Lady Pink: I do like to clarify, I’m not the first female. There was like dozens and dozens of girls through the 1970s. Eva 62, Barbara 62, Charmin, Stoney. There’s lots of names, but mostly they were out tagging. These girls got up more than most guys. And most guys are not willing to admit that.

And I am always clear about that. I am not the first. I was there just when stuff started to go above ground, and there were no other ladies painting whatsoever out of like 10,000 guys. But I had to stay in power.

Hrag Vartanian: Hi there, and welcome back to the Hyperallergic Podcast. This episode, we’re going to continue looking at the early history of graffiti and street art here in New York, with someone who’s become the queen of the New York graffiti scene: Lady Pink. You’ll probably recognize her from the early photographs by Martha Cooper or the famous film Wild Style from the 1980s by Charlie Ahearn, which featured her as this fierce woman who held her own in a male-dominated scene. This episode, we’re going to talk about her early beginnings as an immigrant from South America that moved actually to an apartment a few blocks away from where I’m sitting here at Hyperallergic Offices in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. And then, we’ll hear about her career through the decades, and how she was able to sustain a practice that continues to this day to inspire particularly women who are interested in murals and street art, in graffiti in general, but certainly has an influence that reaches all across the world. My name is Hrag Vartanian, I’m the editor-in-chief and co-founder of Hyperallergic. Let’s get started.

Hrag Vartanian: Pink, thank you so much for joining us.

Lady Pink: Thank you so much for having me.

Hrag Vartanian: This is such a pleasure. I was really interested in your story, because in many ways your story is unique as many artists’ stories are, but yours I feel like has been sometimes flattened in the media, just as a female graffiti writer as many things. And I really want to get to “Pink, the artist.” I want to get “Pink, the life,” the way you see the world. If it’s okay, I’d love to start a little bit about your background and where we started. You were born in Ecuador and you grew up in the rainforest. I think it was your grandfather who had some type of plantation in the rainforest. Can we start there? Tell us a little bit about your childhood.

Lady Pink: I was born in the Andes Mountains of Ecuador in a small city called Ambato. My mother’s family has a plantation in the rainforest. When my mother finally broke up with my father, I was about four or five years old. She went back to her family in the rainforest, with two little girls in tow, myself and my older sister. She worked in a bank for about a year or something until she could save up money to bring us to the US. We emigrated here in 1972.
I was about seven years old. She immediately put us in Catholic school. We were here on a tourist visa and we actually never left. We arrived at JFK airport. We didn’t have to climb any silly wall or anything. Goodness. And she had some family here...a brother, a couple cousins. We were introduced to American culture and we went to Catholic school right around here, on North 7th Street and Bedford. Right in this area of Brooklyn.

Hrag Vartanian: That’s wild. Literally a few blocks from where we’re sitting right now.

Lady Pink: Exactly. I grew up right around the corner from where we’re sitting right now when I was a kid. It was amazing.

Hrag Vartanian: That’s amazing. Tell me about, first let’s actually continue on Ecuador and then we’ll talk a little bit about Williamsburg. There, I read the story where you said you were playing in the jungles. Do you still remember those years?

Lady Pink: Absolutely. Those were my favorite years, running around in the jungle, barefooted climbing trees. I killed my first snake barefooted when I was five years old, and I chased my little cousins with the skin running around. I was a wild child. I could not be contained, but still we were being sent to Catholic school and all of that. I was taught proper manners, sewing, cooking, all those home economic things that the nuns teach you in Catholic school in Ecuador. I was on my way to be a proper young lady, so they thought.

Hrag Vartanian: Were there any smells from those years or different sounds or experiences that still linger in your imagination?

Lady Pink: Absolutely. The smell of the Amazon rainforest. There is nothing like it. When I have gone back to visit and then that smell comes at me...there’s a certain earthy wet smell that a rainforest has and that just smells like home. And I’ve always had lots of animals and plants. Wherever I’ve lived, I’ve always had loads and loads of plants. I create a jungle environment inside my home at all times. Birds and critters running around, and dozens of plants in every corner.

Hrag Vartanian: I love that, because your work is often very dense. Do you think that has to do with that as well, the density? Because the way you construct images, there’s a density to them. Some other people are more sparse. Do you see a connection there between those experiences?

Lady Pink: I also have a huge fondness for collecting miniatures and little tiny things, and I do work very small. I like to pack my stuff very tightly, the way I do my shadow boxes full of my little miniature things and such.

Hrag Vartanian: Wow, I love that.

So, you moved here at the age of seven. You landed here in Williamsburg, just a few blocks from where we’re sitting now. What were some first impressions? Because seven years old, you’re very impressionable at that age, and I’m sure it was probably very shocking.

Lady Pink: We landed in the airport, it was April 7th and there was snow, which is mostly unheard of in early April. There was flurries. And we’d never seen snow in our lives. That was unique. And then I saw an elevated train. I could not believe that they had trains going up so high like that. That was crazy. And then all these cars whizzing by. It took me months before I could even cross the street by myself.

Hrag Vartanian: Wow.

Lady Pink: I just could not, cars were moving way too fast. I was not used to this kind of city. But what was most shocking at that age was in Catholic school and the racism coming from the White kids. Oh my goodness. Kids have no filters, and they were just cruel. They were absolutely mean. We did not speak a word of English. We were at a disadvantage and everyone in the school was White, and nobody spoke Spanish.

We were floundering. And I think it took about two years of the torture from the other kids and my sister and I started cutting school. And we weren’t even 10 years old. We stopped going to school. The nun came to our house to speak to my mother. My mom was going to work every day as a seamstress. She didn’t know we were cutting school. The nun tells her we’re cutting school. My mom realized—she gave us a good beating, by the way—but then she put us in a public school where there was lots of Puerto Rican kids, Spanish-speaking kids, teachers and all, and it was much better. We made loads and loads of friends, and it took another two years before I got up enough courage. And then I went back to that Catholic school and I waited after school for a couple of those kids and I had a little talking to. I’d learned some street smarts by then.

Hrag Vartanian: And when you said White kids, they were mostly Polish kids, Italian kids, what were they?

Lady Pink: I believe so. They were kids with blonde hair, blue eyes, so the myth...

Hrag Vartanian: Williamsburg?

Lady Pink: Williamsburg. It was the Northside. I was going to school on North 7th, and then I went on North 5th to the public school and then to Junior High School 126 right across from McCarren Park here. That was my middle school.

Hrag Vartanian: Wow. What do you remember about those years? The racism obviously was probably really shocking to you at the time. You were probably not expecting that. What about the neighborhood? Do you still remember?

Lady Pink: I lived on the Northside. And the cutoff was North 1st, South 1st and such. I was not allowed to go to the Southside at all.

Hrag Vartanian: Really?

Lady Pink: That was the heroin capital of the world. A lot of crime, a lot of shady stuff went down. And a lot of really cute guys lived down there.

[Both laugh]

Of course, my sister and I did not listen, and we made a beeline for the Southside for Bushwick, for all these crazy neighborhoods, just to hook up with some good-looking guys and all. That was what I recall from the neighborhood as a kid. I smoked my first joint down there at the age of 13, kissed my first boy and then it was downhill after that

Hrag Vartanian: Or maybe uphill, maybe. But that’s really funny. There was the forbidden fruit of the Southside, and you had to go and have a bite of the apple. Love that.

Lady Pink: Absolutely.

Hrag Vartanian: I love that. Then soon your family moved to Astoria in Queens.

