Meeting Nels, the Street Artist

Every day on my way back and forth to GSU I pass by the Krog Street tunnel, which is a local iconic set of walls used by a large number of street artists to display their art.  For the past two years there has been one prominent wall in the front entrance to the tunnel that features cancer-themed art--with big and bold messages of hope for cancer patients.  The source of that hope is positive thinking and laughter--much of what I've believed in over the past now-8 years.

Coincidentally with this posting, I featured one of those murals on my last post, so you can see it right below this post.

The mural changes every few months, and had been painted totally black recently, which gave me a hint that a new one was coming.  I did have the quick bad thought that maybe it had been painted over for good--as can happen with tunnel art.  But yesterday on my way home I saw the artist working on a new mural, so I parked nearby and walked back to meet him.

Once he saw me in his periphery and acknowledged that I was there, I told him that my name was Mike and I drive past the tunnel every day and see his art.  I told him I was a survivor, and am touched by his message of hope and optimism.  He immediately responded to that and told me his inspiration for doing this work.  It started when his sister was diagnosed with terminal Leukemia and he used his art to express his feelings of anger.  His first piece was simply called "F*ck Cancer" (his asterisk, not mine).  I'll find it again and add it later.

After that he decided to use positivity, hope, and laughter as the best weapons against cancer, so all of his work in this series since then has contained those themes.

His sister did not win her fight, but he has kept the themes intact, and uses his art to carry his sister's memory through those message to all who pass by the Krog Street tunnel every day.

I told him about my book in-progress and that I wanted to use some of his art in it, maybe even on the cover.  He said that it was no problem and would like it for his messages to reach more people.

Up to this point, I didn't ask for his name--from the little I know about street artist culture, some of them want to remain anonymous (which explained part of my surprise to see him working in full daylight).  Regardless of my ignorance, he said his name was Nels, and we exchanged phone numbers to stay in touch.  You can see some of his work on his Instagram page:

https://www.instagram.com/grafilthy_art/?hl=en

I took a picture of him at work, but the light was bad--so I figured I'd get another one in the morning.

The finished mural is the first one on his Instagram site.

I left him thinking that this was surely a sign that the book really needs to get written, and soon.  So, I will use the time until retirement to keep thinking about it, and get to work on the writing once R-Day is behind me.

mike

Postscript (next day): I went by the Krog Street tunnel this morning, phone camera ready to photograph his finished work from yesterday.  It was painted totally in black again--have no idea what's up with that, but will check.

Post-postscript (four days later).  Well, the mural is back up and here is what it looks like: