizing graffiti. I was kind of called on it by one of my interviewees, one of the early directors of MuralsDC, Dominic Painter, and he said that people kind of tend to inject this lore into graffiti, the people going out at night, and it's just so cool. Who are these people? You know, so there's a lot of misconceptions and presumptions made, and a lot of the commuters...

NNAMDIAnd that the only people who like it are cool young people and the people who hate it are all those...

YOSEPHOr that it's gang related or that it means something more negative, and a lot times, as you'll probably learn with your -- you with your other guests, that it's about an individual kind of trying to make a public identity for themselves. And a lot of times, they'll try to claim that, oh, I'm just doing this for myself. It's not for the audience. But when you're going to these places that are very much kind of displayed for a larger crowd, it probably is going to have an effect on more than you.

NNAMDINancee, you've heard several reactions as well. A lot of people enjoy graffiti, especially on neglected buildings. That includes some business owners. You've even changed your perspective, it's my understanding, since coming on board.

LYONSWell, last year, Saaret and I were on a panel at Busboys and Poets, and the whole theme was -- it was the art of vandalism. And, you know, graffiti, is it, you know, vandalism? You know, is it something that we should engage in? And I expected to have -- 'cause we get a lot of complaints in our office about people, you know, wanting us to clean buildings that have been tagged.

LYONSAnd I thought, well, this is a great opportunity for them to come out and, you know, voice their disapproval. And we had a room packed, filled with people who felt like you need to leave graffiti alone. You are damaging our personal work. And I'm thinking, where are all these people who've been calling me and complaining? And I...

NNAMDIThey didn't show up.

LYONSYes. I mean, even -- a lot of members of MPD were there, and I guess they were just sort of observing. But people in D.C.'s graffiti scene is really growing -- just the public art scene in general is really growing and becoming very well respected.

NNAMDIIn 2007, the District came up with another solution that aims to address both perspectives, the desire to encourage the artistic side of graffiti and street art while making sure businesses and communities are on board. Tell us about the MuralsDC program.

LYONSWell, again, it was started in 2007. To date, we have done 36 sites, and these are sites where we work with local artists, and we do -- we create brand-new works of art on buildings who -- the buildings that have either been tagged or they're either in jeopardy of being tagged because they're sort of in areas where there's a lot of graffiti. Sometimes we like to do buildings that just are sort of prominent buildings because it sort of helps build the program.

LYONSThis year, we're doing seven buildings. We just completed the side of Ben's Chili Bowl, so we had our sort of MuralsDC ending celebration there. And that was sort of a big deal. And, you know, we're just trying to grow the program. We're working with more young people. This year, we've got an apprentice program.

LYONSWe're trying to identify the murals in the past. We haven't necessarily had funding to have any sort of moniker on each of the mural, but we want to make sure that all of the artists that have participated over the past seven years are identified and their work is labeled. And so we're just trying to expand.

NNAMDIHow does the city decide what kind of mural to put up and which artist or artists get commissioned to paint it?

LYONSWell, what we do, we ask people to donate space. And once they do that, we come out. We look at the space and make sure that it's -- that the surface of the building is appropriate for the program and the location is appropriate for the program. And then we attend an ANC meeting for that area, and we let the residents know we're thinking about putting a mural in your neighborhood and if you'd like to come and be part of the process and help come up with -- help make an impact on design concepts, please do so.

LYONSAnd we meet with the residents and we just -- and the artists, the building owner, and we just have a conversation. Every year is a little different. Typically, what we try to do is we try to talk to people about their neighborhoods. We like the murals to tell a story about the history of the neighborhood and what's going on currently. And so, typically, we talk with them and say, you know, what would you like a mural to say about your neighborhood?

LYONSAnd so we try to make it as much of a community involvement process as possible. Once we -- the artist comes up with a few design concepts, we have a sort of a, you know, a Power View, and we discuss the artwork, and the building owner pretty much makes the final decision and decides which mural is most appropriate for their wall. And we just move forward.