Lady Pink: My mom bought a little house there in Astoria, right across the street from a high school, and we had a nice private residence. We said goodbye to Brooklyn. And this is where I had my first boyfriend, from the age of 13 to 15. And when he was sent to go live in Puerto Rico, that’s when I started writing graffiti. I started tagging up his name. It all started here in Brooklyn.

Hrag Vartanian: Wait, so it sounds like your earliest graffiti had an aspect of forlorn love?

Lady Pink: First love. It is so strong. It is powerful. It’s the first time you connect with another human so tightly. And then he was ripped from me, and sent to go live in Puerto Rico at the age of 15. You can’t come back, you don’t have plane fair, you can’t. I mourned his loss and cried for about a month. And then I started tagging up his name around the middle school.

Hrag Vartanian: And what was his name?

Lady Pink: Koke, K-O-K-E. It was a boy’s name. His best friend Kai took me under his wing, and taught me style. Because graffiti is not just random letters, it’s a very specific style. And each region had their own style, or let’s say, borough. I started off with a Brooklyn style at first, and then I moved on to…you would think Queens style because I moved to Queens. But Queens wasn’t that cool at that time. And my friends were from the Boogie Down Bronx. My next style was actually Bronx style. I fooled people thinking I came from the Bronx. But anyway, style is so specific. You got to practice, practice, practice before you can put it out on a wall or anything like that, otherwise other kids will laugh at you as a toy.

Hrag Vartanian: What is a Brooklyn style? What are some of the characteristics you define to that?

Lady Pink: It’s the nuances. Sometimes they’re very large and bubbly letters and very small little legs to them, like a great big bubbly R with a tiny little leg at the bottom or something.

Hrag Vartanian: Pinched almost at the bottom.

Lady Pink: Almost, perhaps. The nuances are very, very precise and you have to be taught master to apprentice. That was my very first master was another kid from middle school. And then I went on to high school, that’s when the trouble began.

Hrag Vartanian: Really? I love that. What is a Bronx style then?

Lady Pink: Bronx style is perhaps more bold. The first letter is much smaller than the last letter. It gradually gets larger and bolder.

Hrag Vartanian: Almost screaming.

Lady Pink: Almost like you’re screaming I suppose. And it has a definite slant and some lines there that can only be executed very quickly and boldly. I don’t know, I’d have to show you.

Hrag Vartanian: I love that. That sounds really pretty amazing. And I’m still stuck on this thing that your first graffiti was about this love that moved away, because something really beautiful because the origin of art is often people say it’s like this longing for something. In Ancient Greek myth or even in Buddhist painting, where they’re drawing Buddha, there’s this idea of recording something that has been taken away or goes away. Do you think that feeling, that initial impetus to do work like that lingers for you? Is that still there?

Lady Pink: I believe so. Although that boy didn’t die, he was just fine in Puerto Rico and he did come back later. But the longing, yes, the remembering, yes. I lost my very first friend in 1982. Caine One, he was king of the seven trains. He was murdered at the age of 23. I still tag up his name today since 1982. What is that, 42 years or something? Oh my goodness. I’ve been tagging up his name forever and ever, remembering, remembering. And this is how we never ever forget. And then over the years I’ve collected more names of other friends that have passed on and I tagged them up as well and I never forget them.

Hrag Vartanian: I love that. It’s also a role of memory for you.

Lady Pink: Yes it is.

Hrag Vartanian: That you feel a sense of memory in general. I love that. You moved to Queens. And what was so different about Queens? What was so different about Astoria or anything?

Lady Pink: Now in Astoria we lived in a private house. We had a front garden and the lawn and flowers, a back garden. We can come and go as we please. We weren’t living in a tenement on the third floor in Brooklyn with other families roaming around and such. Having a private residence has always stuck with me. We lived like that in Ecuador. Everyone lives like that in Ecuador, and living in an apartment was not for me. Now I had more space. I started growing vegetables out back. I was always growing tomatoes since I was a kid or something. But definitely gardening was always there. The people are nicer. Now, you see your neighbors, everyone is hanging out outside and it was a whole different atmosphere, very genteel neighborhood, definitely, Queens. It didn’t become cool and such until the rappers made it cool a few years later.

Hrag Vartanian: But for you, were you drawing at that point? Were you drawing at home? What was art for you at that age?

Lady Pink: I’ve been an artist since I was a toddler, I understand. And by the age 10, I’d already mastered paint by numbers. When in middle school my art teacher encouraged me and convinced me to build a portfolio to go to the High School of Art and Design. You need a portfolio in middle school in order to go to the wonderful art high schools that New York has to offer, a vocational school. It doesn’t exist in many other cities. You would think in really big cities, they don’t have this for kids to give you a leg up. Please, if you’ve got a talented middle schooler, build a portfolio and get them out into an art school, please. And that’s what my middle school teacher, my art teacher did. He convinced me. He was a little wisp of a gay man, and he just believed in me, he saw the talent. And sure enough, I got into art high school. I was already drawing. I was already an artist. I was illustrating and painting beautiful, clean, perfect lines at that age.

Hrag Vartanian: Love that. And you specialized in architecture, is that right?

Lady Pink: By the second year in high school, you have to pick a major. I chose architecture because my real father in Ecuador was an architectural engineer, and later on a senator. I have two half-brothers in Ecuador who are architectural engineers now.

Hrag Vartanian: That’s something you felt a real connection to at an early age?

Lady Pink: Yes. I have a knack for engineering, for mathematics, for all of that stuff. It does still come in handy in painting murals and illustrating elevations and such, and understanding architecture and all of that. And you can see the love of architecture and my fine art. The funny, weird things I do with buildings. I love buildings. And I have a series of brick people. I do brick ladies and such. Perhaps again, the basis is in my fondness for architecture. But at the age of 16, I was not into doing drafting and calculations and perfect illustrations of architecture. When I was running wild and crazy, I wanted to do big giant paintings on trains. And I cut most of high school, I got to say.

Hrag Vartanian: You were ambitious beyond high school it sounds like.

Lady Pink: I didn’t go to class. We all went to school. We spent four hours in the lunchroom, planning, scheming, drawing, all about graffiti, and then one hour of ladies’ room, and then I called that a day.

Hrag Vartanian: Was it boring to you? Is that why you cut school? What was the reason you were cutting school?

Lady Pink: I was involved in other things. I was involved in, again, planning graffiti, scheming on graffiti, drawing for that. We’d meet at the school, and then take off all day long with somebody who has a car and go out to go lift spray paint. That’s a five-finger discount. But by the time we were doing that in the early eighties, all the graffiti writers through the 1970s—because graffiti started in New York in the late sixties—all those cats had already burned all the shops. You’d walk in thinking you’re going to steal spray paint, but the owners are hawking you. They’re watching you, so you can’t. They’re hot. We had to leave New York City, and literally go anywhere: New Jersey, upstate, Long Island, down south.

Hrag Vartanian: That’s where you get it.

Lady Pink: We get in the car and spend all day long driving somewhere going from shop to shop and until we filled up the car completely, and then we divvy it up. But I made a really, really good shoplifter that way, and my friends made really, really good decoys.

Hrag Vartanian: Got it.

Lady Pink: They looked shifty.

Hrag Vartanian: And you’re the innocent one.

Lady Pink: They look a couple of shades darker than I, and I was just the innocent girl not knowing what end of the spray paint to use. They’d leave me alone and I would just do a killing. There’s a wonderful famous photo of me by Martha Cooper standing next to all my spray paint on a shelf there because I had so much of it. My stepdad built me those shelves, even though they knew that I wasn’t paying for it. And mind you, I was already selling paintings at the age of 16. I was already established in the galleries at 17 and 18. I had a bank account, but it’s unseemly to pay for that spray paint, no matter how much money you have.

