All posts tagged: The Painted Desert Project

Chip Thomas: “American Rent Is Due” in the Arizona Painted Desert

Chip Thomas: “American Rent Is Due” in the Arizona Painted Desert

December 5, 2020

Dr. Chip Thomas and his “Painted Desert” project invites you to see the new face of Whiting Motel in Gray Mountain, Arizona. Once a haven for the weary travelers on their way to the Grand Canyon or Las Vegas, the property is an abandoned eyesore along this highway that is heavily used by motorists from across the Navajo Nation.

VyalOne, Breeze 1, Douglas Miles, Jerrel Singer, LivA’ndrea Knoki. American Rent Is Due. The Painted Desert Project. (photo © Jetsonorama)

15 years after the motel building was deserted here to languish without a thought for its appearance or effect on the community or the environment, Chip invited Thomas “Breeze” Marcus to organize a crew of artists with native lineage to transform the exterior into a somehow mystical mirage in the desert.

Using portraits of strong natives, graduating colorways, and calligraffiteed writings, the community reclaims the visual landscape, transforming it with aerosol painting. A reference to the taking of native lands by Europeans and the machinations of the motel itself, the team emblazoned the backside with a message, “American Rent is Due.”

Forty miles north of Flagstaff, Arizona, Chip tells us that the motel was built originally in the 1950s and he shares this postcard from the 1980s that displays the business in its humble heyday. Now with a new façade by this small group of artists who painted just before the weather turned chilly at the end of November, this fresh coat may inspire passersby this winter.

The crew included:
Vyalone – Zuni, Raramuri, Chicano
Breeze – Tohono O’odham / Adimel O’odham / Ponca / Otoe
Douglas Miles – Apache
Jerrel Singer – Diné
LivA’ndrea Knoki – Diné

Douglas Miles. American Rent Is Due. The Painted Desert Project. (photo © Jetsonorama)
Douglas Miles. American Rent Is Due. With LivA’ndrea Knoki standing in fron of her portrait. The Painted Desert Project. (photo © Jetsonorama)
American Rent Is Due. LivA’ndrea Knoki. The Painted Desert Project. (photo © Jetsonorama)
Vaylon. Mural Detail. American Rent Is Due. Detail. The Painted Desert Project. (photo © Jetsonorama)
Breeze1. Mural Detail. American Rent Is Due. Detail. The Painted Desert Project. (photo © Jetsonorama)
VyalOne, Breeze 1, Douglas Miles, Jerrel Singer, LivA’ndrea Knoki. American Rent Is Due. The Painted Desert Project. (photo © Jetsonorama)
American Rent Is Due. Detail. The Painted Desert Project. (photo © Jetsonorama)
LivA’ndrea Knoki. American Rent Is Due. The Painted Desert Project. (photo © Jetsonorama)
Breeze 1 and VyalOne at The Little Colorado River Gorge Overlook. (photo © Jetsonorama)
LivA’ndrea Knoki, VyalOne, Breeze 1, Douglas Miles, Jerrel Singer Chip Thomas t The Little Colorado River Gorge Overlook. (photo © LivA’ndrea Knoki)
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Italian Street Artist in Navajo Nation: Gola Hundun Finds the Mountain

Italian Street Artist in Navajo Nation: Gola Hundun Finds the Mountain

August 9, 2018

Today is #indigenouspeoplesday – but of course we talk about them more often than this. The Native American people of the Southwestern United States are called the Navajo, or the Diné. Italian spiritual-cosmologist-naturist Street Artist Gola Hundun spent three days walking in the desert here recently going to the Navajo National Monument and Monument Valley trying to get in touch with the native folks to better understand the culture and the significance of the land itself.

Gola Hundun. The Painted Desert Project. Arizona. July 2018. (photo © Chip Thomas)

“I tried to combine those two elements with very different weights to generate an united image that would suggest how I feel the heart and the mind of Diné people,” he says as he describes the one story desert mural he ultimately painted with his botanical and natural motifs. Bright and optimistic, the landscape mimics the stunning views that surround and permeate the life here and he says his time here has altered his own vision of reality. The structure itself is classic; a typical abandoned petrol station you’ve probably seen in those road movies.

