"It's fine if they (graffiti artists) want to ask for a designated area where they want to be creative, but they shouldn't have the right to put their art wherever they want," Perri said.

However, graffiti artist Fagg said he thinks designated, legal areas for graffiti might create a compromise situation.

"As more legal walls pop up and people embrace it as an art form, people will go there instead of those other places," Fagg said.

Ostraff also discussed some legal avenues for graffiti artists, many of whom have been "mainstreamed into the art world" and now exhibit their art in museums, instead of on fences.

Despite legal possibilities, however, both Ostraff and Fagg said the smorgasbord of motives behind graffiti will make it difficult to bring the art form entirely out of the illegal realm.

"As long as we have large cities, and layers of people with or without access to public dialogue, there will be some form of graffiti art," Ostraff said.

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E-mail: rwestenskow@desnews.com