Hrag Vartanian: It gave you more credibility not to pay for it. Is that the way it works or what was the thinking behind that?

Lady Pink: Perhaps it is. It’s the credibility and also the amount of money it costs to put up a big painting on the side of a subway car or a wall. It’s hundreds of dollars. What teenager’s got that kind of money to waste? You do have to not pay for all that pain and to support your habit. And it is unseemly. Perhaps it’s part of our culture, that you have to lift it because that’s something else that is taught master to apprentice. And some people just don’t have it in them. The very first time I ever did that by myself, I went into a mom and pop little hardware store, I put some cans in the bag and I walked out. A couple of blocks later, I had a change of heart. I turned right back around, went back to the shop and I gave them back their paint and I apologized. That was my very first time. I couldn’t do it. I didn’t have the nerve.

Hrag Vartanian: What was their face like?

Lady Pink: They were just looking at me with such evil and hatred. But they could not believe that I turned around and came back and gave it back to them. But that was my first time. You have to harden your soul to being a criminal that way that you can just smile at folks while you’re robbing them. That’s not an easy thing to do.

Hrag Vartanian: Wow. That’s a skill set to learn, I guess.

[Both laugh]

Lady Pink: Can’t recommend.

Hrag Vartanian: I love that there’s this architecture part. Do you have a favorite building in New York?

Lady Pink: The Guggenheim, for its roundness. That is one. I have a soft spot for the Empire State Building. I’ve painted that baby so many times. I know it by heart, memorize. The Brooklyn Bridge, if you want to call that a building, that’s another one.

Hrag Vartanian: Absolutely. That’s iconic.

Lady Pink: I paint that by memory. I know that bridge so well.

Hrag Vartanian: Absolutely. It’s interesting you mentioned Guggenheim, because I’ve read that you seem to be really interested in curves and as opposed to straight lines. Where does that come from for you? Because I’ve noticed that in your work there’s this energy of this...I don’t know what to call it. How would you characterize that interest in the curve?

Lady Pink: Perhaps in the ancient caves and such that we lived in. Just last year I got to visit some of the cave cities in Turkey where they carved out right out of the limestone room after room after room.

Hrag Vartanian: Cappadocia?

Lady Pink: Cappadocia, yes. I went all through their climbing room after room after room, smoking a joint here, smoking a joint over there. Just to see the airflow.

Hrag Vartanian: You got to be technical!

Lady Pink: It was round and beautiful. And there was a baby bassinet and a little kitty window, and all kinds of amazing. And perhaps the curves come from that, from unconventional living spaces that humans have had to inhabit since the dawn of man.

Hrag Vartanian: And organic, it sounds like.

Lady Pink: Yeah, very much so.

Hrag Vartanian: Even the way you said about the smoke...but even also you talked about the jungle, and there’s something organic about it sounds like for you.

Lady Pink: Yes, absolutely. I love those earthship Adobe homes that are even being made today. And some of them are round and curvaceous and they don’t follow the traditional straight line building codes. Some of the very earliest buildings that we had were all round and curvaceous and such. I have a big fondness for that.

Hrag Vartanian: Love that. At an early age you exhibited at The New Museum, correct? How old were you when you showed at The New Museum?

Lady Pink: At the New Museum, I believe I was 16 years old.

Hrag Vartanian: Wow.

Lady Pink: I was that young when I exhibited there and I sold my very first painting for like $500, which was a purple orchid, about six feet tall. All done in spray paint. I had some secret purples and lavenders and I wanted to show them off.

Hrag Vartanian: You’re in purple right now too.

Lady Pink: I’m in purple now.

Hrag Vartanian: It’s your favorite color, I’m guessing?

Lady Pink: It is. My bedroom is purple as well.

Hrag Vartanian: Got it. What does purple represent for you?

Lady Pink: Royal purple. It is just rich. It is delicious. And when I do gardening, I always buy flowers that have that really, really deep, deep purple. I don’t know, I just love it. I can’t really verbalize about stuff like that. You can just swim in that.

Hrag Vartanian: I love that. How did that first show at The New Museum come about. And the first sale, how did that work? Tell us a little bit about that, because that’s pretty unusual for a sixteen-year-old to be showing at an institution like that was not common in New York at the time, from what I understand.

Lady Pink: We had our very first graffiti group show at the end of 1980 in Fashion MODA in the South Bronx, at an alternative art space.

Hrag Vartanian: Of course, epic. Epic. It’s part of the history of New York.

Lady Pink: In a big storefront. There was more than a dozen guys exhibiting the best of the best of graffiti, the cream of the crop. And no females. So Crash, who was curating it, came down to my high school and invited me to be in their show. And I was agreeing to it. “Sure, I’ll do it. I’ll be in it,” with knowing that I did not have the skill set to catch up to these guys. I was still a toy. I could barely do straight lines with spray paint. I’m there telling them, “Sure, yeah, I’ll do it.” So I joined up the gang, and I exhibited there. And Lee helped outline my piece for me so that it looked neat. I was way too nervous to outline. But I did do it. I colored the whole thing myself. But the outline is crucial. You have to have nerves of steel, and there’s no mistakes and no going back. No fixing.

Hrag Vartanian: Confidence.

Lady Pink: Yeah, I didn’t have it. So Lee outlined my first piece and never again. So that first show was incredible. We got the kind of audience we did not expect. We got a write-up in the paper and all. Before you knew it, we were being invited to exhibit at the New Museum as well as PS1.

Hrag Vartanian: Wow.

Lady Pink: So one happened right after the other. I think by the time PS1 came along, I had just turned 17. And there I got to meet Basquiat and Keith Haring and all kinds of other amazing people. Jenny Holzer, Martin Wong, John Fekner, these are the original street artists, by the way.

Hrag Vartanian: Yeah, absolutely.

Lady Pink: We called ourselves graffiti artists, and other folks try to label them graffiti artists.

Hrag Vartanian: But, they were street artists.

Lady Pink: They were. That’s what street artists are. They worked in different mediums and such, but they’re all kindred spirits. We’re all going out there doing vandalism.

Hrag Vartanian: Let’s talk a little bit about how you define the difference between a graffiti writer and a street artist. How would you define it?

Lady Pink: A graffiti writer specializes in style, works in spray paint, and hopefully tries to get something on wheels. That is our main focus.

Hrag Vartanian: You mean trains when you say wheels.

Lady Pink: Trains, trolleys.

Hrag Vartanian: Or trucks.

Lady Pink: Buses, trucks, vans, whatever’s running on wheels.

Hrag Vartanian: Anything on wheels. That’s what it is.

Lady Pink: Yes. So it becomes a mobile gallery in a way, and gets your name out there and seen by hundreds or millions if possible. Walls will do. But you do have to travel to said neighborhood and to view such a wall and it doesn’t get nearly as much play. Of course, we have social media now and all. But so a graffiti writer works in style and you got to practice, practice, style it. It turned into wild style in the mid-’70s, and then the letters have become abstract shapes that are, again, still very regional to different areas. And if you know how to read them, you can tell the nuances, “Oh, this guy’s from France. This one’s from Australia. This one’s from old school New York City, 1980s,” or such. You can date stuff by the decades and the region. Anyway, so we work with letters, and we prefer to do vandalism. A lot of guys still go out at night and like to paint things that don’t belong to them, because there’s loads and loads of fun. There’s thrills, there’s excitement and all of that.

But we’re also a big dysfunctional family. We’re very clannish. There’s a lot of support around the world. It’s like a guild and you work your way up in hierarchies so you can travel to other different places of the world. And because you have a name and a reputation, you get treated as such. You have doors that open for you, and opportunities happen because you’re famous and you’ve worked your way up with sheer work. Just doing badass work and people know it.

