Jerm IX and Vegas just want to see more public street art in Vancouver. In the tradition of the world's greatest graffiti artists, these two prolific tricksters have one big goal -- to fill up sad, blank spaces in our city with thoughtful (and sometimes controversial) words and art. True to their word, Jerm and Vegas have spent a great deal of their free time pasting, hammering and spraying various eye-catching statements and graphics on every neglected space they can find.

Most recently, the artists have collaborated to bring their art-based dialogues to one of the most public spaces of all -- the Skytrain -- in a campaign aptly entitled V-TARP (Vancouver Transit Adspace Re-Appropriation Project). With over 35 installations already applied on Skytrain ads across the city, you may have noticed something a little different during your daily subconscious ad-scanning routines. Imagine this: next to one of those endless, ingratiating McDonald's ads, a smaller ad-sized block of text that declares "I'M NOT LOVIN' IT." If this makes you pause and think, it has done its job.

On a sunny, humid afternoon about a week ago, I sat down with the artists themselves at W2 to discuss their opinions on the status of the guerrilla/street art scene in today's Vancouver. Somehow, I felt they just might know a thing or two about the topic.

Is street art thriving here, I wondered? It seems like there are some truly beautiful mainstream/legal pieces being funded (such as the Paint Your Faith wall in that formerly-depressing empty lot on East Hastings) as well as some innovative (but less legal) installations inexplicably being erected at random locations. But what do these isolated examples say about the overall passion of local guerrilla/street artists here, about their motivations, about their experience and talent? It was time to ask the experts -- especially because both Jerm IX and Vegas grew as fledgling street artists in cities other than Vancouver. So, how do we match up in comparison?

"The scene here is healthy," Jerm IX responded after a pause. "However, it's not thriving. The whole reason we are doing V-TARP is to try to inspire more people to use public spaces in this city more for art and their thoughts. There's just not enough people doing it here yet -- and the most talented artists don't hit the streets that often -- they are more into the gallery worlds... they've decided to spend their time making money, not decorating. For me, I'm out here doing it 6 days a week -- i thrive on it -- it's my life. But i wish there was more."

Vegas came at my question from a different perspective. For him, after living in London where British artists like A.CE and D-Face "are hitting the street every week and still producing amazing gallery art," there's a lot of possibility for the quality of Vancouver's scene to be improved through the art world working with local street artists to help them thrive. It frustrates Vegas that right now, there seems to be a "clear-cut definition in Vancouver... you're either a street artist or you're doing galleries and murals. As a result, the city is filled with kids tagging in a junior sort of way... but they're doing it with no mentorship from big guerrilla artists because they've all 'moved up'". Vegas worries that many of these kids are just going to get processed by the ugly side of the system without being taught how amazing the result can be when guerrilla passion is combined effectively with artistic talent.

Both artists feel that Vancouver is an apt city to start creating street art in, noting that the police are a bit more easygoing here, the weather is mild, and the locals range from apathetic to appreciative -- with appreciation at its highest in the alleyways of the Downtown Eastside. In their V-TARP Skytrain campaign outings, Jerm and Vegas could only remember one incident that involved a local verbally berating them for putting up their pieces in empty ad spaces. Ironically, his anger was not directed towards their act itself, but rather towards the fact that the piece they were installing criticized a McDonald's ad.

It was a timely discussion, especially because of the recent release of a new film by Banksy (one of the most famous street artists of our generation who 99% of you will have already heard of; Jerm and Vegas laughingly compare him to Tiger Woods) which is now playing in Vancouver theatres. The film, fittingly named "Exit Through the Gift Shop", features a shrouded Banksy taking viewers on a documentary-style, satirical journey along the winding path of street art's contemporary history through the eyes of one of his most ardent and eccentric admirers, Mr Brainwash.

It's all represented in the film, from the first massive paste-ups done by now-famous entities such as OBEY's Shepard Faerie to guerrilla art's inevitable steps towards mainstream commercial success and (often) vapidity. The film culminates in a rumination-provoking look at a wildly successful show of Mr. Brainwash's work in L.A. The show is a sensation, filled with 'street-art style' works that sell for inordinate sums of money -- works bought by the very same group of consumers who compelled the first anti-capitalist street artists to create paste-ups as a big "fuck you" to society.

The irony is certainly not lost on Jerm and Vegas. However, as both artists note, every attempt at street art is an important addition to Vancouver's cultural landscape, whether it promotes discussion and thought or simply makes one smile. Says Jerm, "I'm seriously happy with every tiny piece of street art I see -- every little butterfly -- because I mark the city by its tags... by its conversations. That says a lot about our local community to me -- that the scene here is healthy enough for me to find my way to Hastings and Abbott strictly by way of dumpster tags."

And that's the true potential of street art. Political or not, every tiny piece of public art contributes to our city's urban dialogue -- and if there's enough of it, a real sense of local community is fostered.

Check out Jerm IX and Vegas's contributions to that public dialogue via their V-TARP Skytrain campaign (or submit your own pieces for them to put up!) here.

All photos taken from the V-TARP blog.