ABC No RIO - Graffiti to Go

It has been pretty busy again or lazy ! to renew the blog. But my artistic activity was not stopped. So no worry ;-) ABC No Rio gallery project totally nurtured me as well as my work in Summer and Fall 2009. (May - Oct. 2009) What was amazing was first that I was able to tangibly learn the history of lower east Side in Manhattan through this organization. I commuted there almost every day or the other day after work to just chat with people or cast the graffiti in latex with same acrylic color matched with the graffiti. Their zine library was awesome. Any handmade magazine called ZINE, have been precisely collected by this organization. This building looked like just about to fall down and the entrance are full of graffiti. And inside as well. But, this is the place to express your feeling and artistic expression freely o your own because there are shared silkscreen shop, computer shop, dark room, exhibition space, back yard and the Zine library. (They even have a kitchen to fix food for homeless people and provide at Thompkins Square Park.)

Amazingly hidden, yet so many and many people came by every evening to make their own Art or just check out Zine or hang out with friends there. That made me so relaxed and enjoyed painted colored latex on top of graffiti and tags to trace again and again. Needless to say, every evening whenever I went back to there, different tags were added on top of the latex. That was cool. But what was much cooler for me that I was able to understand all the secret coding like tags once I follow what it looked like to be correct. Not just because English is not my native language, but their beautiful designed spelling made me difficult to know what was written and that is also the point for its own of course. The more I traced and overwritten the words, the more I felt it was hidden poetry that was about to fly from the wall to the air.

I continued to do so for four months (actual amount of the time doing so was probably two months.) Then, I realized I should just cast the words not the entire wall unlike in the way I did before. This piece itself is to dedicate for the people build and support ABC No Rio community in Lower East Side and their energy developed the idea of "Social Dress New York City - Graffiti to Go" which sometimes in the near future I like to explain, but love to make it happen in 10 years.