Now, the street artists work in different mediums, and they don’t necessarily have that clannish or family kind of tribal support. Sometimes they’re out there by themselves at night doing their vandalism and such, or maybe with just a buddy. So there’s not that kind of support. And they do work in a lot of different mediums. Some you don’t have to practice a whole lot. You know how to work with wood or glass or rubber bands or metal or knitting or stencils or stickers. Stencils are really easy to work with spray paint. You can carve yourself a little stencil with what you need to go out there and you’re vandalizing tonight and you’ll wake up in jail by morning.

Hrag Vartanian: So the style seems to be one of the defining features. So when it comes to the graffiti writer, you’ve mentioned the word, “toy.” For people who may not know, that would be an amateur.

Lady Pink: Yes.

Hrag Vartanian: And then are there different levels? Do you characterize them in a different way? Because I know “all cities” seems to be one of them. There’s all these different levels.

Lady Pink: I suppose so. And I’m not sure if there are names specifically for that. You just kind of know what level you are at. And when you reach master status, people seem to know it.

Hrag Vartanian: So what were you called when you were kind of at that master status?

Lady Pink: I was being called a queen when I was just starting. And that was because of lack of competition. And you know, and I do like to clarify, I am not the first female. They call me the “first,” as in like, you know, like the president’s wife, “the first” or something like that. The first lady. But that’s incorrect. There were dozens and dozens of girls through the 1970s. Loads from.

Hrag Vartanian: Did you all know each other?

Lady Pink: No, absolutely not. So, Eva 62. Barbara 62. Charming, Stoney. There’s lots of names. But mostly they were out tagging, right? Eva 62 and Barbara 62, I’ve never met. But these girls got up more than most guys. And you know, most guys are not willing to admit that. So I had to wring it out of them. And a couple of Dominican girls, they had guts. They went out together and did a lot of work. They got up all over. So, you know, I admire that. But then they’ve disappeared and vanished into the void. Some of them have started to resurface now.

And I’m always clear about that. I am not the first. I was there just when stuff started to go above ground. And there were no other ladies painting, whatsoever, out of like, 10,000 guys. An occasional girl came and went briefly, you know, and painted for a little while. My best friend, Lady Heart, you know, for a couple of years only. She did some trains with me.
But I had to stay in power. And I had the ability to go above ground with some of the best of the best, because luckily I had some talent. As well as a big mouth.

Hrag Vartanian: I love it. And confidence, you seemed like you had a lot of confidence.

Lady Pink: It was all a front.

Hrag Vartanian: Oh, was it?

Lady Pink: I was just a quiet, shy, little pussycat. But I had to develop a different persona in order to be a graffiti writer. So you had to exude confidence. And that bravado is like, “I’m going to toast you.”

Hrag Vartanian: But you can’t be that shy if you’re going out vandalizing every night or trains and painting trains.

Lady Pink: I was so shy as a kid then. Although I knew all the answers in school, I wouldn’t even raise my hand.

Hrag Vartanian: Really?

Lady Pink: I would not speak up. Nope.

Hrag Vartanian: So what was it about painting on the street then that gave you that confidence, maybe?

Lady Pink: You’re anonymous in the street. No one’s watching you. No one’s seeing how you’re suffering, or while you’re doing your thing, they just see the end result.

Hrag Vartanian: But that must be a bit of an adrenaline rush when people saw it, because people knew you. Your friends and people around you were probably like, “Pink! That’s you. That’s awesome.” Right, is that?

Lady Pink: Yes, yes. My close friends, they knew that I was doing my thing, but other folks...

Hrag Vartanian: They didn’t know.

Lady Pink: Other folks, no. They imagined that I was just having sex with the guys in the yard and doing horrible things to get my name on the train because that’s what guys say.

Hrag Vartanian: Oh, they didn’t even think you did it?

Lady Pink: No.

Hrag Vartanian: Oh, wow.

Lady Pink: So I had to go painting with different groups all over New York City, from Spanish guys in Brooklyn, the White guys in Queens, the Black dudes up in the Bronx. Everyone can see me carrying my own bag of paint. Paint my own goddam piece because I wasn’t sucking anybody’s anything for getting my name up on the trail.

Hrag Vartanian: That’s pretty sexist.

Lady Pink: Well, duh. This is what guys say.

Hrag Vartanian: Wow.

Lady Pink: When they come onto you, you turn them down, they’re going to turn around and tell their friends they had you in all kinds of ways.

Hrag Vartanian: Right because they want to dismiss you.

Lady Pink: They don’t want to say they failed.

Hrag Vartanian: Right, of course not.

Lady Pink: Of course not. Guys will be guys. And I tell this to all sorts of other young women around the world. “You go, girl, you do what you have to do. But remember, your reputation might suffer. There’s people who don’t know you. They’re going to be saying horrible things about you because you’re going out at night with a bunch of guys.” What do you think people are going to say?

Hrag Vartanian: That’s so relatable, I think for a lot of people.

Lady Pink: “Keep your head up and do what you have to do.”

Hrag Vartanian: That’s amazing.

Lady Pink: So, it’s rough.

Hrag Vartanian: So were galleries always of interest to you? And can you tell me about your first experience at a museum? Do you remember your first museum?

Lady Pink: Like at the New Museum?

Hrag Vartanian: Not even necessarily exhibiting, maybe as a school trip, or if you went with your mom or something. Were there any museums that stuck out to you, like going to the Met or anything like that?

Lady Pink: So I believe that as a kid, we did go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and we went to the Museum of Natural History. And of course that sticks with you as a kid, the dinosaurs and all the ancient things like that. So yeah, luckily we lived in New York and I did get to go see some of the wonderful museums. I didn’t make it to the Museum of Modern Art until much later in life and which is good because I probably wouldn’t have understood all the modern art until. In school we were learning proper art, normal, traditional art. And then I meet Jean-Michel Basquiat, who asks me to walk through one of his paintings through the wet paint, leaving behind my little footprints.

Hrag Vartanian: Which paint was that? Which painting?

Lady Pink: I’m not sure what, but it was exhibited at PS1.

Hrag Vartanian: What was your reaction? Because that’s an unusual request.

Lady Pink: So I’m pretty sure I was there doing my piece, and some of the other guys were there. Lee, Futura, all these guys, they’re painting. And then I get a request, “Jean-Michel would like you to take off your shoes and walk through some wet paint on this here painting.” So they had a little towel at the end so I could wipe my feet. The paint was wet and I left behind these little footprints, walking in a straight line, and then I wiped my feet at the end. And I was telling my friends, of course, my teenage friends, not the older guys that I needed to look cool. My younger friends, I was like, “What? That is crazy. This is insane. They call that art. This is what they’re calling art now.”

Hrag Vartanian: I love that.

Lady Pink: That kind of reaction.

Hrag Vartanian: Why do you think that happened? Did he explain to you why he wanted you to do that?

Lady Pink: I really don’t have memory. I was 17 and such. But I was like, “All right, this is a new crew I’m rolling. If this is art, I want more of it. I think I like it. And they’re calling our stuff art? All right, let’s ride this wagon as long as it goes.”

Hrag Vartanian: Was Basquiat a nice guy? Did you enjoy being around him?

Lady Pink: Yes. He was a real nice guy. A little kooky, a little strange. And not at all like all my other thuggy street friends or anything like that. This was a different class of African-American dude.

Hrag Vartanian: And you also said Keith Haring and John Fekner and all these other artists. Tell me a little bit about that experience. Did you feel like this was a different art community? Was it welcoming to you?

