Many Richmonders enjoyed the colors and creatures that were painted this past month at the RVA Street Art Festival, and it may or may not surprise you to learn that most of those talented muralists have roots in Graffiti culture. Local artist Mickael Broth painted the ominous wizard that’s visible as you drive down W. Cary Street. He also painted the word “REFUSE” along a CSX train bridge over I-295 back in 2004…and that landed him in jail. Broth served a ten month sentence after being convicted of vandalism and destruction of property. His high-profile arrest prompted discussions on how to best deter and punish artists who write Graffiti on public and private property. Nearly ten years later, not much has changed in the legal system to restructure the penalties for writing Graffiti…and getting caught.
After serving his jail sentence and having a few years to let the gravity of the ordeal sink in, he decided to write a memoir about the experience. In April of this year, he released Gated Community, the three part series of limited edition books detailing his love affair with Graffiti and his consequence for it: incarceration. I caught up with Broth at Chop Suey Books in Carytown at the beginning of the September for the release of Gated Community Book 2. Broth delighted the crowd by reading some excerpts from the new installment before he gave a live cooking demonstration of the prison potluck meal known as DING! One must like Ramen, pickles and summer sausage to fully appreciate the flavors of this meal. Once the grub was sampled by most, Broth and I had a chat about what the Gated Community series has become for him.
Pick up a copy of Gated Community via Broth's Website here.
SCR: Are you pleased with the success of Gated Community Book 1?
MB: Yes, I was very happy about the success of Book 1 so far. It’s self-published and self-promoted, pretty much through Instagram, Facebook and the kindness of others promoting it as well. I don’t try to make too big of a deal about things, and don’t really like to hype things up personally, so I’m very happy that people have responded as well as they did based on a seemingly genuine interest.
SCR: It seems like you don’t want to over promote it. There really aren’t that many books about the criminal consequences of doing Graffiti. Do you realize what you work could do for the Graffiti movement in general?
MB: Honestly, I’m not sure what the Gated Community Books could do for the Graffiti movement besides offer a counterpoint to what’s promoted in the publishing & media world that thrives off of Graffiti, and it most cases, exploits it. I feel like what my story brings to the table is basically how the other 95% experience it. Most Graffiti writers don’t become some cult hero or an iconic figure…they end up in jail or dealing with problems with their friends and family. Basically Graffiti ends up messing up their lives, so I’m not sure this helps the art movement, but puts its consequences in perspective.
SCR: Book 2 focuses on your experience in the Pamunkey Regional Jail. Do you fear a backlash for your candid expose of what happens in that facility?
MB: No. I don’t fear a backlash about the facts I describe in my book, mainly because they’re facts. I probably could have gotten into a few more things that would have been more controversial, but most of the things I expressed are pretty safely fact rather than opinion. Obviously, the facility doesn’t want to hear that it’s basically a fucked up business that thrives off of incarcerating people, but that’s a fact.
SCR: In a previous interview with RVAnews.com (April 2013), you talked about how you hope that the community changes how it punishes graffiti crimes – specifically that offenders perform more community service in the neighborhoods they hit in lieu of lengthy jail time. Have you begun any work to spearhead a campaign to achieve this goal?
MB: I can’t say that I’ve begun that in any way for other people, but for myself, I’ve gotten involved in community oriented projects. I’ve worked with ART 180 for the past year, I’ve done community mural projects with kids in Petersburg a couple times this year, and I’m a part of the RVA Street Art Festival again this year at the old GRTC Bus site in the Fan. Overall, to be honest, I feel like it’s been a slow change for me, to come to that opinion and realize that my actions and everyone’s actions have an effect on the community that you live in.
SCR: Well, it seems that your self-imposed community service has had an effect on you too. Don’t you feel that if anyone should be the community activist to get the legislation changed for Graffiti crimes, it should be YOU…someone that’s lived it?
MB: I would hope so, but when I came out with this opinion (that prosecuted Graffiti writers should work off their debt to society with community work rather than sit in jail), some critics responded by saying that “clearly jail worked for you if you’re ‘rehabilitated’ now and no longer write Graffiti.” In reality, jail didn’t cause me to stop; the effect it had on my friends and family is what got me to stop. When people read Book 2, they’ll find out that bad things didn’t really happen to me in jail. It wasn’t like how it’s portrayed on television in most cases. It was just boring. I’m not afraid to go back to jail, but because my family’s lives were impacted so profoundly by me being incarcerated, I would never want to go back…it’s what caused me to change. When criminals don’t have that, they have nothing to lose, so there’s no incentive to stop the activities they were doing that got them locked up.
