The expressive manifesto @ the Puma Social Club

The Puma Social Club cranked open a pop up social space inside the South Street Seaport. Enter off the cobblestone open air breezeway.Pass a bar and a blank black chalkboard to the main room's expanse above you.
Look up.
It's Rich Medina on the turntables.

Listen up.
That's Fela!.
From here I veered off into moment of tagging because I had been here before and there were at least twelve walls worth of chalkboards on two levels that I decided to drop my moniker. Some were small. One was big (five by five footer).
I mean as the night went on more people grabbed chalk and tagged.

Cote D'Ivore
viva Mexica
Uruguay
Sur America
i mean it was world cup love with world cup tagging (writing graffiti on walls not on or over other graffiti writer's pieces) and world wide representin'.


Open.

I was all over with graffiti and once I went big,

well, I was feeling stage two graffiti coming - quotes. I could see stage three down the way - muruals. I'm still a stage one tagger - initials.
But once you go big you start to think big.
Large.

the whole spot had me open and i was ready to express it.
Me manifesto goes like this:
I believe
you
have some expressive activity that gets you
"open" or"on" or "charged" some may even say "amped"
you
do not have to be Picasso or Taki183
but you
have to choose whatever expression(s) should represent you uniquely.
Even then if
you
increase your frequency and practice - study (gasp) - you are going to get better
so that every time you
do whatever expressive thing you are doing, it is always better than the last.
It may be that you are getting better at being uniquely you
at it.


but hey, this is how i feel about expression and the human need for it. I don't own it but I do like to sprinkle it around like the wind does pollen in springtime. Some will sneeze, affected. Others not so much.

Here's the thing that bothers me that may bother you if you even thought about it:

Children draw, paint, and do other things to express themselves.
Should that stop just because your are an adult?


It should not.

A lot of other people besides myself chalked up boards at the Puma Social Club.
I think it was a great idea and was really, really glad they had it.
I believe everyone who did had a better time there because of it too.
It happened to me a couple weeks ago and i am STILL thinking about it!