girafa - SFist - San Francisco News, Restaurants, Events, & Sports

Girafa, AKA Steven Free, Pleads Guilty to $38,000 Worth of Street Art

Andrew Dalton — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 10:38:57 GMT

Prolific Bay Area tagger and muralist Girafa (née Steven Free) pled guilty to two felony counts and two misdemeanor counts of vandalism in a Santa Clara Superior Court earlier this week. The 32-year-old Free, a San Francisco resident, was arrested back in October of 2009 on 10 felony vandalism cases in San Jose where the cops didn't seem to be so appreciative of Girafa's playful wall cartoons and personal branding efforts. According to Bay City News, eight of those felony charges were dropped, but the remaining counts have landed Free three years of probation and 38 grand worth of fines to the City of San Jose and various property owners.

On the bright side, the investigation found Girafa to be one of "the most prolific taggers in the Bay Area," which is nice for bragging rights. Assuming the terms of his probation still allow him to go anywhere near paint cans, we're thinking now would be a good time to go legit and paint a few gallery walls to cover those costs. Perhaps he could even design a colorful wall mural at a local elementary school or something. You know - to remind everybody that street art can be fun.

Previously on SFist: Police Arrest Graffiti Artist "Girafa" (AKA Steven Free)
[BCN/Appeal]

Your Day In SF Graffiti

Brock Keeling — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 09:28:05 GMT

Attention anti-graffiti ilk: there's a new anti-graffiti Twitter feed for you to follow, @SFGraffiti. While still in its embryonic stage, it has @311 following it, which might very well result in some sort of tagging cleanup around the city if it gets enough people involved. So, send all your most irritable graffiti sightings (plus a picture, ideally) to @SFGraffiti.

In related news, graffiti artist Steven Free ("Girafa"), a local celebrity whose Toys ‘R’ Us and It's-It parodies captured the attention of graffiti fans, was arrested last week.

His art, if you will, is actually quite cool to the eye. Then again, we like giraffes and ice cream sandwiches. We're a bit biased.

Anyway, Free was arrested on a $100,000 warrant and is, according to the fuzz, responsible for at least $40,000 in damages in San Jose alone. A benefit, we're told, might be held to raise funds for his legal case. We'll update as soon as we know more.

Conversely, and while not nearly as hipsterly romantic, you could donate your money to the Richmond High School gang rape survivor, whose story gets worse and worse as details unfold, or the San Francisco Food Bank, who are in desperate need this year.

Police Arrest Graffiti Artist "Girafa" (AKA Steven Free)

Brock Keeling — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:54:09 GMT

Before we begin, "Steven Free" is a far better name than "Girafa." It's action-packed! But since male artists love, love, love using stage names, he obviously had to get a new one; after all, he was committing illegal acts of painting. We digress.

Yesterday morning, San Jose police announced the arrest one of "the most prolific graffiti artists in the Bay Area," Steven Free, 30, most commonly known as Girafa. Free was nabbed on a $100,000 warrant, charged with "10 felony cases in San Jose involving $40,000 in damages."

CoCo Times reports, "During a search of his San Francisco home, officers discovered thousands of pictures of graffiti with the "Girafa" moniker and cartoon characters of giraffes on several of his social Web sites."

San Jose police officer Jermaine Thomas said that Free "was just causing a lot of vandalism around the Bay Area, anywhere he would find a spot, he would use this moniker." (What's wrong with a little, or a lot, of branding? Sheesh. The fuzz are a bunch of squares.)

Criminal mischief aside, his stuff looked nifty. What I'm Seeing interviewed him earlier this year. When asked why people loved/hated him so mich, Free responded, "I don’t know for sure. I try not to pay attention to it on both sides. It makes me laugh. You can’t escape it. Its part of graffiti [...] It’s not my job to try and change other people’s feelings about me. My job is to do what I do regardless of an audience and what they think."