“Matt loves to cuddle.”
Matt is a former resident of an apartment above El Rancho Tavern and has been outed. This message may never have seen the light of day if it hadn’t been carved into a women’s bathroom stall at “The Ranch.”
Who discovered the etching? Paul Saldivar, the bar’s maintenance man and keeper of the bathroom secrets.
Many of us have taken a few moments to read the secret words adorning the inside doors of a public bathroom: “Call this number for a good time” perhaps is the most commonly joked about.
The Herald set about on an unscientific look at Durango-area bathroom graffiti. Are there common themes, and can they be conveyed in a newspaper? And we tried to draw some conclusions by asking a local behavioral expert and art guru: Do these scrolls say anything in particular about our society? And, is it art?
An unscientific answer: Our graffiti is almost disappointingly genteel, and the writings generally are either silly, encouraging or philosophical.
An inside look
Saldivar’s morning chores include general repairs and cleaning the bathrooms, which need repainting about twice a week to hide the graffiti. The men’s room seems to require more touch-ups, he said.
The etchings in the men’s and women’s bathrooms tend to have different themes.
Saldivar noticed that men are more fond of drawing gang symbols. They also are more “colorful” in the language they use, when it’s legible.
“Half the stuff they put in there doesn’t even make any sense,” he said.
The most disturbing he’s seen is people trash-talking the bar. He has not seen anything that has been racist or discriminatory, he said.
Women, however, tend to be more positive and leave their marks in a more permanent fashion. While men tend to use pens or some sort of permanent marker, women like to carve into the wood. Matt, the cuddler, earned such an engraving.
To Saldivar, there’s no good reason for patrons to vandalize bathrooms.
“They are just drunk and stupid,” he said.
On the other hand, people who work at Orio’s Roadhouse on Main Avenue find comic relief in the bathroom scrolls. So do the bar’s regulars.
Sanlen Sooter, born and raised in Durango, is a regular at Orio’s. She identified her favorite quote inside the women’s bathroom: “True wisdom is found in the slightly very insane.”
“It’s true. Just think of Einstein,” she said.
And if you need a spiritual moment, this prayer can be found: “God bless each and every one of us. ... Amen. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.”
The Irish Embassy Pub’s Underground bathroom had minimal etchings on a recent visit. Like El Rancho, the Embassy has a cleaning crew that comes in every morning to get rid of unsightly messes.
However, if you are vigilant, you might find a stick-figure drawing outside the men’s room near the Underground, the Embassy’s below-ground watering hole. And inside, writing above the sink says: “Insert mirror here.”
Jessie Cowan, a bartender at 8th Avenue Tavern, said bathroom graffiti is rare. Employees paint over it when they find it.
Trying to answer ‘why’
Nancy Bishop, a visiting assistant professor of art history at Fort Lewis College, said explaining the difference between graffiti and art can be very complicated and “more than gray.”
“Graffiti seems more like vandalism when it is about hate, various causes or self-promotion,” Bishop said in an email. “One very loose definition of art is that it is a human expression that has the power to move and delight the viewer, sometimes but not always both.”
Darrah Westrup, a cognitive behavioral therapist in Durango, said the reasons people vandalize property are as unique as the people themselves.
Reasons include: a way to mark membership in a gang; anger and hostility; the need for power and control; peer pressure; proclamations of love; and artistic expression. No matter the reason, it’s a free and uninhibited experience for the person, she said.
Perhaps the thrill of not getting caught and knowing it’s wrong are other motivations.
“You can’t categorize people in a box, but something about (vandalizing) is rewarding, for sure, Westrup said.
And like Durangoans, graffiti is as individual as the person who creates it and defies categorization, she said.
It simply has to do with how they are feeling, she said.
For the most part, the scriptures seem to indicate that Durangoans are mostly positive.
Graffiti as beauty
Debra Greenblatt is the director of a Durango-area nonprofit called the Dumpster Beautification Project.
The program, as implied in the name, allows volunteers to make unsightly Dumpsters look beautiful.
It started as a legal outlet to let the community know there are different methods of expression that don’t involve damaging public and private property, Greenblatt said.
“We are always in need of artists who want to design the Dumpster,” she said. “We take all members of the community who want to paint the Dumpsters.”
The organization also partners with other civic groups such as Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southwest Colorado for various projects.
There are some boundaries when it comes to content. Greenblatt doesn’t allow volunteers to paint advertisements, slogans or gang-related symbols. Drug and alcohol references also are prohibited.
She finds bathroom graffiti particularly interesting compared with street tagging – unsanctioned works of art or vandalism in public places.
In a bathroom, people feel a sense of privacy and feel that vandalism is OK.
“It’s much harder to be outside and tag something than being in a locked bathroom,” Greenblatt said.
vguthrie@durangoherald.com
For more information
To learn about the Dumpster Beautification Project contact Debra Greenblatt at 382-2529, or email her at artfire@mydurango.net
