Our City’s Newest Street Art … check it out!

It’s a skin-frustrating 23-degrees outside. Bitter, angry air has been seeping at a steady pace underneath the two-year-old duct tape I employed to seal the tiny crack between my AC window-unit and the wall. The unwelcome numb came into my room this morning like a line of ice ants. The marching was relentless and barely noticeable till the temperature dropped 12 degrees past comfortable, and I woke up because Big Toe had snuck beyond the Down Comforter Fortress. I yanked that exploratory digit back, tucked it underneath my calf for warmth, and slept another hour.

Right now, I’m warm in a café, writing. I’m warm in a thick sweater, flanked by hot coffee. And I’m thinking about an artist named Nicole Salgar. Nicole (who you probably don’t know but ‘imma about to introduce you to) is outside right now. She was outside all day yesterday too, in this urban, blustery, Prozac-inducing weather. She’s hunched over with a paint can, probably tucking strands of hair back up underneath her hoodie, focused. She’s focused on making something ugly into something beautiful. And there are approximately 20 more like her creating this winter’s Centre-Fuge Public Art Project.

The Centre-Fuge Public Art Project came about in 2011, when a group offered to paint a mobile construction office trailer that was parked on 1^st Street at 1^st Avenue in the East Village. That trailer is now transformed every two months by artists like Nicole – who herself has really benefitted from the project.

“Centre-Fuge was the first time I got to really do a project of this size,” Nicole told me yesterday when I visited her half-finished piece in process. “It’s an amazing opportunity to be able to work on a canvas of this size and now I’m going to do a piece down at Art Basel in Miami in early December. I wouldn’t be doing that without having first done this.”

Nicole’s passion to get out there in the freezing morning and make our hood better looking inspired me to get up, move my frozen big toe, and get this blog post together. Creativity is contagious. It’s pervasive. It’s like the cold. It’s a slow march of seemingly unconnected ants that can suddenly become a noticeable force capable of waking you up.

Almost every single week since moving here five years ago, some asshole has assaulted my ear with misguided lament that New York City has lost it’s creative, artistic edge. Nicole Salgar and her cohorts are outside right now in the freezing fall day, chugging coffee, working hard and proving that statement is bullshit.

Five Points may have been painted over last week. But you know what? I think we should use that as fire and fuel … get up, get out and let’s find something new to paint. Bloomberg is a lousy excuse. Winter is a lousy excuse.

There’s a beautiful new piece of art shaped like a trailer on East 1^st and 1^st this morning proving my point. A group of people woke up and brought our city something beautiful today. It’s our turn now. What are we gonna do today to make this town better? At the very least, we should all stroll by and check out the finished Centre-Fuge. Buy those kids a coffee, gaze at our awesome new, free street art  … and say “thank you.” They certainly earned it.