Rich people's graffiti

At one San Rafael home, graffiti art welcomed
By Paul Liberatore
In the subways of New York, the streets of Brooklyn, the barrios of Los Angeles and the Mission District of San Francisco, graffiti art is everywhere, a ubiquitous feature of the urban landscape.
Here in upper income, suburban Marin County, not so much. Graffiti is generally unwanted, out of place and misunderstood.
There's a big difference, for example, between illegal "tagging," clandestinely writing your name or initials, your "tag," on someone else's property, essentially defacing it, and the more sophisticated graffiti art, a cool new mural style that came from the streets and has evolved over the past 40 years into a legitimate art form, the only one created entirely by young people.
In one unusual Marin backyard, graffiti art is not only welcomed, it's celebrated. A relatively ordinary (at least from the outside) San Rafael home has been transformed into a spectacular showcase for the work of 32-year-old graffiti artist Max Ehrman.
Ehrman, who has a college degree in architecture and refers to himself as an "aerosol artist," spent 30 labor-intensive hours spray-painting a swirling, vividly colored "organic landscape" on what used to be a plain, wooden, 70-foot-long backyard fence.
"Now it has life," he says, "and energy."
In the underground lingo of graffiti artists, the fence is what is known as a "permission piece." It was commissioned by homeowner Philip Prigoff, a 22-year-old chef who shares the house with two roommates and wanted a piece of art
that would reflect his youthful lifestyle.
"For people my age, graffiti art is a pretty cool thing to be a part of," he says. "You won't find many neighbors around here with something like this in their backyard."
Admiring her son's great wall of graffiti one recent afternoon, Prigoff's mother, Bonnie, couldn't disagree. "It blows me away," she says.
"It's the first thing you see when you walk in the house," Philip goes on. "It's great to come home and enjoy a beautiful piece of art. There aren't many homes of people my age that have anything even resembling art in them."
For the Prigoffs, the appreciation of graffiti art runs in the family.
Prigoff's grandfather, Jim Prigoff, an 80-year-old retired Sara Lee Corp. vice president, is a world-renowned expert on urban art who has written several books on the subject, most notably "Spraycan Art."
"For graffiti artists, that's the bible," Ehrman says.
In an unlikely generational turnaround, when young Philip Prigoff wanted to get in touch with a graffiti artist to paint his fence, he turned to his grandfather.
"I tried to find an artist on my own, and that turned out to be the hardest thing I've ever done," he says. "Most of the people who do this kind of thing are pretty sketchy. They don't want to get in trouble. It was extremely hard to find someone, so I contacted my grandfather and he put me in touch with Max."
The elder Prigoff was happy to be of help, being a fan of Ehrman's work.
"It's beautiful," he says of his grandson's fence, "and I've seen a lot of graffiti art. Probably more than anyone. It's stunning."
Philip's younger sister, 19-year-old Chelsea Prigoff, was so impressed with her brother's fence that she commissioned Ehrman to spray-paint graffiti art on the walls of her new clothing boutique, the Pink Door, set to open at 1567 Fourth St. in San Rafael on May 30.
"I really love organic art," she says. "And when I saw Max's work, I saw that his colors and his textures relate well to what I do with my clothing. I'd always planned on picking my grandfather's brain. He was my inspiration to do more graffiti-esque art myself. He's an old guy with hip ways."
Read more San Rafael stories at the IJ's San Rafael page.
Contact Paul Liberatore via e-mail at liberatore@marinij.com

Paris Hilton Graffiti Artist?

She's hardly your average graffiti artist.
Paris Hilton, 27, has reportedly been banned from the Moscow Hyatt Hotel after scribbling her name in black marker on the designer wallpaper of a $16,000 dollar a night suite.
"Miss Hilton ruined the wallpaper in the luxury suite. In such a case the client automatically goes on the black list," said a spokesman for the hotel, before adding that the hotel will slap her with a $9,000 fine for allegedly defacing the property.
And why did Ms. Hilton ruin the hotel's lavish wall covering? For a photo, of course!
The heiress, dressed in revealing black dress and black boots, posed for a sexy photo shoot next to her handiwork, which reads "Paris Moscow 2008."
The Hilton Hotel heiress, who spent time in jail last year for a drunk driving, is in Moscow to host Russia's MTV awards.