NNAMDIWell, we have differing opinions, as you indicated, about it. First, this email that we got from Rachel in D.C., "I love so much of the Red Line graffiti and always daydream about the people who create it. So I'm really glad to hear about this documentary." The rest of Rachel's comment later, but as regards graffiti on the Red Line, here is Tom in South Riding, Va. Tom, your turn.

TOMI believe that that graffiti that I've seen on the Red Line and on the Amtrak -- I rode Amtrak to Chicago last year. The graffiti that you see along those lines is true vandalism. There is not a piece of that that indicates anything except somebody who's taken a spray can and just go on hog-wild with it. Now, if you're going to paint a picture where I can see something has happened or something is happening, that's one thing. But just to take a can of red paint or green paint and go crazy with it makes no sense at all. And it is nothing but vandalism, pure and simple.

NNAMDIYou see no artistic merit whatsoever to it, do you?

TOMAbsolutely none...

NNAMDIHere then...

TOM...in many of that that I've seen.

NNAMDIHere then is Saaret. What is Tom missing, Saaret?

YOSEPHWell, I don't think that Tom's really missing anything. That's his opinion to have, and I think it's awesome. Thank you so much for sharing that, Tom, because there are voices like that certainly that dislike graffiti very strongly that I included in the first part of my documentary "See Something, Say Something," and I think that that's valid. I mean, it's -- he has to interact and he has to see that graffiti every single day. So it's completely fine for him to have that opinion.

YOSEPHBut I also think that we can't necessarily polarize these necessarily scrawlings or whatever green paint, whatever, from these picturesque murals. They kind of live in the same can, and you can't really have one without the other because these people that you think are just going out at night and doing nonsense are really kind of honing in on a craft. And it really does take practice, the practice obviously you're seeing on your walls. And, truly, some people don't really care.

YOSEPHThey do want to be destructive in what they're doing. But most of them are really just trying to express themselves. And obviously Tom didn't agree with the expression. And that's completely fine too.

NNAMDITom, thank you very much for your call. Nancee, a few of those murals are along the Red Lines, the ones that have been commissioned. Has the official commissioned work along the Red Line changed how graffiti artists see that space as a space to get their work up?

LYONSWell, I think it has. I mean, we definitely have been working with more artists each year along that space. I just -- I'm sort of thrown by it. I mean, the general...

NNAMDII'm wondering if a lot of graffiti artists are saying, hey, now it's like the government agrees with this space. We don't it want anymore. It's not useful to us anymore.

LYONSAnd -- right. And that actually has been an issue. I mean, you have -- we've had conversations with people who do graffiti or who support graffiti artists, and they say, yeah, I mean, it's not authentic. Once programs like MuralsDC get involved, you know, it's not an authentic process. You know, we're not really trying to be so much the voice for graffiti artists as -- I mean, the Department of Public Works, our goal is to really try to abate graffiti as much as possible, to try to keep homeowners and business owners from spending a lot of their money to repaint tax basis.

LYONSSo it may not be a perfect program from an artistic perspective, but, you know, I'm surprised that the caller hasn't seen any merit in any of the graffiti that he's seen along his travels. But people -- different people are stimulated by different things.

NNAMDIWell, Rachel, who loves the graffiti on the Red Line, added, "I wish someone would remove the vulgar graffiti and tags on the underside of the bridge where the memorial is to the people who died in the 2009 Red Line accident near Fort Totten. It's not particularly artistic, and I think it would be a nice gesture for the city to remove it." So there you have another task. Saaret.

YOSEPHI think it's interesting what Nancee said and certainly your observation, Kojo, about this sense of people thinking that it's no longer authentic when the legal murals are being done. I think I have maybe a sound bite somewhere project file with Nancee saying exact -- those exact same words. But the thing is these are not one -- it's not a kind of monolithic culture, you know?

YOSEPHThere are people who have different opinions about how they practice graffiti. So I don't think that when we say this kind of general term they that it's really fair to graffiti culture. And I don't think it's fair to kind of what we want to see in terms of public art in our spaces. We really had -- have to have diverse kind of approaches, and certainly there's going to be diverse opinions.

