According to one guest speaker and street artist, every town has that spot — under an overpass, inside a covered bridge, on the back wall of an abandoned newspaper building in downtown Northfield — full of organically curated signatures known as tags.
The artist who said that is named Amon Focus, of New York City, and he was one of three presenters speaking to a crowd of a dew dozen people Wednesday, Jan. 22, at the Northfield Arts Guild in downtown Northfield. The other two artists speaking at the event, Rafael Estrella and Rocky Casillas, hail from Northfield.
Some might see the art form as “graffiti,” an eyesore dropping their property values. Others might see the art form as “street art,” a public display of self-expression that adds a vibrant splash to a mostly corporatized market of wall space for advertisers.
Focus is the host of a show called Connected Conversations, documenting the stories of a wide array of New Yorkers. He mentioned a popular tagging spot in New York City called Freemans Alley, named after the restaurant near there.
“Every town somewhere has up their own version of Freemans Alley,” he said. “It’s a free for all, where everybody can express themselves.”
His talk highlighted some popular spots and the benefit to networking there as a budding artist. He also spoke about the trajectory from doodling to commissioning artwork.
He also spoke about the culture and origins of graffiti. He mentioned “Wildstyle,” which many consider to be the first American hip-hop movie. It takes place in the early ’80s in the Bronx, where hip-hop music was born and where graffiti served many purposes as shown in the movie.
Casillas has been into art since he was a little kid, but wasn’t taking it seriously until the pandemic. He has a comic in various mediums with two recurring characters, a campfire flame and an ancient hotdog.
Two years ago, he painted public art for the first time as part of a grant-funded initiative in Northfield to raise awareness about keeping storm drains free of litter. It was a partnership with the Environmental Quality Commission and funded through the Artists on Main Street program.
The five pieces were scattered around downtown on or near storm drains. Depictions of fish and other sea creatures integrated elements of the drains themselves, and speech bubbles informed passersby of the value to keeping the town litter free.
He said the best part was when people walked past him, commenting on the artwork or simply asking what was going on.
“I think that a lot of those conversations wouldn’t have happened otherwise,” he said. “If I wasn’t there in that moment in time those people were walking by, we wouldn’t have crossed paths. It was a really cool experience for me, and I realized the power public art has to invite some of those conversations to happen, to be able to get to know your neighbors.”
Estrella was born in Mexico, grew up in Chicago and, after attending Carleton College, stayed in Northfield. He spoke about the transformation of street art into the more accepted and understood medium it is today.
As a Chicagoan, he compared the art form to the famous public art in Chicago, a sculpture formally known as “Cloud Gate.” Most likely know it by its colloquial name, The Bean.
“Chicagoans, we all hated it,” he laughed. “We were like ‘What is it? It looks like a bean.’ It felt like an eyesore. Until, all of a sudden, it didn’t.”
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