Jerod Black, the founder of Guardian Aliens, said there is no limit to artistic work — it’s all about what someone is inspired to put in a blank space.
The Guardian Aliens is a group of artists who seek to beautify Athens through painting murals and picking up trash throughout town, Black, an Athens resident who started the group in April, said.
“We’re not trying to destroy anything,” Corey Benson, a member of the group, said. “We’re just trying to make the beautiful town a lot more beautiful. We’re trying to bring the art back into the town.”
The group painted both the Bobcat Blackout mural on the Bentley Wall and the piano keys on the stairs leading from Washington Street to Depot Street.
The group is an organization rather than a business, Black said, because the group isn’t looking to profit or “ask for a lot of permission.”
“Some stuff I don’t want to go through all the loopholes and wait weeks for something to change,” Black said. “We’re just going to go do it.”
Black said law enforcement has responded positively to the group’s work, but Black said he’ll take into account if law enforcement thinks he did something illegal.
“I’m not trying to vandalize anything, I am trying to improve the community,” Black said. “If they think I’m going over the line, they can give me a ticket. They can come to my house. They can call me. I made myself available to them.”
Another problem the group has, Benson said, is the connotation that comes with the word "graffiti." He said it is more difficult to get approval to do artwork.
“We tell people we’re going to do mural art, and they’re more inclined to let us do it,” Benson said. “But if we say anything about graffiti it’s, ‘No, we don’t want it.' ”
Benson said people might think of graffiti as someone running around with spray paint doing something stupid, but it's because people rarely take time to develop their own style or character. Graffiti comes in all different forms, including tags and murals.
But it’s more than putting art on walls for Benson. He said the organization also works to cover up some graffiti.
“Like after Number Fest last year, there were two buildings and a few spots in Athens that had penises written all over them and they stayed up forever,” he said. “They were up for a couple of months until we took it upon ourselves to remove them.”
Caroline Mullen, a senior studying communication and science disorders, said a few years ago someone was tagging a random symbol around town, and at one point, the symbol was painted on her door. Despite her dislike of tagging, Mullen said she likes the artwork throughout campus.
“I think that most of the graffiti around campus is artwork,” Mullen said.
Most of what Athens is taking notice of is the art that the group creates, Black said, rather than how the group is cleaning up the town.
Andrew Cutshall, a member of the group, is more focused on the nonprofit aspect and frequently picks up trash throughout the Athens area.
When in Athens, Cutshall said, students sometimes trash the town. Because people are only around for a few years, he added, they have a “temporary perspective.”
To help the problem, Cutshall said he wants to create a place the group can have classes and conversations in a nonthreatening environment.
The group wants to bring art to the public’s attention and build a sense of community — whether it is visual art or something else — because it opens people’s mind to something different, Benson said.
“There is nothing better than when I am painting a wall, someone walks up ... completely blown away,” Benson said. “Everything they have planned for the day doesn’t even matter anymore because all they’re focused on is something I’m holding right in front of their eyes.”
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