The materials we have consulted to learn more about the history of street art have all stressed the importance of tags. Early New York graffiti artists gained notoriety and fame by spray painting their tags (which frequently consisted of their artist name and the street they lived on) around city. As time went on, tags became more and more stylized and complex, taking on different styles like wildstyle and stenciled styles that have become common on the streets of many cities today. Nowadays, the identity of many popular street artists frequently entirely consists of their tag.
Here at Williams, facilities doesn’t exactly support the idea of students exploring the traditional style of spray paint tagging around campus. However, all great street artists seem to have some sort of tag and we wanted to create some symbol we could spread all over campus to leave our mark. After much brainstorming, we finally created our tag(s).
We cut plastic table cloth into little strips that resemble tag sale tags and shirt tags and wrote “Tag” on each one in permanent marker.
We wrapped lengths of duct tape around the sharpies so that we can always have a supply ready when we feel the need to tag. We have been carrying these tags around with us everywhere we go and have been duct taping them to many surfaces around campus.
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