DeBourbon was able to recruit 30 to 40 graffiti artists from Detroit, Grand Rapids and Chicago to graffiti the walls of the building. The group included MSU alumna Shannon McKeon.

“It was a good idea; it really did bring the community together,” McKeon said. “All these people, while we were painting, they would come on their bikes and walk their dogs and look at it. It was just really nice. It was new to them also. It was like ‘Wow, this really brightens up this piece of crap. Maybe you shouldn’t tear it down anymore.’”

Although debate exists over whether graffiti is an art or a crime, some area grafitti artists and MSU students consider it a growing form of modern art, despite the risk of being caught in the act.

The crime

Graffiti art still is considered by some to be a taboo in society, and can be viewed either as a modern art form or an act of vandalism, said Anil K. Jain, professor in the departments of computer science and engineering and electrical and computer engineering at MSU.

Jain coauthored a paper, Graffiti-ID: Matching and Retrieval of Graffiti Images, that studied how gangs use graffiti as coded messages to one another.

“If you look at the graffiti images of the artistic type that you see under the bridges and so on, they are a lot more colorful and they use a lot more different colors,” Jain said. “They’re physically depicting some kind of scenery or images of some faces and so on, whereas gang graffiti tends to be more simple and more geometric and is not as colorful.”

Some graffiti artists, such as MSU student and graffiti artist Optrix, who wished to remain anonymous because of the legal ramifications associated with graffiti, appreciate that graffiti is used as a form of artistic expression.

Still, those like Optrix despise the way some amateur artists or students with spray paint paint for the sake of painting without any artistic value.

“It’s not just about, ‘Oh, a can of paint right on the pavement,’” Optrix said. “Actually think about what you’re going to put first. Putting your time and thought into it, something that’s worthwhile to do, (making) something that is intellectual or funny to do.”

Throughout the past few years, graffiti has become more popular with artists and resembles nothing of its former gang territory guidelines, Jain said.

One of the only remaining similarities is that it is illegal, said Sgt. Matt Merony of MSU police.

“If it washes away with rain water, (it’s fine),” Merony said. “Painting on any other structure or any of the bridges — that is forbidden. (The painters) would be in violation of one of the university ordinances and would be arrested. They’re charged with violation of the university ordinance and then it would be up to the Ingham County prosecutor to decide.”

Aside from being illegal, some say graffiti also causes aesthetic problems and can be damaging to the structures used as a canvas of sorts.

Graffiti done on buildings is difficult to remove and sometimes, even when power washed, doesn’t come off entirely, said Gary M. Chase, owner of Graffiti Removal and Protection in Brooklyn, Mich.

“Sometimes you really can’t even do it; you have to use a sand blaster,” Chase said. “The same person will come back four times a year. Some of the graffiti will be like 20-feet-long. One place, it was a copper dome and (the graffiti) heated and turned green.”

The art

Although illegal and at times difficult to clean up or remove, graffiti is growing as an art form at MSU and in the Lansing and East Lansing area.

Students on MSU’s campus have adopted graffiti as a pastime, moving from the now-removed wooden tables near Union to tagging, as free-hand graffiti can be known as, bridges on campus and walkways with stencils.

The rock on Farm Lane is the most known and only legal expression of painted statements that MSU students have the privilege of marking up, but the sidewalk surrounding it often gets graffitied out of hand, which harms the practice’s image, Optrix said.

“I know the rock, it’s okay to spray paint on that thing, but the sidewalk looks like trash,” Optrix said. “People like, ‘Hey happy birthday, Molly,’ and they draw Molly like 50 times.”

Some graffiti artists, such as MSU student Gezahlt, who also asked to be identified with a pseudonym, say although graffiti art is expressive, it should be limited to certain areas and not plastered across the campus in crude scenes.

“To see MSU, there’s tagging and then there is stuff that is blatantly offensive on campus,” Gezahlt said. “People that are doing legitimate art get a bad rep when someone writes something that’s defacing property. Anyone can make the argument that anyone doing graffiti is defacing property, but you have to make the distinction between what can be considered art.”

For McKeon, graffiti is striking because it is a modern, raw, personal expression.

“I have always been attracted to modern art and urban art, and to me, it’s a very raw form of art,” McKeon said. “There isn’t a street art class that you can take at the art school, it’s kind of unknown territory. It wasn’t explained to me what I was doing. For me, to have a spray can in my hand was more therapeutic than holding a paint brush.”