As we celebrate our 10th Anniversary of the Wooster Collective website, we asked a group of artists who we showcased in the beginnings of the website the following question:

What's the one thing that you learned in the last decade that you had wished someone had told you 10 years ago?

The following response comes from Dan Witz:

I wish someone had been around to remind me that street art would endure. But, cynical me, I just presumed, whatever its merits, that the intense interest in this art form would have its 15 minutes then fade away. I remember ten years ago being a total buzz-kill on a panel with you guys and reminding everyone of that old Brancusi quote, “What is in fashion goes out of fashion.”

But, apparently, when the art history paradigm shifts, REALLY shifts, like seismically, the consequences are far-reaching and permanent. Cezanne, Surrealism, Jackson Pollack, pop art, rock and roll, these revolutions are not going away. Same with street art: this is still a major game changer. True, commercial forces are trying their best to co-opt and profit from it; and undoubtedly much of the movement has become a cliché of itself, (which is normal and what we expected); but street art in its pure form—the type where there’s nothing to sell, and nothing to own, this art-form that dislodges the paradigm of art as elitist luxury item—this has definitely achieved permanent traction in the world’s consciousness. It’s crazy. Incredible. Who knew?