Bill X called and got me out to the local bar. He wanted to do something with former Red Sox and Expos pitcher Bill "Spaceman" Lee.
We just had the floors refinished in our apartment and I was loopy on polyurethane fumes. “William Burroughs wrote under the pseudonym of Bill Lee,” I said, “and William S. Burroughs made shotgun art, shooting paint cans and splattering them onto wood. So we should go make shotgun art with Bill Lee."
Bill Lee was into the idea. I saved 400 all-but-empty spray cans from a mural I did that summer, then bought thick white sign metal and painted strike zone boxes on them. Todd Mazer came on to film it all. One weekend in October, we drove up to the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, and Spaceman thoughtfully set up and blew away the empty cans from about sixty feet, six inches away.
Philosophy, art, and baseball were discussed.
The paintings are to be sold for charity. There's no commercial purpose to this at all. Sometimes you just get an idea.
From graffiti's humble beginnings in 1967 to the first painting being sold in 1973, Wall Writers reveals the context of the start of a movement that would eventually grow to transform city life, public transit, public art, and ultimately visual art the world over. Narrated by John Waters.