Lady Pink: We started exhibiting in the early ’80s in the East Village. So we called ourselves the East Village Artists. Perhaps down in the Lower East Side, the Semaphore Gallery. I had a solo show, I believe in ’85 or so. I was 20, 21 years old, and I was hooking up with a new crowd. These guys took us under their wings, guys like Martin Wong. He was purchasing loads and loads of our work, paintings, jackets, books. And they’re all in the museum of the city of New York now.

Hrag Vartanian: Yeah. Fantastic collection. Up now. People should go take a look. They periodically get to show this incredible early graffiti collection.

Lady Pink: Yes, they bring it out for an occasional show once in a while. But the important thing is that they will be preserving it for centuries, for other people to enjoy. And that is the most that we can ever hope for.

Hrag Vartanian: Absolutely.

Lady Pink: We had no idea that was going to happen. We were being told that the art market is fickle, and, “Although you guys are hotcakes right now, and you’re selling left and right, that could fade away.”

Hrag Vartanian: So you were told even then, you knew that that was the thing?

Lady Pink: Yes. That the market could change and you guys will be nobodies in a few years and you’re going to have to find a real job.

Hrag Vartanian: Really?

Lady Pink: So we were warned, we were told not to just have an illusion that this will be that. It’s the art market. You can’t predict what the art market is going to do. So right now, they were rubbing shoulders with a bunch of vandals and buying our paintings and canvases. So it took just a small group of us to become very professional about it and take it very seriously and realize that this can be a career path.

We did lose friends by the wayside, who could not get rid of the little ghetto chip on their shoulder or something like that, or even learn to trust White people or whatever issues that they had. And as talented as they were, they did not make it.

Hrag Vartanian: Got it. Yeah. That I guess is true of many art communities where sometimes it’s like that psychology. Sometimes it’s your own worst enemy. And you can’t make that transition to another phase.

So tell us about the East Village scene. Did it feel like this was your scene? This felt like it was elevating you? How did you feel there?

Lady Pink: I think that the scene uptown, further uptown, 57th Street and all of that was a little too hoity-toity for us. While the Lower East Side still had a bit of grunge and unpredictability, and there was street art right outside the door of some of these places. And it was happening live. And it was a perfect fit. All the older artists were very welcoming. And I got to say, a reason for our success is because they believed in us. They saw talent in us. They saw we were all self-taught. We were not trained in what we were doing whatsoever, but that we exhibited a passion. You can’t disguise that. You can’t fake that. And that from photographers to other artists believed in us and helped us out and encouraged us and taught us business a little bit so that we can learn how to deal with galleries and such. But do understand not all graffiti writers call themselves artists. They’re vandals. They’re rebels. And to be called an artist?

Hrag Vartanian: Yeah, absolutely. Some don’t want to be called artists at all.

Lady Pink: It’s an insult. It took my husband decades to want to call himself an artist.

Hrag Vartanian: And he is an artist, right?

Lady Pink: Yes.

Hrag Vartanian: He is an artist. So I love hearing that. But for you, being an artist was first before being even a graffiti writer, correct?

Lady Pink: Yes.

Hrag Vartanian: What was it about art that interested you? What was it about it that sparked your imagination or made you want to finish that piece, or do that thing or learn that skill?

Lady Pink: Obsessive compulsive disorder, perhaps. I don’t know. Again, I’ve always been fascinated by art as a kid. Although I had a lot of dolls, and all I did was fashion. What I did was sew and make clothes and then just display them. I didn’t really play with them. But I was always making something, always creating perhaps. That’s something like a superpower that most artists have, a sense of...we need to create. We need to create. We need to fix. “I got to make cupcakes. I got to paint something.”

It is just an urge to create and then a sense of satisfaction at the end. So since I have been exhibiting, and I’ve been a trained professional artist since the age of 16, I do know how to finish projects. And I have to encourage people. It isn’t good enough if you can visualize something finished in your head. You got to physically finish it. You can’t just tuck it in the back of the room and never finish a project. So get to the end. I train a lot of young people as well. This is discipline, and finishing up a project and being professional since very early on. So I’ve had good training.

Hrag Vartanian: Yeah, one thing I’ve noticed in some of your interviews, and even today, you’re a professional. You showed up on time. And I know in another interview you mentioned that. “I just showed up when I said I was going to show up.” And a lot of people didn’t have that seriousness about that. What do you think instilled that in you?

Lady Pink: Lee, my first boyfriend. He was the king of graffiti and took me under his wing. And he had already finished painting subway trains through the ’70s. And by 1980, ’81, he was done. I was just starting out, going out painting with my friends, and he didn’t care for that at all.

Hrag Vartanian: Right.

Lady Pink: One, he was insanely jealous. And two, he understood the dangers in a train yard, in a train tunnel. And I’m just going with a bunch of teenage kids who are my size and are not going to protect me because they’re too small. No guy wants their girlfriend going into danger.
That’s just a given. They feel that protectiveness. So he forbade me to go and to go paint trains. I still wanted to. So we would break on and off, on and off. When we were off, I would paint trains with my friends. And then he’d see my work running. He’d know exactly who I was hanging out with because he’d see the names and I’d be in trouble. So he was training me to be an artist. He wanted me to be a professional artist in the galleries. He taught me how to stretch a canvas onto a frame and how to steal spray paint properly so I had all the right colors.

Hrag Vartanian: I love that there’s a proper way of doing it.

Lady Pink: Oh yeah.

Hrag Vartanian: So do you want to tell us what the proper way was?

Lady Pink: I don’t think I want to encourage or teach other kids.

Hrag Vartanian: No, no, no. I’m sure it’s very different now, too...

Lady Pink: I don’t want to tell them about sewing inside pockets into their winter coats or anything. No.

Hrag Vartanian: Gotcha.

So, that professionalism was instilled with you at the beginning. And when you started selling work, what did your mom think? What did your family think about what you were doing? They were like, “Hey, Pink, why aren’t you doing something else?” What was their attitude?

Lady Pink: My parents absolutely loved the fact that I was exhibiting and painting legally. And that’s why my stepfather built me all these wonderful shelves for the spray paint. And he used to drive my big paintings around, tied to the roof of the car, big paintings with ropes, and tie them there. He would drive the stuff to a gallery for me. And they supported that fully. But not so much the nighttime activities when I’d sneak out the window.

Hrag Vartanian: They knew they were going on though?

Lady Pink: Yes. And then I’d go to the worst neighborhoods in the city, and my mom couldn’t sleep. She’d wait up for me all night long, and I’d try to sneak back into the darkness, and then I’d get a big smack on the face. She didn’t know how to handle me, honestly. I was a kid out of control. I would listen to anyone. So she hoped that I would listen to my first boyfriend, Lee, but not so much either. He had issues with me. [Laughs]

Hrag Vartanian: What do you think drove you to do that? It’s antisocial, right, going and vandalizing things? Was there an anger? Was there a frustration with the world? How would you say emotionally that was coming out for you?

Lady Pink: See, my generation was fully immersed in an all out war with “the man.” With the transit authority. They were the evil people who were erasing our work from the subway cars, and we needed to paint more. And they were arresting us and such.

And so that was “the man,” and we had to battle someone. So it was all for fun. It was all for kicks. All for glory and for fame. Some kids tag up out of anger and all sorts of issues like that. I had two sisters and they were nice, quiet girls. One stepsister, very nice. They did what they were told. I had to be a rebel. I had to sneak out the window and go out and have fun with my crazy friends and do unconventional things. And I was chucking all things convention, like religion and traditional stuff. I was not having any of that. I was making my own world.

