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2.7.23

The Writing on the Wall—a public display of creativity from Rochelle

The Writing on the Wall — a public display of creativity from Rochelle

Fat sticks of Halloween chalk are great for writing and drawing on brick walls. I know. Five-year-old me was given a bucket and a big sponge to wash down the wall at 1065 Manor Avenue in the Bronx. I had drawn on it, and our neighbors saw my drawings as less art work and more defacing public property. I scrubbed, and my chalk art dissolved into streams of color that puddled on the sidewalk in front of the wall. It was a mess, and I loved the drips of color that ran into each other and down the street.

Did washing down that wall teach me a lesson? Yes. The extending, reaching, scribbling on that space felt so great and was so much more fun than laying down over a coloring book and staying inside the lines. I still love drawing and working on walls. My offices and studios have all been fitted with huge whiteboards, blackboards, bulletin boards, and I have happily given myself into these surfaces, immersed myself in the space, and explored ideas horizontally, vertically, diagonally and lost and found myself in my work. Poof! Time and place, who I am and who I wish I could be disappear. I’m not stuck in a place, rather dancing across a wall, in the flow of letting an idea take me wherever it wants and needs to go. It feels good to make art.