This siding was just opposite Bloomingdale’s, so I had to work very quickly because there were so many people. Fortunately, everyone was too busy to stop and talk or to look at what I was doing. I liked the idea of finding a graffiti site in such a visible place. You could tell that all the graffiti had been done very hastily. I don’t think I would have been able to stand there for two days if I hadn’t been a white woman or if I had been using spray paint. I think that what really upsets people and the authorities are the aesthetic of graffiti and the demographic of its practitioners. Of course, it’s always talked about in terms of illegality, like the woman who wrote to The New York Times and said that I should be arrested for property damage.

When the Photography Committee from the Museum of Modern Art came by to visit the artists in the Studio Program at the P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, several of the ladies from the committee had seen this painting. It disappeared eventually, along with the siding. The painting is based on a painting of Cader Idris by Richard Wilson.