NNAMDIThe notion that we're talking about an army of anti-establishment types is not necessarily true. Nancee, in some ways, is the goal of MuralsDC to bring some more official art and a little more process, if you will, to what was once a free-for-all?

LYONSYes, most definitely. We definitely, you know, again, the Department of Public Works, our focus -- we work with the Commission on Arts. But our overall foundation, our mission is basically to try to keep the city as clean as possible. When we talk about sites along the Red Line, you know, one of our -- one of the buildings we did several years ago was a condominium. And they were spending money every week to try to repaint their wall. And so now they have a mural, they haven't had to repaint in four years.

LYONSSo, I mean, our goal is want to be able to say, people who live in the District, who -- people who are citizens, we want to be able to save them money. We want to be able to grow artist -- local artists as much as possible. That's part of what we are looking at in the future is sort of being a program where we can sort of have more homegrown artists and also work with young people who can also recognize.

YOSEPHYou know, there are other options for you. You don't have to, you know, go out and scrawl your name somewhere. You can actually -- there are economic opportunities for you in this industry.

NNAMDIHere is Christina in Washington, D.C. Christina, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

CHRISTINAHi. I just wanted to comment on the graffiti on the Red Line because I've actually been riding the train for years, and I live at Fort Totten so I always see that stretch between New York Avenue, Union station, all the way to Silver Spring. And I wanted to say hi to Saaret. I had an opportunity to work with her briefly while she was filming.

YOSEPHOh, hi, Christina. I was thinking I know this voice.

CHRISTINAAnd so when I was sitting here, listening to the show, I was excited to hear that you're still working on it because I didn't get the chance to catch up with you. But I really agree that it's such a good topic, and I'm very glad that someone's actually going inside and exploring the world of graffiti art, especially here.

YOSEPHThank you for saying that. And I definitely think that something that's really interesting about the Red Line in this very kind of site-specific topic is that it's changing so rapidly. You know, the thing that graffiti and that the Metro have in common is this concept of temporality that, you know, you're passing Fort Totten one day and it looks one way and you pass it the next day, and it looks completely different.

YOSEPHSo in regards to the murals themselves and those kind of cropping up along that space and what you see and kind of who has a say on what's being on the wall, I think at the end of the day, Nancee is beholden to a governmental institution that has constituents that are going to object in one way or applaud in another. But these singular graffiti writers have a chance to just kind of express themselves without anybody else's say-so. And maybe that's more of an appeal than any kind of illicit, dark nature of the culture itself.

NNAMDINancee, tell us a little bit more about the mural that you mentioned earlier on the wall of Ben's Chili Bowl.

LYONSRight. Well, we worked with -- we -- our consultant is Word Beats & Life and we have been -- we've had a relationship with Ben's Chili Bowl for the past couple of years. We did a wall on Ben's next door last year. So this is the second mural that we've done with him. And the artist for that project is Aniekan Udofia. He lives in Adams Morgan. And we talked with the Ali family.

LYONSAnd what they wanted to do is have a wall that sort of represented people who meant a lot to the city, as well as people who had an impact on Ben's Chili Bowl over the years. So, of course, for them, Bill Cosby is number one.

NNAMDIHe's been going there ever since the place opened.

LYONSPresident Obama, we know how much their business really just sort of -- it was already off the chart, but after President Obama visited, I mean, there were lines at the end of the block. Donnie Simpson, who, of course, formerly a radio announcer, and Chuck Brown, who means so much to everyone here in D.C., and so those were the four people they really want to see on the wall. And, you know, the reaction to that wall has just been amazing because each of those -- the portraits mean so much to people here and even outside of D.C.

LYONSI mean, people may not really know Chuck Brown, but, you know, they'll want to take a picture with, you know, in front of the -- picture with the president or in front of Bill Cosby. And it's just -- the reaction to that mural has really been amazing. And it was a great experience to work with the Ali family on that and just to be able to do something that they felt really honor their business.

NNAMDIMuralsDC does tours of the murals. Can you talk a little bit about that?