Hrag Vartanian: So when you were painting canvases, where were you doing that? Did you have a studio? Were you doing that at home? Were you doing it on the street? How were you doing that?

Lady Pink: A wonderful friend gifted me a drafting table. In my bedroom. That’s all I needed. It’s like an easel. It tilts up.

Hrag Vartanian: So you’re doing it in your bedroom?

Lady Pink: In my bedroom. I was doing acrylics on canvases. I was doing a lot of my paintings. Just quietly, endless hours. Again, obsessive compulsive disorder, that you can tag up, tag up, tag up, tag up. And then you can also focus on very detailed paintings for endless hours. And you forget that you’re hungry. You forget you need to go to the bathroom. You forget what day it is, because you’re so immersed into your work. And I would do that definitely instead of homework.

I have a photo of me doing this purple orchid with spray paint in the basement of my parents’ house. They taped off the paneling and I spray painted right inside. But other pieces, I was spray painting in the backyard. So I would take the canvases outdoors and I would spray paint them right there in my mother’s house.

Hrag Vartanian: Did you get a sense that this was as big as it was or would become? Was there any inkling at all?

Lady Pink: Absolutely not. You never actually know that history is being made when you’re making it, at all. You’re just living it, muddling through. So still in my early 20s, or late teens or something like that, I was trying out different jobs, because we were being told that you’ll eventually have to get a job and such. So I tried being a shop girl, right down the street where we lived, in the clothing store. I tried this and that. I worked in an office, because everyone in New York City goes to work in an office. My sister was going to work in an office. That’s what they do. So I tried that, but I refused to do typing. That’s beneath me. Always has been. And I could only do receptionist work, answering phones and smiling all pretty and filing. And I lasted three whole months in one place, and I wanted to shoot myself. I’m like, this can’t be life.

Hrag Vartanian: This can’t be for you.

Lady Pink: This can’t be how people live. I have to try harder to be an artist because that is my calling. Hanging out with fun friends, doing fun stuff, all of these amazing things. Or being stuck in a room and doing 9-to-5, and your life has no meaning and you want to kill yourself. That’s not life.

Hrag Vartanian: So then you would go on and you’d show at the New Museum. You’re showing in the East Village. You’re meeting people like Jenny Holzer, who’s somebody you’ve collaborated with for quite a while. Tell me a little bit about that experience, because one of the things that’s maybe unusual about you is not just your art, but you became almost iconic for the image, your image. Whether it’s photos by Martha Cooper, that famous photo on the subway train with your can sitting there in this almost polite way.

Lady Pink: It’s my innocent “I didn’t do it” look.

Hrag Vartanian: That’s right. With surrounded by graffiti everywhere, all around the train. And then there’s that other iconic photo of you wearing a shirt that says, “Abuse of power, comes as no surprise,” in 1983 in Times Square, I believe. The photo of you wearing the Jenny Holzer shirt. Again and again, you show up in these images that get reproduced everywhere.

Lady Pink: I was a photogenic kid, and all the photographers just loved me. So I did lots of photo shoots. I had to always stress to people, stop photographing me and photograph my artwork. Because they’d start coming in closer and closer and closer. And nevermind the artwork, it’s you. And I show up up on time, being there properly. And I was a good spokesperson, too. I spoke well as a kid, so I was pushed in the forefront to do interviews. And I was more approachable and friendlier looking than my thuggy friends and riffraff and such. So I do come from a good family. So I had manners. I adapted well above ground and you could take me places.

I don’t know how I became iconic for any of that stuff. I was just friends with these guys. I snuck Martha Cooper into the 3 yard, and she got some photos, on-site, of us spray-painting trains and such, and that was amazing. And then the cover of Beyond The Streets book that shows me with the Jenny Holzer shirt that says, “Abuse of power comes as no surprise.” That was photographed by Lisa Kahane. And we were there on the little island in the middle of Times Square, and just as the concert for Diana Ross released in Central Park. And all the kids came racing out. There was hundreds and hundreds of kids, wolf packs, racing through Times Square robbing people. Four people got stabbed. Lots of folks got mugged.

Hrag Vartanian: Your chain got snatched, I think.

Lady Pink: My chain was snatched by a bunch of kids. They surrounded us, and I thought that Lisa Kahane was going to be robbed, all her camera equipment. So we jumped into a taxi real quick and we escaped. But it was absolutely amazing to see how wolf packs work like that, just rushing through, everyone getting robbed all at the same time. The police can’t stop everyone or grab everyone.

Hrag Vartanian: This is the image. I mean, that’s pretty iconic, but even then with all that stuff going on, you look amazing.

Lady Pink: Yes. Thank you, thank you. Had to learn how to show nerves of steel, even though I’m terrified inside or panicking. Nope, can’t let the boys see me sweat.

Hrag Vartanian: Wow, I love this. It’s like that seems to be something that’s coming up again and again, this knowing that you have to put on this...not a facade...I don’t know. How would you characterize it?

Lady Pink: Pretty much like that, like a facade. Yeah. I had to do all of that, because initially they didn’t want to take me to go paint subway trains. They’re like, “You’re a female. You’re a girl. You’re dressed like a girl, dresses, high heels, all made up.”

Hrag Vartanian: You had to play the role a little bit?

Lady Pink: Hey, I’m a Latina girl. Of course I know how to accessorize and put on makeup, since I was 12. I had to prove to the boys that I was a tomboy inside and I could dress the part, and I can do it. It took months to convince them that I could do that. I had to pick up a nice persona of a tough girl and not a diva, not a princess, but a bit of a tomboy. No nonsense, kind of nerves of steel. Can’t see me lose my cool.

Hrag Vartanian: Tell us about Jenny Holzer in those early years, because she started on the street in many ways too with her posters that she’d put up, influenced by some of the other imagery she was seeing on the street. What was it about that? Did you feel a connection with what she was doing? What was that relationship like?

Lady Pink: I don’t believe I was familiar with her work too much, until she phoned me up and asked me to come down to her studio to meet up with her. I didn’t realize the difference in other street artists, but I was beginning to understand. She’s going out at night. She’s postering. Okay, that’s a thing, all right, but she’s a big lady. With a hat and a hoodie and a big coat, she looks like a big man going out postering. Me, well, I’m very tiny, and did not feel so confident going out all by myself in the city. In the ’70s, early ’80s, it was still pretty shifty out there, and a young woman past midnight, all by herself. I did carry a knife pretty early on and stuff, and just flash it a little bit and clean my nails and scare guys off a little bit.

Hrag Vartanian: You knew how to take care of yourself?

Lady Pink: It was risky, yes, yes.

Hrag Vartanian: Got it. That makes sense. Now going forward, the East Village scene, that collapsed for a while in the late ’80s, during the recession. From my other interviews with people who do street art, graffiti, and part of the East Village scene in general, there was almost deflation. People felt like they weren’t selling as much anymore. How did you weather those years?

Lady Pink: I think in the late ’80s I took up with a couple of my high school friends, Ernie and Gil, who were starting a mural company business, painting nightclubs, restaurants, all sorts of interiors, and charging a pretty penny for that, but working with an airbrush a lot. That’s like tiny spray paint. Doing photorealistic portraits of movie stars and celebrities, in nice, modern, contemporary colors that have a bit of street art flavor, if you will, that made places look hip and cool, like nightclubs and restaurants and also shops.

Hrag Vartanian: That’s how you weathered that.

Lady Pink: I started working with them for a little bit, until they got invited to go out to LA and became part of SAG, and they were working doing a lot of TV shows and movies. They abandoned me in New York by myself, trying to handle these businesses. The menfolk were not that respectful. Now I was in the contracting business, going into construction sites, trying to negotiate thousands of dollars’ worth of jobs.

