5 Pointz Queens
On Sunday, August 5th, I met with Meres One, a curator of New York’s most famous landmark for graffiti and street art in Long Island City, Queens…5 Pointz. Meres, who is also a master graffiti artist, was gracious enough to walk me around the one-of-a-kind factory building looking for a smidgen of wall space where I can get on. Once back inside the courtyard we found the spot. I hadn’t prepared a preliminary sketch for what I was going to paint, so Meres agreed to be Fumeroized.
It was a hot summer day. The bright sunshine was glaring from behind my back and the sweat dripping into my eyes made it difficult to clearly see the image on my pocket camera. By 1 o’clock, I was working straight through, only stopping for quick bites of my cheese-steak sandwich from the corner deli. I was chillin with the sounds of Onda Skillet’s Aerotropic filling my ears and enhancing my motivation. Later, a BMX event was taking place nearby. The DJ was mixing old-school house and 90’s hip hop…and yes, I grooved right along with it.
As the elevated subway rolled over head and the sun slowly moved from east to west, I applied my skittled colors and numerous black contours. With a super fat cap, I blasted the background with a rainbow-like design while dark storm clouds swirled rapidly above 5 Pointz. I had just finished adding my signature when the heavy rain drops fell from the dark sky and turned day into night within a brief moment. With help from friends, we quickly packed up the crates of spray cans into the truck. As we closed the last door, the storm of the summer came down in biblical proportions.
I would like to thank my friends and all the people I met who showed their support. Especially to the grand organizer of 5 Pointz, Meres, a cool, mellow fellow who says this global landmark for contemporary urban art is sticking around for a while.
5 Pointz is known as New York City’s Visual Arts mecca of urban expressionism, but is under attack to become extinct by demolition to make way for high rise apartment buildings. You can help stop this from happening by signing the petition at: iPetitions.