SCR: Also, you mentioned in your past interview that in your research for Gated Community, you “struggled to find scholarly work about the mentality and motivations of graffiti writers.” Have you read any of the work by Roger Gastman (American Graffiti Historian)? Do you feel like there aren’t enough books that talk about why Graffiti writers ignore the risks and go for it anyway?
MB: Yeah, Roger [Gastman] has good books about Graffiti, but I was referring to serious psychological studies about the behavior. There’s only one book that I’m aware of [The Graffiti Subculture by Nancy MacDonald] that delves into issues about identity, masculinity and subculture relevance; things that are the underlying reasons. I respect what Roger [Gastman] does, but his books are fairly surface level, they cover history and glorify the activity and the culture of Graffiti. There’s nothing wrong with that, I think what he does is great, but there’s very little out there about how these activities affect your brain and how positive reactions and positive emotions are created for Graffiti writers that in most cases, begin in their early teens. It’s just a side of Graffiti that I’ve personally been trying to understand.
SCR: So, do you plan to do more research and write your own book about the mentality of Graffiti writers?
MB: Book 3 has changed a lot since I started the Gated Community project. Initially, I had written this as one full book and then divided it up when I decided to do self-publishing. I’m glad I’ve had this format to go with so I could adapt Book 3 as needed. It will cover more of my personal feelings and how things have changed over the years in my own head. I’ve been trying to understand why I still have these cravings or desires to go out and paint Graffiti…to be involved in an activity that has caused so many problems for me, especially since I haven’t done it in almost 10 years. Why do I still care?
SCR: You make it sound like what people suffer through with alcohol and drug addictions.
MB: Exactly. When I got arrested, it was always seemed like a like “cop out” of claiming I was addicted to it. It’s funny though, because the more time that’s gone by and the fact that it’s still there in the back of my mind and I’m fighting it, makes me believe it’s true. The more I read about addiction…the more it sounds exactly the same. It’s difficult to come to grips with.
SCR: How soon can we expect Book 3, highlighting your time in Richmond City Jail and the conclusion to the Gated Community series?
MB: Book 3 should be in print by the last week of November…just in time for Black Friday. I really wanted to get it done in one year. I had been working on this project for almost three years, which is a long time for me.
SCR: Do you think having a book written from the perspective of a punished Graffiti writer will increase or decrease the growth of Graffiti in Richmond?
MB: I doubt it will have any negative effect. If anything, with all the youth in the city, it might promote it. Realistically. Before I began doing Graffiti, I had heard plenty of horror stories from other Graffiti writers about possible consequences, specifically about one from Los Angeles whose tag was “GK”, who did almost a year in prison in the late 90s (and that was a well known story at that point). I always knew that risks existed, but to me, that guy was a cult hero. I wanted to be like that guy. I didn’t want to go to jail, but I wanted to be that dude. I don’t want to think that I’m encouraging people though. I’m trying to put out a really shitty truth about my experience…so maybe people will read that full truth…about how much this effect my family and how hard this was to go through. Maybe they’ll consider how much it’s worth to them to keep writing Graffiti.
SCR: Well besides jail, didn’t you get expelled from VCU for getting arrested with a Graffiti crime? It’s their policy.
MB: No, I was not. Supposedly, it was the policy then too (2004), but about two days after I was arrested, I asked an administrator if I was going to be expelled and he laughed and said “No, they don’t actually do that.” I have no idea about how strict VCU is now though. If that’s the case now, I feel bad for students that get arrested AND expelled.
SCR: Ah, dodged that bullet. I’m glad that your time at VCUarts didn’t go to waste. You’ve really pursued your artwork since your time in jail. What artistic goals do you have beyond getting this book series out?
MB: Getting this done will be a major thing for me. I’m not sure where some of my goals will be directed after this, because it’s been very heavy to write it all and realize these things about myself, so I’m not sure where my focus will be. Obviously, being involved in more public art, mural work, and more community related programs…that will continue. I’ve really enjoyed working with ART 180 and the kids in Petersburg, which I never expected to enjoy. Hopefully do more projects with my wife, Brionna, because she’s super inspiring to me. I hesitate to use the term “muse” because it sounds cliché to say, but she does a good job sorting out all the junk in my head, making sense of my ideas, giving me something I can work from clearly. So yeah, I don’t know. Maybe another writing project. We’ll see.