I’m starting to get used to these streets. I walk through the lower east side every day now, and by far my favorite part is the evolving tapestry of street art. It’s never the same twice. I compulsively photograph them because a.) they’re beautiful, and b.) they might not be there tomorrow. They might not ever re-emerge, at least not in exactly the same way. And I want them to last.
When I take these pictures, it feels like I’m looking through a sketch book, or a journal or diary; not just one person’s, but not the whole city’s either, more like a small group of people, who might only speak to outsiders through these images.
Whoever they are, I want to know them, and it feels like we talk in the way they’ve painted my city today.
Like we’re passing notes in class.
Well, they’re passing notes; I’m passing by.
It is one-sided, when you think about it, but it doesn’t feel like a performance to be observed, or a painting on a gallery wall to be critiqued or contextualized; it feels like a question.
Check one: yes, no, maybe?