Gola Hundun. The Painted Desert Project. Arizona. July 2018. (photo © Chip Thomas)

“The piece represents Navajo Mountain that is in the background,” he says, and the spiritual searcher finds a kinship with traditional Navajo stories about the foundational relevance of the land mass.

“This is the head of their main goddess generator for everything of their world. For me it also includes a reinterpretation of the Hózhó in the middle of the mountain at the top – flowing in spiral way. Hózhó is the bedrock of Navajo religion, which, as I understand it, means it is a combination of existing state of balance, harmony, peace and completeness. They call it walk in beauty.”

Gola Hundun. The Painted Desert Project. Arizona. July 2018. (photo © Chip Thomas)

The Painted Desert Project, begun here and regularly refreshed by local Street Artist/activist/doctor  Chip Thomas, continues to invite Street Artists from around the world to paint here. The cross-cultural connections have been a boon to greater understanding – and continue to affect the visual experience of riding through this rich landscape.

“I am so glad and grateful to have had the opportunity to be in the Navajo Nation and to try to share my love and respect to these amazing people,” says Gola.

Gola Hundun. The Painted Desert Project. Arizona. July 2018. (photo © Chip Thomas)

Gola Hundun. The Painted Desert Project. Arizona. July 2018. (photo © Chip Thomas)

Gola Hundun would like to thank his host Chip Thomas @jetsonorama. He would also like to thank @danieljosley and @ballroomdaze for helping him realize this piece and his adventure there. “A special thanks to all the native and non-native people that helped me on this trip and helped me see reality with a different point of view.”

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BSA Film Friday 10.25.13

BSA Film Friday 10.25.13

October 25, 2013

Brooklyn-Street-Art-Nils-Westergard-Screenshot-2013-Painted-Desert

 

Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.

Now screening:
1. Debut: Nils Westergard x Nanook in the Navaho Nation
2. MTO in Berlin
3. Vhils Talks About His Work
4. Sajjad Abbas In Iraq
5. Duality by MATEO

BSA Special Feature: DEBUT
Nils Westergard x Nanook in the Navaho Nation

The debut of a video seen here for the first time, this timelapse of the experience that two Street Artists had while in “The Painted Desert” project sponsored and cultivated in and around the Navaho Nation by Jetsonorama for the last couple of years.

Here we see Nanook and Nils Westergard create works influenced by the people they got to know while there, a cultural exchange that helps expand the knowledge of all the participants.  In the video you see Nils create two portraits; one of King Fowler, “who was a Navajo Codetalker during WWII,” says Nils, and who died not too long ago.  The other is a kid named Calvin, who lives on the reservation and who you can see in the red flannel shirt actually watching Nils put his face on a wall.

In a community where people know everyone else’s family and friends, Nils says it felt like a real honor to paint these people and “it was especially interesting to talk to kids around my age, and see how Navajo culture adapts to the 21st century.” Lots of conversations and even participating in a sweat lodge, Nils felt his mind being reorganized.

He smiles when he mentions the speed that paint dries in the desert, and the ingenuity he used to keep the mural going. “I didn’t have enough buckets, so almost all of my paint was held in broken 40 oz. beer bottles while I worked,” he says. “They got a kick out of that.”

MTO in Berlin

Frenchman MTO appears in this new video that is more music video and sleek hipster ode to the moment than Street Art film. Using art, artifice, nightlife and poetic romantic interludes woven with signifiers of power and light debauchery, it’s a sexy romp.  We don’t know what we just said either.

brooklyn-street-art-mto-berlin-10-13

“Je me suis embarqué vers les tristes rivages de cette “île” du bonheur fictif.”

Vhils Talks About His Work

A quick primer on the work of Vhils from the man himself. “I started to see stencil as not something you paint over, but as a window you see through.”

Sajjad Abbas In Iraq

We don’t often see videos of Street Art in Iraq, but this one gives some insight into how they do it – and there are similarities to everywhere else, as it turns out.

Done under cover of night the subject matter points to the topic of militarization and the stencil itself reveals an international Street Art style that has emerged since the Internet connected us all.

 

Duality by MATEO

And ending on a happy note this week, here’s Mateo flipping and bouncing down a wall in a balanced performance. Also, corn on the cob.

 

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