RELA ALER

I look at graffiti as a skill, a talent that some have. But Rela looked at graffiti in a whole different way, unlike any other graffiti artist.

He thought graffiti should be legalized. He said that if people came together and legalized it, there wouldn’t be any writings on the wall or any graffiti-related crimes. “The streets would be cleaner,” he said.

Rela was not a vandal, like most of society would call him. He was into history, and he was really into people who fought for their rights, like Malcolm X, and Che. He was against the system. Many people thought he was a brilliant kid who had a nasty habit. Others admired his art work.

He came from a dysfunctional family. His dad left him when he was just four years of age. His mother was a drug addict. He went through so much. He was only seventeen when he died.

No one really knows how he died. He wasn’t a war hero. No one really cared about his artwork until he died. Even people related to him called him a vandal, but to me he was just a normal kid who had a hard time growing up, and he used graffiti as a way to get away from his hell and pain. He was a great person, My Hero, Piela a.k.a. Aler. R.I.P.