Graffiti School: A Student Guide With Teacher’s Manual by Chris Ganter

Acknowledging in his introduction that the graffiti scene is split into two groups:  illegal sprayers and legal sprayers, and noting that the legal sprayers need experience and ideas to create the detailed pieces worthy of a legal wall, author Chris Ganter has written the missing “how-to” book for the less experienced writer.  With the care of a teacher, Ganter covers graffiti’s relationship to society, its history, the hip-hop context, terminology, and related media before jumping into directions for designing graffiti.  These chapters are separated out into a) designing and b) dealing with spray paint.  The last chapter of the book is devoted to teachers, suggesting approaches to planning a graffiti unit and including a sample lesson plan, exercises, and corresponding “solutions.”  Back matter contains a smattering of sample alphabets (for more of these, see Walde’s Graffiti Alphabets), a European-oriented timeline of graffiti’s evolution beginning in 1970, a glossary, a bibliography for further reading, photo credits and an index.  Strongly recommended for independent use, as well as art educators.  Highly popular with Passages students at Belmont.--Jessica Fenster-Sparber

Ganter, Chris.  Graffiti School: A Student Guide with Teacher’s Manual.  New York: Thames & Hudson, 2013.  Print.