Before It’s Gone

Graffiti’s always been around me. Growing up in the projects, it was part of the walls, the streets, the air. Not the kind you see in art books, but the kind tied to gang wars. Names crossed out. Hit lists. Turf claims. Back then, it didn’t feel like self-expression. It felt like survival.

On my walks now, it hits different. The city is full of it. Graffiti is scattered like the city's open diary.

Layers of spray, marker, paste-ups. Some of it’s a name, a tag, a chosen identity.

Some of it’s a single word. Some are full on rants or questions that make you stop and think. I’m drawn to the longer ones. The ones that feel like someone couldn’t hold it in and needed the world to know.

Some pieces are poetic. Others just want to be seen. All of it is fleeting.

This series is a snapshot of the ones that grabbed me. I want to eventually turn these into a zine or a few, something you can hold. Because this stuff gets painted over. Scrubbed out. Forgotten. And I think it deserves to be remembered, even if just for a little while.