A small crowd was watching them work
but they were so wrapped up in their music they didn’t seem to notice. There
were two of them so when they came down from the scaffolding we asked one of them (“no
need to know my name”) how they got into the hand-painted sign business. Did
they go to art school for instance? “No, it’s just one of those jobs that you just start doing it and then you're doing it,” he told us as he studied the image they were
scaling up on the wall. Apparently these painters come from a range of backgrounds
from old-school sign writers to reformed graffiti artists. “It’s a job,” the other one says getting back to work. “I do my own painting, my own art at home. This
stuff is commercial you know, the everyday stuff.”
This kind of hand-painted wall signage is
making a comeback in New York City, particularly in newly gentrified areas where
it's probably part of a turn to the handmade and crafted that is running
through high and popular culture at the moment. Most of the work you see on the
streets of New York is by one company, Colossal Media and paintings can come in at
between $5,000 and $110,000 depending on scale. Of course the American art
world already has one sign-painting hero in James Rosenquist who started off
high up on the walls of New York painting billboards in the late fifties. Had they heard of him we
asked the two painters. “That guy in the museum? Yeah, it’s an inspiration
isn’t it.
