08 December 2008

Day 6 - NoLA Rising Festival - A Day in Queens



A day in Queens...

Unfortunately, the program we were going to do with the class of second graders for canceled due to a scheduling conflict with the teacher and the holiday. However, since I had been up until a good 5 a.m. walking around Manhattan with the lovely and talented tour guide, it worked out well. This gave us a full day to buy another round of paint and head to Queens where I was able to paint the premier wall of the trip in Five Points.

Liz Giegerich, a graduate student at New York University focusing on multimedia and metropolitan reporting,gives the best account HERE:

“Five-points,” as it is known to grafitti artists around the world, is a large factory in Long Island City where it is legal to spray paint the walls. The owners of the factory allow artists to paint the walls as long as they seek permission first. The building, which fills an entire square block is covered from the ground up mostly in “wild style” grafitti - much different from NoLa Rising’s more mural-like Aztec inspired work, something Mike was initially nervous about. Mike, two other artists from New Orleans, the executive director of NoLa Rising and a photographer ventured out to Queens to tackle a large estimated 10 by 10 foot wall with spray paint cans and a ladder. I met them there while they were scouring the large dumpsters outside of the clothing factory for some left over fabric to use as scarves.

Around 3 p.m. the man who was in charge of allotting painting space led the crew to the wall they’d spend the next five hours covering with what Mike later considered his best street work ever. By 8:30 Mike and the other artists finally finished.


See Liz's blog by clicking on this line






And yet, nothing would be complete without the obligatory tourist photo...

My Rainy Walk Across the Brooklyn Bridge
From the late-night rainy walk across the Brooklyn Bridge

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