Street Artist

PROLOGUE

One of my favorite memories is from when I was seven. Before my parents' divorce. Before they started pressuring me to be perfect all the time at absolutely everything. Before art became more than just a hobby for me and before I was told that it was unacceptable to have a career in the arts. Before I was enrolled in Langston Private Academy (LPA) and was labeled by my peers as a socially awkard nerd with filthy rich parents; a screw up in my own way.

This was before all of that, way back when I was genuinely happy. It was at a beach in South Carolina. I was there visiting my aunt for the summer. My aunt Margaret, my mothers sister, could be considered the polar opposite of my parents. While they were calculating and formal, she was carefree and creative. They were perfectionists in every sense of the word, she was a person who went with the flow of things. They valued wealth and status where she valued freedom. They think my aunt is a hippie and she thinks my parents should stop wearing monkey suits all the time and loosen up. My aunt was my idol.

That summer, she took me to see her friend, Karl, a street artist. He did it all- graffiti, murals, chalk drawings as well as traditional art. I was amazed. I took up art classes that year, much to the dissappointment of my parents. I loved it.

Than came the divorce. When I was entering 5th grade, things got pretty bad. They couldn't hold a conversation for more than three minutes without getting into a screaming match. When they split up, I stayed with dad. He enrolled me at the academy and told me, in not so many words, that I couldn't waste time on art any more. That it was fine as a hobby before but now I had to focus on school. He made me quit art, the one thing I still had to make me happy.

So I turned into a shell of myself. I was awkward at school and deemed a nerd pretty quickly. I was unhappy. I turned to other forms of art that year. The kind that is looked down on and labeled as vandalism. I started to spray-paint on buildings, not tagging like you usually see in New York, no, I did everything from chalk designs on the sides of abandoned buildings to sneaking out at night and painting full blown murals.

I found others like me. They didn't know who I was and it was treated as my other life. Nobody knew. During the day, I was the nerd, at night, one of the best street artists of the city. My crew and I did things to speak to people, fight for what we believed in. Our art made appearances in the news daily. It was great, but they saw it as destruction of public property or vandalism, not as art and self expression. So we became more secretive. If anyone found out that I did this, I would be in juvie by the next morning.

My name is Katie. My crew knows me as K. I am seventeen years old, and this is my story- the story of how the nerd-by-day, artist-by-night and my crew became famous. The story of my rebelling against my parents to live my life how I want. The story of how I fell in love. This is the story of how my art landed me in juvie. This is the story of how I finally got my freedom.

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So I was watching Step Up Revolution and I just sort of thought of this so ta da! This is me attempting to write a decent story... Hope y'all like it and ya.... Any thoughts? Bai...