Hrag Vartanian: We know how infamously pro-women construction sites and workers are.

Lady Pink: The owners of a lot of these places, they were like ex-gangsters or just off the banana boat from some country in Europe or something like that, and did not know how to treat a woman respectfully. They were eager to send me to go fetch their coffee, and a lot less eager to talk about loads and loads of money. I was looking for a male partner to work with me because of that, as a front.

I was a big fan of this Pierce Brosnan, Remington Steele show in the ’80s, and Stephanie Zimbalist. She was starting a detective agency and needed a front, a man as a front, because she wasn’t being hired as a woman or taken seriously. She made a fictional character and then Pierce Brosnan stepped into the role. I was thinking like that. “I need a front, I need a guy, because this is the only way. This is a man’s world, and this is the best way that they’re going to fit that.” I got lucky. I ended up meeting my husband around 1993, and he handles the business for me. Him and his blue eyes get loads of money, loads of money, that the little Latina me would not get nearly as much, so that we know our roles.

Hrag Vartanian: Your husband’s an artist as well?

Lady Pink: My husband is a notorious graffiti writer from way back when. He’s from the generation after me. He started in ’85, just around when I stopped painting trains in ’85. Then he went on to traumatize a couple of mayors in New York.

Hrag Vartanian: Yes, I know, the infamous Brooklyn Bridge incidents and all those. Those must have had a lasting impact on you as well.

Lady Pink: Well, yes. Yes, because his antics and his late brother’s antics in destroying New York City and such really pissed them off. They pressed their first civil lawsuit against them, because they happened to be White, and their mother as well because they were minors. During that time, it was when his brother took his own life. The Vandal Squad, that’s the graffiti police. They’ve been around since the mid-’70s, a bunch of dirty fucking cops. They have raided our house twice in the span of 10 years, for no reason at all. They just come and mess with us and such.

That is the lasting impact on our lives—the Vandal Squad, the police. They hated the fact that we are prospering as artists and such. They feel that our origins as vandals shouldn’t allow us to prosper or inspire others. They hated that I painted big walls outside. Long ago they were like, “Stop inspiring others,” so they mess with us. They get a couple of flimsy warrants, they come in. Nothing that holds water, but they take all our stuff.

Hrag Vartanian: It’s intimidation.

Lady Pink: It is. It’s harassment, it’s oppression, and they drove us out of the city.

Hrag Vartanian: Yeah, and he goes by the name Smith, and then his brother was Sane?

Lady Pink: Allegedly, yes.

Hrag Vartanian: Allegedly, yes. I think the one thing that I think a lot of people in the art community don’t realize is how much intimidation and bullying happens by cops to graffiti writers and street artists. I think it’s like when I’ve shared stories, people just go, “Really?” I’m like, “No, really. We’re talking about surveillance.” I saw surveillance in the graffiti and street art community being used by the NYPD and the Vandal Squad in ways that I don’t think any other community would’ve accepted. Not that they accepted it, but they were forced to deal with it. In many ways, it’s always amazing to me how much of the intimidation goes on. Now, did you feel like that is one of the reasons you stopped working on the street? Was it that you’re like, “I don’t need this headache?” I mean, what are some of those things?

Lady Pink: Well, no. I stopped painting on the subways in ’85. They changed the laws. It wasn’t a misdemeanor anymore, and I was living with someone that didn’t like me going out with a bunch of guys in the middle of the night also. I had a new partner that was not feeling that at all. I did have to focus more on being a grownup and earning a living and taking the galleries seriously, like most folks do. You gotta leave that childish stuff behind. There’s a lot that you can lose by going out and continuously doing that and a lot more to gain, because you now gotta get a job and earn a living, pay some rent, pay some bills, all of that boring stuff. That had to be put aside. Again, I was living with someone, and she didn’t care for all those straight guys I was hanging out with and going out at night and such, and so that had to end.

Hrag Vartanian: Got it. What are some of the most important shows you did or pieces you did in that ’80s and ’90s era, before we move on to the 21st century? What would you characterize as your most, for you, maybe significant pieces?

Lady Pink: The most significant piece was actually not even an art piece. It was the first motion picture, independent film movie, Wild Style.

Hrag Vartanian: Wild Style.

Lady Pink: I got to play the lead in that. I got to play almost myself.

Hrag Vartanian: You’re awesome in that, by the way.

Lady Pink: I was a teenager at the time, only 16 and 17 when that was filmed. I play opposite my real-life boyfriend Lee in that movie. The director, Charlie Ahern, wove our love story into the film. He met the break dancers, put them in the film, met the rappers. He wrote a whole film around that, and had to get some kind of a story. Of course, all of that. I became a hip-hop icon, although hip-hop isn’t the kind of music that I listen to and I’m used to, but nevertheless, I’ll take it.

Hrag Vartanian: Well, that’s another thing that’s interesting, is people still conflate graffiti and hip-hop in their minds. My experiences interviewing people, that was really more of a marketing construct or MTV created that image a little, and then these movies and other things. Why do you think that persists? The diversity of the music and the stuff that you guys were listening to in that era, why has that not been retained?

Lady Pink: The marketing and the corporations did a pretty damn good job. Well, in order for something to be a subculture, you need music, dance, fashion, language, art. You need all of that combined, so we were thrown in there as backdrop. In reality, you only saw hip-hop stuff, if you were a graffiti writer, if you lived in certain neighborhoods. It wasn’t everywhere. Some places, cats were doing graffiti and they’re listening to Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin. It really mattered on what neighborhood you lived in. Although I was living in Queens, right across the street from me was Woodside Projects. I did hear a lot of boomboxes, so that was infiltrating into my life, but not everyone got to see it.

Then once the first movies came out, the movie Wild Style followed by Harry Belafonte’s Beat Street immediately followed, Hollywood already softened it and diluted the storylines a little bit to fit the masses. Then corporations, of course, jumped on it, because everything that is cool that is underground eventually goes above ground. It is gobbled up by the corporations, diluted and sold to the masses.

Hrag Vartanian: That’s right.

Lady Pink: We can’t stop that monster.

Hrag Vartanian: Right. Okay, Wild Style, that’s something you’re proud of, and it really helped propel your image in the public imagination. How about some other projects during that time that you think are really important for you, or maybe even changed the way you saw your work in the world?

Lady Pink: I had my first solo show at 21 at the Moore College of Art in Philadelphia.

Hrag Vartanian: Oh, wow.

Lady Pink: Then the president of the school suggested, “Hey, why don’t you come to our college?” I’m like, “Hey, why don’t you pay my way?” I was kidding. I was kidding, and then they gave me a scholarship, so I was like, “Okay.” I tried for half a semester, but then again, that was not my thing. It did show me that I am a true-blue artist. Again, I had to focus on my career, my fine art. I got the opportunity to paint for the Whitney Biennial, instead of doing homework for school. I had to put that aside. Never mind class. Never mind school. I’m in my dorm room doing an amazing painting for the Whitney.

Hrag Vartanian: Right. Which year was that?

Lady Pink: 1985, I believe.

Hrag Vartanian: ’85, and who’s the curator that year? I don’t remember.

Lady Pink: Jeffrey Deitch immediately bought my painting. He still has it today.

Hrag Vartanian: Got it.

Lady Pink: Recently, Supreme used that, and did a line of products and such using that painting. It’s amazing, work that I did at such a young age, and still being circulated and still paying off for me now, today.

Hrag Vartanian: Amazing. What was it like being in the Whitney Biennial then? Did you understand the influence of the Biennial in art culture?

