| Feb. 19, 2008 | Posted by: katie |
We’ve Been Hit!
Last Thursday morning I noticed that my downstairs neighbor’s front door had a stencil on it. Our neighbor is also a close friend so I asked him about it, thinking it could have been a little art project done by his crafty roommate. He had no idea where it came from, so the stencil portrait became a “whodunit” of sorts. That is until my friend Sean found this flicker account. Apparently we were hit by a prolific Williamsburg stencil artist.
I am huge street-art fan, so I do find this a bit exciting, although as Sean pointed out, most people don’t paint on other people’s houses… Should we be pissed or feel like we just got an awesome little art present?
I think you should be excited! I know I would be – I wonder if it’s a Swoon.
Not Swoon, but it does look like her style.
I would love to find that on my front door. I guess painting on someone’s house is okay if it’s so good the residents all like it!
Not to be Debbie Downer here or anything but it’s absolutely NOT okay to spray paint anything on someone’s house.
Forget whether or not I like the art or that it compliments my frilly iron gate. The “artist” has no idea who lives there. It could be my 80 year old neighbor who has hip trouble and has to hire someone to paint her gate just to keep it from rusting and falling apart.
Plus we all know graffiti begets graffiti so if left up you could end up with spray painted tags on you brick walls —— so not cool.
As a hard working person just trying to get by and maintain a building in NYC, undoing a graffiti artist’s “complimentary” work is a project I hope to NEVER see on my “to do” list.
There was always a unwritten law amongst graffiti writers (at-least in philadelphia) that residential buildings, churches, fire stations and of course police stations are not to be vandalized. This may be different in New York, as i have frequently seen apartment buildings left out off the list. This being said, It is things like this that give graffiti a bad rap. I don’t think any “real” graffiti writer would ever do this, especially in a place like queens where residential house like this are common. Graffiti writers know what they are doing is vandalism and wouldn’t justify it as art, therefor it is pointless to vandalize someone’s front door when there is metal pulldown grates and public spaces rite down the street that will probably live longer. Street artists on the other hand, i believe, view this differently as they feel like they are creating “art” not “vandalism”.
I believe sean was joking, but he is not that far off there.
My question is where is the line drawn? If that street artist is as prolific and popular as Banksy, and he paints your wall and, it becomes an opportunity for $10,000 profit. Is that ok?
As wrong as this still is, I guess once is happens all you can do is take a picture and be glad that your windows and car were not hit with etch
excuse me i was wrong, it sold for over $400,000.00
To be fair, I would like to point out that this isn’t a front door. It is hidden away on the side of our stoop and leads to the basement apt. I think I would be put off if it was on the apt building’s front glass double doors, but frankly, usually a collection of trash cans live right next to Ryan’s door…
I’m lovin’ it!
wow, i must have misread, for some reason i thought this was outside MSLK. Isn’t this almost expected in Williamsburg?
This stencil is C215 that is his street name.His name is Christian wonderfull artist.Last month he sprayed 30 stencils in London . I love his work!
See it on youtube or flicker just type C215. I pass two of his stencils everyday on my way to work, hope you enjoy them as much as I do!
sweet blog. i am loving the styles and fresh colors.
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loving this – i really dig the blog and your unique content. long time reader – first time commenter!