SEVENTEENTH SUN

Neighborhood: Chelsea

Located on a sidewalk on 17th Street, this manhole is the first painting I did in this series. It is a big, common manhole. I was impressed by its beautiful geometric designs, namely, circles, hexagons, and a necktie shape that you can see. Often, one of the problems that I encounter while scouting manholes is finding ones that are clean. This particular manhole was very dirty and I had to clean parts of it. The concrete wedged between some of the designs made it difficult to pull up many of its images and shapes. You can actually see the sidewalk lines on the left side of the painting. I kept those because I thought it made the painting more interesting.


One of the interesting things I recall about painting this is how people reacted to me as I painted. I was covered with paint and looked like a bum living on the streets. As people in the office building came out, they watched the progress of this painting, commented about it, and really seemed to get into the whole experience. I thought this was great. But when the painting was finished and I asked to use their bathroom, I had to chuckle when they said, “No.” (sold)