Klutz aka Jack Jones has just spend Christmas in prison. He is a seventeen year old with no record of other criminal activity. He says his work is an art form, which is important to him. Other people share this view. He is denied the opportunity to communicate his message because he is powerless. There is no profit in street art. It is created for the young and the appreciative. It exploits no-one. Yet this young man has been given a sentence, which is tougher than those given to people who have killed through drunk driving.

Our streets are littered with a different kind of vandalism. Advertising is insensitive and indiscriminate vandalism, but the vandals wear ties. Billboards competing to get our attention, are constantly renewed using ever more shocking psychology. It is becoming more intrusive sprawling over our urban environment and colonising every possible space, squeezing itself onto the back of bus tickets or engulfing whole buildings, junk mail enters our homes uninvited when we are only half awake. People have no control over this invasion of their space. The advertisers are allowed to spray their misleading messages over our communities in the pursuit of profit.

Street art is important from an artistic perspective. It is art purely for the sake of artistic expression with no financial incentive. This art can’t be sold. The dedication of these artists cannot be denied if looking alone at the time it takes to create some of these pieces, and their impermanence.

This leisure activity is creative and expressive, respected by many, young and old. It is the voice of disenfranchised urban youth. It is not new. From cave times people have drawn and painted on walls.