By Christy Mihalenko I Photograph By Christy Mihalenko
09/30/12
A spray can in the right hand can transform a wall. I’ve seen it firsthand. It was early June and I was in the Big Apple visiting my older sister Sandra, her husband Chris and their two kids, Luca and Nina. For a whole week I lived in their neighborhood of Greenpoint, Brooklyn, surrounded by the glistening urban jungle. It was a welcome change from my most recent home of State College, PA. The days felt like seconds as my time in the city dwindled down to a mere 24 hours. My hourglass was set. Before my 5 hour trek home via the Megabus the next day, I yearned for one last adventure.
Most days, my sister, myself, my 2 year old nephew, and my 8 month old niece would go on an outing. That day we had the car, meaning we could easily travel farther. It was June, but the day was shrouded in charcoal clouds that threatened an imminent downpour, and the crisp cool air was brash as it washed over my face with each gust of wind. This was no deterrent.
We crossed the Pulaski Bridge leaving Brooklyn behind to enter Queens in my sister’s silver, Nissan Versa, packed to capacity with baby gear and umbrellas. We rode into the Long Island City neighborhood to visit P.S. 1 MoMA (The acronym is for Museum of Modern Art) an art space which to my disappointment was highly un-inspiring and downright boring–there were scarcely any exhibits and the ones that were being presented hardly had any distinction from the white plaster walls that surrounded them. There were only white clumps of paper mâché, of which I could find no meaning for. The real treasure lay outside the walls of the MoMA. It caught my eye as we passed into the bounds of the MoMA. I begged my sister to let me visit it later, and we hopped back in the car after the MoMA to take a peek. It was a mass of graffiti which flanked two alleyways and was splashed over an entire building. I came to know that this area was called Five Pointz, where graffiti artists from all walks of life, including the famous ones, were commissioned to put up their work. There I saw all types of graffiti in every color. Each alley way was like a tunnel of intensive colors and shapes that swallowed you into its depths. Each tag and character depiction snaked into each other like a procession leading me down the dank alleyway. One of my favorites was the larger than life, grayscale portrait of Batman and Catwoman. I also loved the garage door devoted to Angry Birds zooming across its metal ingress.
The graffiti stretched up the walls as if to touch heaven itself. Bubble letters, and words scrunched into indiscernible shapes covered every inch of the once bare concrete walls and metal beams. The expanse of work felt never ending as my sister inched the car into the next alley, turning the wheels at a snail’s pace. As we turned the corner my eye caught movement. Were my eyes deceiving me? No! There was actually someone in the process of painting a piece
The way he flourished his arms, cans in hand like a cowboy drawing his pistols, zigzagged in a smooth rhythm across the cement wall. The paint flowed from him effortlessly. Every stroke, at least to my perception, landed exactly where he had intended. He was like a lion tamer willing the paint to do as he desired. Steadily more detail started to form as he layered the colors jetting out from each nosil over each other He was more than half way done with his magnum opus, having already fashioned the depiction of an enormous, shining black spider against a vivid, electric blue background with painted cracks dispersing out from under the spider’s body. Now he was adding spurts of orange, which complemented the flaming orange tag he had painted earlier. Like every other piece around it this work was completely unique. . The artist gave the creature elegant lines with legs that stretched over a 15 foot span. Its exoskeleton shined with splashes of white and maroon paint giving it a 3D effect, as if it could scramble off the wall and give Godzilla a run for his money
Unfortunately our creeping had to come to an end. We had reached the end of the alleyway leaving the graffiti and its artist behind. As we pulled out of the alleyway my sister made me promise not to tell my protective brother in-law about our adventure. . However, I also made a promise to myself: never to forget what I saw being rendered that day. That trip was all for me; something I had wanted to see for a long time. Who wouldn’t want to see a practiced hand create a masterpiece right before their eyes? It was a stroke of luck to see a piece actually being constructed, for if it were anywhere else this marking of the wall would be done only under the eyes of the night.
Most days, my sister, myself, my 2 year old nephew, and my 8 month old niece would go on an outing. That day we had the car, meaning we could easily travel farther. It was June, but the day was shrouded in charcoal clouds that threatened an imminent downpour, and the crisp cool air was brash as it washed over my face with each gust of wind. This was no deterrent.
We crossed the Pulaski Bridge leaving Brooklyn behind to enter Queens in my sister’s silver, Nissan Versa, packed to capacity with baby gear and umbrellas. We rode into the Long Island City neighborhood to visit P.S. 1 MoMA (The acronym is for Museum of Modern Art) an art space which to my disappointment was highly un-inspiring and downright boring–there were scarcely any exhibits and the ones that were being presented hardly had any distinction from the white plaster walls that surrounded them. There were only white clumps of paper mâché, of which I could find no meaning for. The real treasure lay outside the walls of the MoMA. It caught my eye as we passed into the bounds of the MoMA. I begged my sister to let me visit it later, and we hopped back in the car after the MoMA to take a peek. It was a mass of graffiti which flanked two alleyways and was splashed over an entire building. I came to know that this area was called Five Pointz, where graffiti artists from all walks of life, including the famous ones, were commissioned to put up their work. There I saw all types of graffiti in every color. Each alley way was like a tunnel of intensive colors and shapes that swallowed you into its depths. Each tag and character depiction snaked into each other like a procession leading me down the dank alleyway. One of my favorites was the larger than life, grayscale portrait of Batman and Catwoman. I also loved the garage door devoted to Angry Birds zooming across its metal ingress.
The graffiti stretched up the walls as if to touch heaven itself. Bubble letters, and words scrunched into indiscernible shapes covered every inch of the once bare concrete walls and metal beams. The expanse of work felt never ending as my sister inched the car into the next alley, turning the wheels at a snail’s pace. As we turned the corner my eye caught movement. Were my eyes deceiving me? No! There was actually someone in the process of painting a piece
The way he flourished his arms, cans in hand like a cowboy drawing his pistols, zigzagged in a smooth rhythm across the cement wall. The paint flowed from him effortlessly. Every stroke, at least to my perception, landed exactly where he had intended. He was like a lion tamer willing the paint to do as he desired. Steadily more detail started to form as he layered the colors jetting out from each nosil over each other He was more than half way done with his magnum opus, having already fashioned the depiction of an enormous, shining black spider against a vivid, electric blue background with painted cracks dispersing out from under the spider’s body. Now he was adding spurts of orange, which complemented the flaming orange tag he had painted earlier. Like every other piece around it this work was completely unique. . The artist gave the creature elegant lines with legs that stretched over a 15 foot span. Its exoskeleton shined with splashes of white and maroon paint giving it a 3D effect, as if it could scramble off the wall and give Godzilla a run for his money
Unfortunately our creeping had to come to an end. We had reached the end of the alleyway leaving the graffiti and its artist behind. As we pulled out of the alleyway my sister made me promise not to tell my protective brother in-law about our adventure. . However, I also made a promise to myself: never to forget what I saw being rendered that day. That trip was all for me; something I had wanted to see for a long time. Who wouldn’t want to see a practiced hand create a masterpiece right before their eyes? It was a stroke of luck to see a piece actually being constructed, for if it were anywhere else this marking of the wall would be done only under the eyes of the night.