LYONSRight. Well, actually, every year, we've been giving some type of tour at the end of the completion of the murals. This year, we actually worked with BicycleSPACE D.C. and did two bicycle tours that took people along the northwest corridor of the murals. Now, there are murals in almost every ward of D.C., except for three. Yeah, there are works in murals in every ward. So we haven't yet been able to do a tour of the northeast and southeast corridors. We want to do that next.

LYONSBut the first tour had several hundred people, and I was just amazed at how many people were actually there just to see murals. And, you know, Mazi Mutafa with Words Beats & Life was one of the sort of historians and giving them information on each of the murals. And people really had a great experience. They started in the evening, and they went until eight or like nine o'clock at night.

NNAMDIYou can find the video about the tour posted on our website, kojoshow.org. Saaret, you get the final word.

YOSEPHOh, the final word, wow. Well, just to balance the scales a little bit and to be fair, it's worth noting that there's also a tour of a legal graffiti in the city, too, with the Knowledge Commons DC, a community-based organization that I'm going to be doing an event with later this fall when I release both documentaries. So I hope that people will stay tuned to the progress of the documentary. And check us out at redlinedc.wordpress.com.

NNAMDIWe're going to be moving on talking about the history of graffiti in D.C. So if you have called, stay on the line. We will get to your call. The first caller dropped off, but he asked what I thought would be the first question on the show and that is, does anyone know what happened to Disco Dan? Saaret.

YOSEPHHe's still around. And there's also a documentary about him that's coming out or may have already come out about Cool Disco Dan's legend in the city. So you should definitely Google that and find it, for sure.

LYONSLast year.

YOSEPHYeah. And there -- I mean, so many people recognized that name, so his legend lives on way beyond his name.

NNAMDICool Disco Dan. Saaret Yoseph is a filmmaker who's working on a two-part documentary film about the graffiti along the Red Line. Thank you for joining us.

YOSEPHThank you for having me.

NNAMDIAnd Nancee Lyons is the spokesperson for the District Department of Public Works for the MuralsDC program. Nancee, thank you for joining us.

LYONSThank you.

NNAMDIGoing to take a short break. When we come back, as we said, we'll be talking about the history of graffiti and the local tradition of street art in Washington. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

NNAMDIWelcome back to our conversation about the local tradition of graffiti and street art. A conversation we're inviting you to join by calling 800-433-8850. Have you ever noticed the murals and graffiti along the Red Line, the Metropolitan Branch Trail? Do you think graffiti is vandalism plain and simple, or do you think it's a form of public art? 800-433-8850. Joining us now in studio is Cita Sadeli Chelove, a mural artist and co-founder and director of Protein Media, a design animation and interactive media company. Thank you very much for joining us.

MS. CITA SADELIThanks for having me.

NNAMDIAlso with us is Gaia. Gaia is a mural artist based in Baltimore. He painted the recent large-scale mural, "Dusk of H Street," commissioned by the H Street restaurant Smith Commons. Gaia, thank you for joining us.

MR. ANDREW "GAIA" PISACANEThank you for having me.

NNAMDIAlso in studio is Cory Stowers. He co-owns the store Art Under Pressure on George Avenue. It's a retail and custom art store. He's also a former graffiti artist and historian of local street art. Cory Stowers, thank you for joining us.

MR. CORY STOWERSThank you for having me.

NNAMDIBefore there were official city-commissioned murals, there was a graffiti seen here in D.C. Can you take us back to when you were both active in that scene, that is you, Cita, and you, Cory, in the '90s? First how did you get involved, Cita?

SADELIA anti-drug pamphlet in high school, actually. I was exposed to the earlier forms of graffiti, the wild style. And I just became really involved with a couple of groups of folks that were originally from New York but had moved to D.C., sort of learned the craft with them and from there taken it to legal murals. It's been a long road.

NNAMDIHow'd you get involved, Cory?

STOWERSKind of a similar way, just kind of noticing graffiti around me and really having this idea that I wanted to do that. I didn't really know why, but it seemed very cool to me that somebody would write their name, you know, all over the place. And so I just kind of gravitated toward it. Cita and I are from the same hometown. And we have a very small group of graffiti writers that come from our area. But Cita and Kier and Jest would be some other writers that I saw that really kind of influenced me to just start doing it.

