New Faust Installation in Brooklyn - Congratulations to an old friend…and inspiration

It was sometime in 2007. I just moved to NYC from New Orleans. I was still in a post-Katrina, PTSD haze…chain smoking on my stoop in the LES on Clinton Street, watching the characters walk by. Suddenly, from a block away, I spotted him.

He fashioned a fedora (something I had NEVER seen in New Orleans) and a confident stride. From the opposite side of the street emerged an inflated siren donning her newest two editions for the entire neighborhood to see. To my surprise, the fedora and pair of balloons crossed paths directly in front of my flip-flop clad feet. The “cool” man made a huge head turn towards the comical cleavage of the woman.

To my biggest surprise, I laughed…no…I cackled…for the FIRST TIME SINCE THE STORM! It had been almost three years since the “City Formerly Known as New Orleans,” had been shit on by the Bush Administration and the Country as a whole.

Luckily, the “local” man caught my gaze and heard my laughter. We laughed, exchanged names…and spent the next 18 + hours sharing our life stories.

My first friend. My first laugh. My first experience with FAUST! NYC…I AM HOME.

Faust:

"It's part of the second installment of Willoughby Windows organized by Ad Hoc Art Gallery and the Metro Tech Business Improvement District. A developer evicted all of the residents and business owners on the block with plans for new construction, which got halted when the recession hit, and has been sitting vacant ever since. Twelve artists were invited to create installations in these vacant commercial spaces."

"On the storefront windows I wrote "It seemed like a good idea at the time" a statement I felt was subtle enough yet still poignant."

"Inside, I painted a massive Faust tag stretching from floor to ceiling."

 

"I was inspired by the checkered floor in the space and interested in challenging the way people see and think about graffiti by playing with scale and placement and embellishing formal qualities that are often overlooked."

   

"I also included a flik of a gate I recently painted in the LES."