Bringing respect to graffiti

Mention graffiti to Downtown Jersey City residents and their thoughts turn to a scourge that affects their neighborhoods and property values. But graffiti for Christian Santiago is an artform that he believes deserves more respect.
Jersey City native Santiago, 32, is in the process of capturing the various graffiti murals artists have created across the city in a new documentary, “IMMORTALIZED!”
Santiago started the project in June and has shot three of the nine murals done especially for his production. He hopes to complete the documentary within the next month with the goal of screening it in early October during the Jersey City Artist Studio Tour.
The local artists who create the graffiti and the surrounding community of friends and family that nurture their work are highlighted in the film.

_____________

“Graffiti inspired me more than any art form out there.” – Christian Santiago
________

For Santiago, the documentary is an opportunity to look at the street art that informed much of his childhood, growing up not far from Lincoln Park on the city’s west side. In his youth, Santiago did some graffiti with the tag “S.E.R.” or So Extremely Rare, which has evolved into moniker of “Serringe.” Tags are visual signatures that mark a graffiti artist’s work so it can be identified on the street.
“Graffiti was all around me in the late ’80s to the early ’90s,” Santiago said. “Graffiti inspired me more than any art form out there.”
Santiago also runs a blog about graffiti artists and the art form itself, Element-Tree, at www.serringe.blogspot.com, where people can also find out about his film.

From graffiti to grand statement

Some of the inspiration for Santiago’s documentary came from a tough time in his life. He was laid off three months ago from his job as a field technician for a marketing company in Fairfield, N.J.
“I’m not the type of person that can just fold and call it a day,” Santiago said. “While looking for work I made it a point to be as creative as I could be, and try as hard as I could to do something productive with my arts.”
Santiago said a meeting with a childhood friend, also a filmmaker, led him to start his project.

Redoing building in the Heights

That has meant getting behind a video camera and shooting the work of longtime acquaintances and accomplished graffiti artists, T-Dee and Snow as they redo the side of the William J. Guarini, Inc. building on Fisk Street in the city’s Heights section. Their mural has an Asian theme with a bonsai tree, lotus flower petals and snow blowing in the wind as well as a 20-foot-tall geisha. It is the kind of artistic product that drives Santiago to spend hours witnessing and committing to media.
“It’s exhausting just watching, but the determination and professionalism within the artist is the inspiration for the film,” Santiago said.
What he is also reminded of is the stigma that graffiti still carries, as the locations for the graffiti murals in the film were sometimes difficult to procure.
“People view graffiti negatively, and the minute you tell them what you’re doing, they think you’re just going to write your name in some stupid tag letters, and they say they’re not interested without letting me explain,” Santiago said.
But he continues pushing on with a larger task in mind.
“In the end, I guess the real joy is providing these guys with a place to paint and documenting it to promote the artist,” Santiago said.
Ricardo Kaulessar can be reached at rkaulessar@hudsonreporter.com.