Walls come alive with colour as graffiti artists let loose at the Drake

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Saturday, June 7 saw the area around the Drake Hotel turned into an open-air art gallery as 50 graffiti artists left their mark on donated space.

"It's important that Toronto embraces these graffiti artists and realize that they're part of the creative youth here, and they should be proud of that," said event organizer Janna Van Hoof.

Now in its fourth year in Parkdale, 'ReSurface' was organized by Style in Progress together with Community CAVE (Communities Advancing Valued Environments) and Toronto Police Crime Stoppers with the goal of celebrating Hip-Hop culture, including graffiti.

Van Hoof said she hoped the event would help clear up any misconceptions of street artists some may have: "It might have started in gang culture, but in Toronto graffiti isn't gang related. If it was we couldn't have all these artists working together peacefully."

The Ottawa coordinator for the non-profit organization CAVE, Mike Young, was on hand to liaise with concerned residents.

"We're a group that helps bring youth together with business owners and residents to build better communities," said Young. "And that shouldn't be limited to just cleaning up back alleys but painting murals and making the space valuable to everyone."

Helping out at the event was a veteran of the Parkdale graffiti scene, Angel Carrillo (a.k.a 'Cruz 1').

The 32-year-old began his career as an artist while in high school, painting murals on the walls of Bishop Marrocco/Thomas Merton Catholic Secondary School from grade 10 to his final year as a way to get out of class, and hasn't stopped since.

Describing the situation of graffiti in Toronto, Carrillo said that "no one wants to see tags (spray-painting your name on any available space), but they want to see murals, but if you don't get access to walls, then tags are all you'll get.

"When graffiti started (in Toronto) people knew it was out there, but artists were rocking in different parts of the city without a problem," said Carrillo. "But as soon as kids jumped on the wagon of street fame, and tagging for that fame, things started to get out of control, and the two (tagging and graffiti) started to be looked at as the same thing."

No stranger to the scene, School Officer for Toronto's Crime Stoppers Const. Scott Mills (referred to as 'Scott' by almost everyone there) said, "there's a small per cent of young artists who will tag today or paint out of bounds but there are a lot of other kids here trying to make sure that doesn't happen."

One of the volunteers who watched over a group of young teens painting plywood for a BMX ramp was 19-year-old Kedre Browne.

Known to his friends as 'Bubblz', he offers advice and acts as a mentor to kids just starting out in the world of street art.

"Mentoring just came naturally to me so I thought 'If you're going to live somewhere, or be around somewhere, why not get involved?'," said Browne.

"As long as kids can get their hands on a can or a marker, they're going to do it, so I try to show them they can move from doing it illegally to more legal ventures and come at their art from a more professional and artistic approach."