NNAMDIYou're all from Hyattsville?

STOWERSYes.

SADELIYes.

NNAMDIWhat was the graffiti-like scene like here in the 1990s?

STOWERSThe 1990s, it was pretty booming here. We had a lot of influence from different cities, from New York, from Philadelphia, even from, you know, Chicago. We had writers coming in from all over the place. And here, you know, we're kind of known for Cool Disco Dan as a graffiti writer, but we have many other prominent writers that come from this area. Guys like DJ SMK, you know, guys like Rust, Mask and Joker, who were all active in the late '80s, early '90s and really set the foundations for what D.C. graffiti was going to look like.

STOWERSAnd, you know, in that regards, you know, we were a young scene at the time, but we had a lot of impact and a lot of those writers that were here in the early '90s went to other cities and became, you know, kind of standards in those scenes also.

NNAMDIGaia, you do something a little different. It's not paint but posters that you put up, generally also without permission on abandoned buildings and spaces. Can you talk a little bit about that on why you chose that route rather than graffiti?

PISACANEYeah, absolutely. I mean, I chose the route of doing posters because it appealed to me to be able to do something prior to going out in the street. You know, you can make something that is very detail-oriented and, you know, addresses something that goes beyond sort of the very limited means you have at that moment to, you know, create something in the time that you have, you know, on site.

PISACANESo, I mean, that was the initial thing. And then, you know, I take a very different approach to writing. You know, I'm not a writer. I don't consider myself a write. I am affiliated with a lot of writers. You know, I live with writers. I love graffiti especially the illegal aspects of it. But….

NNAMDIWhy do you like especially the illegal aspects of it?

PISACANEWell, you know, listening to the conversation that was happening prior to us coming on before, you know, the first half of the show, it really is about how incongruous graffiti is with capital A, capital P, public art, you know, and the government and everything. And, you know, this is -- this is the city of the government. You know, this is the government right here. And there are a lot of programs that obviously exist, and there's a lot of crossovers between an art and graffiti.

PISACANEBut, you know, writing is writing ultimately, and it gives you faith. It gives you faith that not everything can be cleaned up. Not everything can be whitewashed. It gives you faith that it is possible for a grassroots to exist. It is possible for people to speak beyond the forms of communication that have been established...

NNAMDIThat have been sanctioned by the government so to speak.

PISACANESanctioned. Yeah, and you know, it just allows for more freedom.

NNAMDIYou work in Baltimore. How do you choose where you put your posters up?

PISACANEWell, I mean, there's no shortage of canvass in Baltimore, you know.

PISACANEI think they've got like 20,000 vacant buildings or something like that. So choosing could maybe be just closing my eyes and throwing a stone. But, you know, I look for beautiful architectural situations and also for landscapes that are sort of deprived of any sort of art and where I feel like I can really vibe with the people. So I put out my work during the day. Yes, I do something illegal, but I'm not taking the same chances that a graffiti writer takes here.

NNAMDIYou're putting it up, as you said, during the day. What reaction do you get from people when they see putting it up?

PISACANEYou know, obvious, the spectrum. Generally, people are, you know. If you have the confidence in what you're doing, you're not ashamed of what you're doing, and you're being respectful to people, you know, I put up work in vacant space, which I don't care who the hell comes up to me to argue with me. That -- it's sort of an -- you know, I can defend that point very well. You know, I'm not putting up work on people's houses.

PISACANENo one has to paint over my work because, you know, because I actually take care of the property. I'm putting up work in derelict, fallow spaces, and I want to bring, you know, something to people. And I want to cross those social boundaries myself, being a upper middle-class white individual from Upper East Side of New York. You know, I want to go wherever, and, you know, internationally, but also in every city.

NNAMDICita, as he said, writing is writing, and you were writing since you were a teenager. There are not a lot of women, apparently, doing this. Why do you think that is?

