Submitted by Carlee Mallard — Correspondent
Graffiti is nothing new to SPARKcon, but this year one of SPARKcon's organizers Josh Frank decided to try something a little different. Graffiti art cars emerged from the combination of last year's traditional board graffiti and the bottle-cap cars.
A group of artists took turns expressing themselves with spray paint on each of the three cars donated for the event that took place at the corner of Fayetteville and Davie Streets. Decorated Saturday afternoon of SPARKcon and shown as pieces of art, the rugged Jeep Wrangler, 1995 Honda Civic and Toyota 4Runner were all donated by local art enthusiasts.
Beth Yerxa, Executive Director of Triangle Art Works, donated one of her family's cars "just for the fun of it." Her husband Ben said they decided to have their 4Runner spray painted with graffiti because it represents real art.
"Graffiti art is real art and this is the way to show it around town for a long time," he said.
The couple plans on driving their newly designed car around Raleigh for quite some time, as they're incredibly pleased with the way it came out. "It's just amazing," Beth said.
Watching the graffiti artists at work was a treat in itself. The creative process and experience level was different for each artist. Some came to the cars with a specific design in mind while others improvised along the way. Casey Robertson, one of the artists who painted the word "Werk" on the hood of the Honda Civic said this was his first art car. After painting a large outdoor mural in Carrboro a few months ago, he was eager to make his mark somewhere else and knew he had to get involved when he heard about graffitiSPARK.
People of all ages stared in amazement at the artists making their art. One young boy even came back multiple times throughout the day to check up on the art cars' progress. Carrying around his own notebook and paint pens, he sat and admired the artists' work, copying their technique, grilling them about their designs and asking them to sign his notebook as if they were his heros.
