Social media post aimed at vandal of N.B. business: 'Your strokes are bold but lacking confidence'

A woman who runs a thrift store in Riverview, N.B., has used some creative criticism on social media after a vandal spray painted her building.

Someone tagged the front wall of Ergon Thrift on Trites Road with bright orange graffiti either late Thursday night or early Friday morning.

Cecilia Watkins, the director of operations for the store, said she was upset when she first discovered it around 7:30 a.m., but decided to put a positive spin on it.

Watkins, an art therapy practitioner, posted a long, clever message on Facebook hoping the culprit would see it.

"Your strokes are bold but lacking confidence, indicating a sense of urgency but passion in your expression. The dripping suggests that you are unskilled at the art of tagging and may have discovered a can of spray paint in your parents' garage."

Watkins also warned that it is a criminal act and the perpetrator can be charged and fined.

"With your art being underdeveloped, juvenile, and still lacking in personality, I don't feel you are possibly old enough to pay the fines of up to $5,000. Additionally, I highly doubt your guardians would be interested in paying that fine either."

Watkins finished by saying she hopes the artist works on their skills and welcomes the person to come inside during business hours to speak to her and possibly do something on a huge blank wall in the store's art room.

"You can tell that they don't have a lot of practice doing this and they're just kind of wandering around and tagging things,” Watkins told CTV in an interview at the store. "If they actually put some effort into it and actually did it in places that they were supposed to do it in, they'd actually get really good at it."

Cecilia Watkins stands in front of the graffiti on Ergon Thrift. (CTV/Derek Haggett)Ergon is an on-the-job training site for adults living with mental illness that provides skills needed for employment in the Greater Moncton area.

Her husband Tim used a pressure washer to try and remove the bright orange paint from the front of the store.

His wife's Facebook post was unexpected, but not surprising to him.

"She has a flare for communicating things effectively," he said.

Frequent customer Anthony Boyer was shocked and disappointed someone felt the need to deface the building.

"You don't expect to see something like this in Riverview," said Boyer. "You'd expect to see it in larger cities, but not a bedroom community like Riverview."

Watkins decided not to report the crime to the RCMP because she believed her and Tim could remove the graffiti themselves.

Cst. Chris Fader, a graffiti expert with the Codiac Regional RCMP, said people should always report graffiti, no matter how big or small.

"Depending on the type of graffiti it is, it's kind of a fingerprint. If you have a writer who's doing tags, well then you can do a style comparison and link it back to the same person," said Fader. "If we don't know about it, we can't direct resources to it."

The back of an apartment building across the street from the thrift store was also tagged with bright orange paint.

Cecilia's husband washes the orange paint off the store. (CTV/Derek Haggett)Fader said it can be difficult to remove.

"Depending on the surface it can be really hard. Brick is especially hard to get paint out of," said Fader.

In the end, Watkins and her husband were able to remove the paint using magic eraser and some elbow grease.

She had a final message to whoever put it there in the first place.

"I would say I appreciate art as much as I hope they do," said Watkins. "Please choose where you're going to show your art respectfully. Understand that stuff like this costs businesses a lot. We're just a small community trying to get by so find other ways to express your art, but keep expressing."

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