SADELII think it's -- it holds true with a lot of these, I guess, sort of burgeoning kind of movements, things that are perceived as having elements of danger or risk. It's -- it also bleeds through -- if you look at, you know, even the world of graphic design, if you look at the world of illustration, you'll find pretty consistently less females. It's unfortunate, and I'm not sure why that happens. But, hopefully, my work can inspire more women to sort of branch out.

NNAMDIThe graffiti community intersects with a number of others, including hip-hop, skateboarding and your origins -- punk.

SADELIYes.

NNAMDICan you talk a little bit about that?

SADELII think it's the DYI element, the sort of taking charge, taking control. Like Gaia was mentioning, you know, for -- these processes can seem somewhat derelict from the outside, but from the inside, it's just making a better situation for yourself, making a name for yourself, exploring creative energy. And I think it all sort of borrows on the same sort of core of expression, creative expression. And, you know, a lot of what being a youth is about is having to express all of these things inside.

NNAMDISeeking forms of self-expression.

SADELIExactly.

NNAMDICory, there's good and bad graffiti artists, and some graffitists technically more accomplished. What did you learn as you were coming up, watching and being mentored by more established artists?

STOWERSWell, it took me a few years to actually get to a place where I was even in a position to understand the mentor -- you know, the mentor relationship of like a older graffiti writer to a younger graffiti writer. And I didn't meet many for a few years. Just to kind of step back for a second 'cause you had asked about why so many different people choose to do this particular act, and I kind of feel like, you know, at the very base level, it's about identity, right?

STOWERSAnd so, for me, like, I was trying to figure out who I was. And everybody who's in punk rock, everybody who's in hip-hop, everybody who's skateboarding at that same age is trying to figure out who they are. So graffiti is an opportunity for you to create and maintain an identity of your own choosing in the public. And however many times you choose to write it, you reinforce that identity for yourself and for the community.

STOWERSSo when I got into it -- you know what I'm saying -- I was doing those things, but I didn't understand those things. And it took me, you know, a few years to link with people who actually knew what they were doing, who could actually break down how to put a piece on the wall. You know, I never took art class before, so I had to learn color theory and all of these other things that go along with being a good artist.

STOWERSBut I wasn't thinking like that. I was just thinking I was writing my name. About eight years later, I kind of woke up and I was like, oh, hey, I'm being creative. You know, I'm not vandalizing. And at that point, we were already in the midst of painting murals on 14th and --14th Street and on U Street that were unfunded and, you know, working with property owners or, you know, as Gaia said, on derelict properties where we were just kind of taking the space.

STOWERSYou know, that happened, you know, for many years. And so through that kind of process, I evolved, you know, into the mentality that I have now, which is, you know, I accept graffiti on many different levels, on a very base name writing level at the bus stop, where I understand that that's some 13-year-old kid who's expressing his identity, to one of Gaia's posters, to Chel's mural.

STOWERSYou know what I'm saying? They're all the same thing for me. They're all connected in the same vein. And I might take picture of those things all in the same day, you know, because they're all beautiful to me.

NNAMDIOn to the telephones. Here is Marcia in Washington, D.C. Marcia, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

MARCIAHi, Kojo. Thank you for having me on. I'm fascinated by this conversation for two reasons. And I'm hoping that those two women who were guests from the first half are listening because a couple of things really perplex me. First of all, in the second half, I was very happy to hear the word permission until the young gentleman started talking about basically what he feels is his entitlement to basically deface property. Whether it's unused or ramshackle, it belongs to somebody.

MARCIASecondly, I'm an architect. I'm a practicing architect, and I teach at Catholic University. When I was a graduate student in New Haven, I had the great idea that I was going to do my thesis on walking the whole city through the alleys, which is basically a very similar concept to looking at the art on graffiti, which I -- she already did -- because I ride the Red Line on that strip. And you get a totally different picture of our city.

MARCIAAnd our few -- artistically, I would go there for inspiration, and I turned it into a thesis. But I wasn't breaking laws. And what I told my four sons is that if they don't like the law, we live in a country where we can change laws. And we also have the opportunity of going to owners, as the older woman was talking about, and getting permission, and...

