APRIL 6, 2002 BOSTON GLOBE

 

    He considers himself an artist whose work happens to be illigal. "Akron" is his tag name. Armed with whitout pens and Sharpie markers, he and a pack of other School of Museum of Fine Art students hit the streets of Mission Hill five or six times a month, scrawling their signature tags, and sometimes, if there feeling particularly artistic, mini murals.

    But city officials and neighborhood groups say the graffiti - despite its creators' credentials as artists - is hindering efforts to present Mission Hill as a neighborhood on the rebound.

    "Arrest them and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law," declared Mike Galvin, chief of Basic City Services.

    When the city stepped up its campaign to rid the streets of graffiti, workers expected to pullin gang members and street criminals. What they found in many cases were art students. But despite the students'insistence that they enliven a barren streetscape, city and neighborhood officials insist the budding artists are doing damage to the city's improvement efforts.

    And sometimes, officials said, so called street artists go so far as to harass people. Robert Hurley of Mission Hill said that two students pelted his car with paintballs last month.

    "It's a pain in the butt, and it's getting worse," said Hurley, who didn't press charges against the confessed vandals.

    Graffiti Busters, a city agency with a $300,000 annual budget to clean street scrawl, erased graffiti at about 160 Mission Hill sites over the past two years, Galvin said. Delle Avenue and Tremont and Pontiac streets have the highest concentration of graffiti, according to Mission Hill Main Streets, a neighborhood group.

   Students on the Avenue of the Arts paint quite a different picture of the graffiti. They say they put carefull thought into each and every stroke and spray. Some view there paintball gunshots as an avant-garde art form. Ranging from fully developed pictures, some with stort lines, to designs scrawled in a kind of graffiti script, the tags are a regular part of Mission Hill life.

    Out of 20 students interviewed at the Mass College of Art and The Museum of Fine Arts this week, 18 said they knew graffiti artists, or that they themselves routinely paint graffiti. One student who illustrates on a nightly basis said," i feel i am putting aesthetics back into peoples heads. I take it seriously."

    Graffiti artists say they make canvases out of "boring" surfaces like billboards, T station walls, and rock formations that need makeovers. Besides the aesthetic improvement, they say, they'll sometimes tag corporate chains and advertisements as a "statement" against big business.

    Jen DeAngelis, a Mass Art student from Beverly, said some graffiti artists leave their mark to achieve "status" among other artists.

    "I dont think it has do with disrespect, " she said. "They dont think aboutthe mess they are making for someone else."

    Boston Police Captain Al Goslin said reports of graffiti in the area have decreased since a crackdown last year when two student vandels were arrested and forced to publicly apologize. In addition city officials have asked schools to designate walls for "legall graffiti" to deter vandalism.

    Mass Art takes the accusations seriously, said Michele Furst, a school spokeswomen. Students found tagging private property could face expulsion, and the school has worked with the community to deter graffiti, she said. The Museum of Fine Arts declined to comment.

    Zach Fink, a Mass. Art senior, said it is important to relize that while there are many illigal graffiti artists, not all art students are vandels.

    "I don't think its ethical," he said. "I think it's rebellion."