Ask anybody their opinion on graffiti, and you’ll get views of love and hatred : some individuals find it a nuisance, others a subtle artform. On the “good press” side, graffiti artists like Banksy have made graffiti an artform that is pleasing on the eye, utilizing stencils to create technically difficult artworks loaded with a nuanced political point. This kind of graffiti was bound to become popular with both the public and the artworld : pleasing to the eye, and the intellect. This sort of graffiti is even purchased as printed canvas art, and hung on the walls of middle class households and corporate reception areas.

Even so, what about the other end of the spectrum? - the scally, the tagger, the gangbanger kind - this is just seen as antisocial, a crime perpetrated by the talentless. But this is to misinterpret graffiti as purely art. To many people, it’s not only an artform, but a method to put your stamp on territory, or even a rejection of society altogether : anti-establishment, anti-social, even anti-art.

Spraying has always been a secret activity, although the effects are very much public. The intended audience is often unidentified. Is it for a rival crew? A communication to a single person? To the public? Or….possibly it’s just uncalled-for and out of nothing to do.

Whatever the reasons, there appears to be a enduring need to spray graffiti. Some towns have acknowledged that graffiti isn’t going to go away, so they’ve designated zones where graffiti is permitted - normally uninhabited areas, but now and again more civic areas like temporary boarding that surrounds inner city construction sites.

In recent years, progressively artist are approaching portraiture as contemporary art. In years past, the Atlanta portrait painter finished their subjects in a manner some would class as orthodox art.

A portrait painting of Abraham Lincoln done by a renowned European portrait artist has caught this movement utterly. It is a portrait of Lincoln on a lifeless backdrop. It is hard not to conceive a lensman did not travel back in time to click the characterisation. All though, a snap would probably not carry the astuteness of Lincoln’s facial expression.

However, portrait painters keep to pigment their subjects in traditional modes and this is not likely to change. Peculiarly since many of these portraits deck the anterooms of great of the most rank, canonical constructions in the Alaska Government.

Contemporary art portrayal is fast getting a frequent look art in modern day art picture galleries. Especially as secondary generations grow ancient and start purchasing such pieces for their privy assemblings. Such collectings as the American Royalty Collection, George Washington, Babe Ruth, Britney Spears and numerous other iconic shapes to this generation have stirred involvement in portraits and portrait bribing.

It is not challenging to examine why so numerous multitude love portraits though. In some cases, such as the Mona Lisa, it is one of our only links to the past. The only way we can put expressions with the key names throughout throughout the ages.

To wed or not to ? That is the inquiry. It ne’er previously was the doubt. It was before ‘When to marry?’ not ‘why to marry’. For a long time young ladies were required and put pressure on themselves to dig out a spouse young, have the ceremony and set up home with tiddlers and a hamster, and devotethe rest of their lives to organising a good household. Perhaps because adult females have been freed from what were once their traditional roles, that wedlock is no longer high on the agenda and most assuredly not the only route to venture along. In fact some people- both men and women- decidedly hate the idea of marriage, and can’t conceive of looking into a loved one’s face and promising whole-heartedly to spend the remaider of their days with them until death do they part. In many ways it’s a shame, because weddings can be such joyful events- especially when they feature a stunning wedding gown and sky lanterns. But, dreadful marriages can be destructive, financially and emotionally injurious, and the most lonely things in the world. Though being in a ill-fated partnership is also hugely isolating, somehow with the marriage mark, it’s worse. Colleagues expect more of a twosome when they are formally married and have evidently spent so much money on their wedding day. They are expected to be happy or to at least try their darndest to be so. As a result of this perceived external pressure, many men and women feel they have to put on a front and hide their true emotions. The reason why there used to be a greater number marriages or why marriages endured a few generations ago is because couples had no choice but to keep ploughing on with their relationship. This is good in some respects, but in others, it is very destructive. Yes there were a greater number of , but there were also many more desperately pitiful ones.

Bells for Belphegor!…

Where immortal veils never meet
Belphegor, Arch devil speaks:
In vagaries form,
With signs and signatures not yet born;
The Tagaririm, order of the demon:
They come to meet, the King
Of Hell, and Demons,
They come from different worlds
With scrolls, spells, untold powers
To hell, to hell to meetBelphegor..

…and ring the bells, the bells…
To ring the bells for Belphegor!…

#735 6/2005

A Reason for Existence

The reason for existence was just to exist and enjoy the miraclethe answer always in His palm; if you seek you will find; so I read one time. My mother knew it. Me, I was always disheveled with its conspiracies and secrets…how foolish.

#734 6/22/2005

Commentary: here are two different poems with different jolts, “Bells for Belphegor!…” and “A Reason for Existence”; one macabre in nature (where I walk under the blackened moon and paling sun); the other I call select, of a sacred nature; one of a devil (where necromantic arts are reborn); one of God, where existence rests. Sometimes in poetry (for me anyways) we must go behind the devils shadow; where subtle shades and nuance of meanings linger; but always seek the palm of God; and with a muster-seed of faith, one will be able to unlock the gate to the pit on the way out.

Poet Dennis Siluk http://dennissiluk.tripod.com