NNAMDIAnd getting their permission to do things. Marcia, we don't have a great deal of time, and I would really like Gaia to respond because it seems to me that there is a thin line between what you describe as defacing and what he might describe as improving. Gaia?

PISACANEI totally understand where the caller is coming from. You know, I think that she chose an interesting term as entitlement. Look, maybe in D.C. this is different, but obviously you've lived in D.C. for a very long time. You've realized it was a totally divested city at one point that was suffering tremendously -- and Baltimore still is -- that, look, if I want to get in touch with any of these "landlords," which isn't -- doesn't even suffice to what they are, half of them are in London, Japan or whatever.

PISACANELike, we have so much international money suffusing our cities and just local people who keep our cities sick, I would never even think to ask them. It is significantly more of a crime -- and, unfortunately, it isn't -- to sit on a property in a neighborhood that has been forgotten about until the real estate market flips. Until that moment, I will respect the people that live there by putting up artwork that is on paper and is not permanent.

PISACANEYou know, what I'm doing is not graffiti, as I've said. I just appreciate it because, yes, we live in a city where legislation can be changed, whatever. Graffiti and legislation are incongruous. There can be no legislation to legalize graffiti. It is a specter that will always haunt our cities and our local communities because that is its job and its -- and, yes, there are so many crossovers artistically, and there are so many people who can make it happen, but it is that specter.

NNAMDIGot to take a short break. Marcia, thank you very much for your call. When we come back, we will continue this conversation on local traditions of graffiti and street art. You can call us at 800-433-8850. Send us a tweet, @kojoshow. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

NNAMDIWe're continuing our conversation on the local traditions of graffiti and street art in Washington, D.C. We're talking with Gaia. He is a mural artist based in Baltimore. He painted the recent large-scale mural Dusk of H Street commissioned by H Street restaurant Smith Commons. Cory Stowers co-owns the store Art Under Pressure on George Avenue. It's a retail and custom art store. He's also a former graffiti artist and historian of local street art.

NNAMDIAnd Cita Sadeli Chelove is a mural artist and co-founder and director of Protein Media, a design, animation and interactive media company. Cita, you now run a design and media company. So you moved out of the kind of graffiti world, so to speak, and you now do a lot more commissioned murals. You did a mural for the program we were discussing earlier, MuralsDC. Can you describe that mural and what did you -- what you wanted to say with it?

SADELISure. It's sort of a visual puzzle. It's comprised of a lot of separate elements that when you view from a distance sort of create somewhat of a tapestry or pattern, really colorful on a dark black background. When you step up closer though, it's really sort of a shout-out to Washington, D.C.'s music underground, nature -- elements from nature, things that you might see on the streets, places that folks might hang out in Adams Morgan. That's the neighborhood where it's located.

SADELISo it's really -- it's a big shout-out to my city, to D.C. D.C. is about much more than, you know, the government and the White House and the monuments. It's a very rich cultural place with just great things, really great things.

NNAMDICory, you were involved in the MuralsDC program until last year. You've got some issues with how the program handles artists both in terms of what they're paid and how they're credited. Talk about that.

STOWERSYes. I had the pleasure of being a part of MuralsDC for over four year, you know, for up to four years. And I was a project manager for 16 of those walls of the 36 walls that had been produced. Up to this point, you know, the major issues that I've seen are just been about like, you know, the way that the walls are funded, the way that that funding gets kind of spent and, you know, the end result for the programs.

STOWERSWhen I first got involved, I was under the impression that we were trying to help, you know, influence young graffiti writers to travel into more legal kind of, you know, public art. It's become kind of apparent that that's not really what the program is about. And one of the reasons I know that is because none of the young people that have ever participated in the program have ever been credited for participating in the program, have a certificate of participation or a final photo for their portfolio. So that's out the door. Recognizing...

NNAMDIBut in the earlier segment of the program, I got the impression that Nancee Lyons said they're "kind of working on that," working to see if they can get the artist and everybody else who participated in the project credited for it. Well, what's the reason that they're not credited in the first place, as you understand?

