Mission Loc@l

Clarion Alley’s block-long array of murals that date back decades have been tagged extensively over the last few weeks, covered with aerosol paint, doodles, illegible emblems and splotches of neon colors.  Many of the same graffiti letters and symbols appear throughout the lane, suggesting some taggers have been back more than once. Artists asking for a truce hung fliers along the walls that run between 17th and 18th streets and connect Valencia and Mission streets. The fliers declare:

If your name is scrawled across a large piece of the alley you are a fool to think you have earned the respect of your peers … You have demonstrated your ignorance … if you do indeed consider yourself an artist.

The fliers were later tagged with obscenities telling the artists to “Shut up cry baby.”

“This is nothing new,” said Andrew Schoultz, muralist and co-founder of the artist oasis. Schoultz created the “Escalator” mural, which evolves over an entire building front in Clarion Alley. “It has been going on forever,” he said.

Schoultz, who unveiled another mural Thursday evening at his home gallery at 17th and Shotwell streets in the Mission, continues to paint despite the taggers.

“Once you put something out there in the public you hope it lasts,” Schoultz said. “But I wouldn’t waste my time and energy on something that is out of my control.” Schoultz said artists need to take responsibility for their artwork by checking up on it and fixing it if it is vandalized. “Escalator” has been vandalized several times. “I fix them really quick,” Schoultz said.

He believes the problem lies in young kids hanging out in the alley late at night getting drunk.

“A lot of these kids are at-risk kids who don’t have anything better to do,” Schoultz said. “But also, a lot of taggers are the same people in the art world, going to gallery openings. People don’t necessarily respect art.”

Janice Myint, former operating manager of Future Primitive Sound, an art and music showroom once located in the Lower Haight, agreed.

“We need to educate kids about graffiti,” Myint said. “There are a lot of unwritten laws in graffiti that young kids don’t know about. Like, don’t graffiti on private property and don’t touch murals.”

Six local artists set up the Clarion Alley Mission Project, or CAMP, in October 1992 after being inspired by the mid ’80s project in Balmy Alley off 24th Street. The latter reflects social struggles in Central America, while Clarion Alley covers a range of political and visual subjects spanning from a vibrant map of the Bay Area to stunning African safaris to a depiction of Noah’s Ark.

Other areas of the city are also concerned about a graffiti problem that costs the city’s taxpayers money and forces store owners to pay to clean up the mess.

“Taggers are hard to catch,” said Officer John Andrews of the Park Police Station in the nearby Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. “They can do it in a matter of minutes.”

Graffiti Watch, a citywide volunteer program that works with city hall and the police department, is set up in the San Francisco Police Department’s Mission headquarters to help store owners and building owners combat vandalism.

Graffiti Watch allows residents to quickly abate graffiti in their neighborhood. The Department of Public Works offers “training and the tools, and the volunteers take charge from there.”

Regardless of the sabotage to the wall paintings, many Bay Area artists continue to generate mural art.

“We’re here to create a more beautiful world,” said Patricia Rose, a muralist at Precita Eyes, an inner-city mural arts organization at 2981 24th St. “We’re not the police. We don’t go around documenting vandalism. Our focus is creating murals.”

“We’re here to educate the community. We want to bring about a positive change in the community. And our medium to do that is through murals.”