Mentoring the Real in TRASA’s Urban Collective

-Melissa Bond, Catalyst Magazine

I’ve always thought of graffiti as, at best, an act of juvenile vandalism, and, at worst, a territorial pissing war. Never did I view it as a conscious art form, as a deliberate response to urban blight and the domination of space by advertising and those who have the pockets to pay for it.

Not until I stepped into TRASA urban arts collective to check out their “Starving Artists” graffiti art installation. Floor to ceiling slats of plywood serve as canvas. The walls were covered. Dynamic is a word that comes to mind. And raw. The pieces are definitively urban, uber-hip, and fiercely thoughtful.

TRASA founders Kristina Robb and Brandon Garcia claim that graffiti creates a bridge between traditional folk art and vandalism. They point to the purity of the art. It’s temporary, unsellable, unavailable for use by a marketing executive, yet available to all. Robb and Garcia decided to take graffiti off the street. They hoped to provide a context that would provoke questions and, perhaps, a new way of looking at this often maligned and marginalized art form.

The day I spoke with Robb and Garcia, Garcia had just returned from leading a poetry workshop at Granite High School. “It takes the students a while to feel safe enough to express themselves,” he tells me. “They’re used to giving canned answers, to saying what they think those in authority want to hear.” Garcia encourages them to speak from their own experience, to really dig in and express what’s real for them, what gives their time on this earth the most meaning. This is the kind of language, one suspects, that peppers any kind of discussion with Robb and Garcia.

Art, they believe, is about activism. It’s about risk and exploring the circumstances of one’s life and community in significant and deeply authentic ways. “It doesn’t matter what people say through their art,” Robb tells me, “as long as it’s real, as long as it’s meaningful to them.”

With this as their guiding philosophy, Robb and Garcia established TRASA to act as a right arm to artistic visions, to support community through art and as such, to provoke dialogue about what’s important, what’s marginalized, and who gets the space to talk about it.

This is just for starters. Robb, a performer, dancer and onetime Ph.D. student studying behavioral ecology, says TRASA is actively engaged in seeking out educators and artists to lead workshops and bring their own artistic visions to light. She’s interested in the idea of collective action—the real development of collective, of cooperation and community. Many artists and would-be artists don’t know how to get support, financial or otherwise, for their artistic visions. “So many artists in this town have their hands tied behind their backs.” TRASA acts as a mentor by helping these artists write grants and, for those who have grants, providing the necessary space and sound equipment that allow artistic endeavors to flourish.