STOWERSI've been told that it was funding so that they didn't have enough money to put plaques on the walls or because they slated that the walls could be taken down within a year that they weren't going to spend the money to actually do that. Previously, what they had been doing was putting a stencil over top of the artwork that says, funded by the D.C. Commission on the Arts, and had Jim Graham's name and the mayor's name.

NNAMDIBut not the artist?

STOWERSBut not the artist, not the young people that worked on it, and not the organizations that worked on it. This year when Cita was approached and a couple other artists were approached, who worked with Art Under Pressure directly, we specifically demanded that those walls be plaqued because, you know, honestly, like this -- the wall that Cita did last year, which is so beautiful, has received so much attention. And Cita is actually...

NNAMDIYou can see it on our website at kojoshow.org.

STOWERSExactly. But your producers wouldn't have known that Cita painted that if she didn't break the rules and signed it and put her website up. That's what happened, you know, like...

NNAMDIYou and Cita are forming an artist cooperative, aren't you, to...

STOWERSWe have ideas for things that can be better for the city. You know, that stuff is in the works. You know, there's a lot that's involved in that, and, you know, Cita is my (word?) as it were.

STOWERSYou know what I'm saying? Like, I kind of, you know, defer to her on, you know, issues that I have, on, you know, how professional artists are supposed to work, you know. We've had some very lengthy discussions about the contracts that have been presented to these artists about, you know, the safety and longevity of the pieces that are being created because, while, you know, one year disposable murals may be OK for the city, it's not really OK for the artist, and it's not really OK for the people that are investing the time and energy and the creativity into it.

NNAMDICita, getting a mural commission is a big deal for most artists, especially for artists who have not been making money off their art. You've said that other cities have public initiatives for art and D.C. needed some of that.

SADELIYes. If you look into Philadelphia's -- their program, their streets are just filled with wonderful murals. It's been around longer and, I think, has more funding. But I think D.C. could be on their way to the same sort of situation. We really need it.

NNAMDIGaia, how about Baltimore? What's the vibe there? Does having an art school help create an atmosphere that, well, attracts artists?

PISACANEThe local street art scene was definitely something that was, you know, well, you know, there's a difference between obviously, once again, the graffiti scene and the street art scene in Baltimore. So we're going to talk specifically about posters. I was kind of the only one that I really knew doing it, and I've tried to put a lot of other people on. And a lot of people have taken on the helm. This guy Nether actually just won City Paper's Best of Baltimore street artist 2012. So, you know, that's interesting.

PISACANEYou know, it's growing and burgeoning. I also coordinated a project called Open Walls Baltimore, where we funded 23 massive large-scale walls with PNC Bank and Station North and also funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. So there's all sorts of different avenues that we've done it. Obviously, MICA attracts a lot of writers that are new to the scene.

NNAMDIMaryland Institute College of Art.

PISACANEMaryland Institute College of Art, props to them. I graduated from there. And -- but, yeah, I mean, the local graffiti scene has been incredibly vivacious and lively. Unfortunately, it doesn't really exist on the street level anymore, for better or for worse. You know, if you -- you don't like seeing tags on abandoned buildings. There aren't too many on the street level. But when it comes to county spots or secret spots or as was aforementioned before, Amtrak spots, it's everywhere and blossoming and exciting and wild, and you can't stop it. And that's wonderful.

NNAMDIAnd that's all the time we have. Gaia is a mural street artist, mural artist based in Baltimore. He painted the recent large-scale mural Dusk of H Street commissioned by the H Street restaurant Smith Commons. Gaia, thank you very much for joining us.

PISACANEThank you so much. It was a pleasure.

NNAMDIAnd good luck to you. Cita Sadeli Chelove is a mural artist and co-founder and director of Protein Media, a design, animation and interactive media company. Cita, thank you for joining us. Good luck to you.

SADELIThank you.

NNAMDIAnd Cory Stowers co-owns the store Art Under Pressure on George Avenue, where you'll see a crowd in front of. It's a retail and custom arts store. He's also a former graffiti artist and historian of local street art. Cory, thank you for joining us.

STOWERSThank you so much.

NNAMDIAnd thank you all for listening. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.