Lady Pink: As with anything in that age, we didn’t understand the impact or the opportunities that we were getting, but we were hooked up with some older guys. Again, Martin Wong and Jenny Holzer and John Fekner, we’re chilling with these guys, and they’re telling us how important it all is. They’re making us aware. We were just young, stupid kids. They’re telling us that, “This is it. This is important. This is what you gotta work for.”

Hrag Vartanian: Right. Martin Wong, let’s talk about him, because one of the reasons we reached out was because of the big show that’s going on at the Museum of the City of New York, and of course you’re an important part of that and part of that collection. Tell us a little bit about Martin Wong, something that maybe we wouldn’t know about him in terms of maybe his influence on the scene, his friendship, how that worked, and what did you all think, this artist who’s collecting work by you and all your friends and people you know? What were your impressions?

Lady Pink: I’m not sure what our impressions were, but we just adored Martin. We would go to his house down on I think it was Rivington Street, down near Chinatown and such. He would never even lock his doors. He was a bit of a hoarder, with all the artwork and paint and all of that. I couldn’t imagine such a chaotic existence. He would create such amazing, brilliant work. He could focus and concentrate with all of this stuff going on. He was such an inspiration, and I could always still hear his voice in my head telling me I gotta paint more, I gotta paint more, and then that laugh of his.

He had a very unique kind of laugh. But to be taken seriously by grownups like that, to be encouraged and such...he would always whisper to me that I’m so much better than all those other guys, I really am. I needed to hear that. I needed to have that kind of validation from a real fine artist whose work is clearly amazing and he’s exhibiting in great places, and he believes in me? There’s something in me? I do the same to other young kids like that.

Hrag Vartanian: What did you think of Martin Wong’s art?

Lady Pink: I’ve always loved his work. It was gritty. It was part of the atmosphere living downtown in New York. He used the local scenery, the local people, all of that. He captured it amazingly well. I feel that I may have seen some of his brick people. He did a brick Statue of Liberty, I believe. I didn’t remember that until years later. I’d already done some of my own brick people. I’m like, “Martin did that too? I must have seen that early on and it had an impact on me.”

Hrag Vartanian: Well, I mean, it feels like it was probably part of the ether, part of the air at the time, because I think brick was everywhere too, wasn’t it, in New York?

Lady Pink: Well, when you live in New York City, especially Downtown, it’s just wall-to-wall brick and cement.

Hrag Vartanian: Yeah, exactly. That makes sense. Do you remember seeing his collection? Was it important for you to see that somebody was collecting it and sharing it that way? Did that give you a sense of what you were doing was historically important?

Lady Pink: We were being told so by grownups, and he wasn’t the only collector. There were others. We would visit our collections in their fine homes and high-rise fancy apartments in the city that we never imagined to get into. Then there’s our collections, and they’re loving it and telling us what amazing work we are, and then other work is in the same place that we clearly see as brilliant work, and they think ours is brilliant too? Oh, my goodness. This impacts like that, seeing our work in a real-life home of wealthy people, and they’re appreciating and just gushing over us and such. It does something to you.
Hrag Vartanian:

In the ’90s, though, it sounds like there was a bit of a chill in museums and stuff, dealing with artists connected to street art or graffiti. Is that true?
Lady Pink:

I believe it was moving over to Europe, around ’92 or so. In the Netherlands, the Groninger Museum flew out a couple of dozen of us for a huge exhibit, and they own a lot of the work in their permanent collections, but there was other exhibits in London and in other places. My work was definitely traveling a lot more than I was, for sure. It moved over to Europe at the same time. In the early ’90s and such, our fine art is in some fine institutions in Europe. All the European graffiti writers were coming over to New York, trying to vandalize our subways.

Hrag Vartanian: That probably was a very interesting experience. Was there a sense of competition there? Did that emerge?

Lady Pink: Well, we had already stopped painting subways in New York altogether. By 1989, all the trains were clean. The guys that were the European graffiti writers coming over, they needed guides. They needed people to take them underground and show them where and how, and New York is such a big place. The subway system is intimidating. You can’t just jump onto the train tracks and think you’re going to paint something. They first needed guides, and that was interesting. They were respectful. Within a few years, especially the Germans, they were like, “Already, we know where to go. We don’t need these New Yorkers anymore.”

They would come in and they would absolutely roast the trains, dozens of whole cars appearing, and then they would just jet back to their home country and leave the police in an absolute tizzy. It even made the front of the newspapers here, the European trash coming over and painting the subway trains. The cops learned not to pull them out in the daytime. “Don’t give these guys their photos, because they only want photos. Pull them out at night, in the dark, and erase them and buff them immediately. Don’t let them have any play.” New Yorkers wouldn’t even see the stuff running, literally.

Hrag Vartanian: That killed the desire to do those, I guess, right?

Lady Pink: Well, the European kids are still doing that. They come over, because with the photos, they go back and they get major props. They are kings and they elevate in hierarchy by having nailed a New York subway train. New York is the Mecca for all graffiti writers.

Hrag Vartanian: The holy grail for graffiti writers, still?

Lady Pink: It is, still.

Hrag Vartanian: Still. Then what do you think changed for you in terms of your work? When did you start feeling like you were getting more and more opportunities, or did you ever feel like you were not getting opportunities?

Lady Pink: In the late ’80s, there was a little bit of a slowdown, and so it all started to perk back up again through the ’90s. We started doing a lot more legal walls, permission walls. My husband convinced me that this is a thing we can do. Just with my amazing portfolio of existing work, I can just get walls, and we hustled and hustled walls and doing that and doing a lot of commissions, interiors and such. The galleries started to pick back up, and there’s always been interest. I’ve got a nice, steady collection of my own work and a resume with lots and lots of exhibits. It all just picked right back up again.

Hrag Vartanian: Love that. Love that. The internet seemed to make a big difference in terms of the public’s imagination about graffiti and street art. You probably got recycled more. Images of you, images of your work. Did that have a big impact on the type of work you were doing, or in terms of opportunities or anything?

Lady Pink: The internet, huh? I don’t have a good relationship with computers, honestly. My sister and my husband had to force me to get a website and such, and I felt ...

Hrag Vartanian: You never felt compelled to do that?

Lady Pink: No. God, no.

Hrag Vartanian: Oh! I love hearing that.

Lady Pink: I’m like that still. But it is part of business, and you do have to have that. I’ve got young people, assistants who manage that and take care of that.

Hrag Vartanian: Got it.

Lady Pink: What I was seeing is a lot of fakers, people who just do one little piece and then they circulate a thousand times. It looks like you’re king, you did a thousand pieces. No, it’s just one. They just circulate it. They learn how to market themselves. They can do vandalism for five minutes, and then you learn how to sell and hustle your stuff and pretend you’re a real street artist. There was a lot of fakers, and a lot of fake, phony stuff.

But now it has made graffiti accessible all over the world. At first it was the graffiti magazines, and if you got lucky, you got your hands on one and you got to see photos of graffiti in New York and such. Then eventually, once the internet came out, you could literally sit now and bench freight trains going by, and see actual graffiti being done in real time and all. It’s amazing what it can do.

It’s inspiring everyone by showing everyone around the world. Immediately I think I got a MySpace, years ago, and I had a huge following of young ladies all over the world who needed me to give them a few words of validation, or who were thrilled to show me these giant murals that they’re painting. And they’re inspiring me, actually. They’re inspiring me. It’s great for that, sharing around the world, inspiring each other. I do have an Instagram, I have a huge following, but importantly, I follow my friends around the world. I see what they’re doing. I see. I’m like, “That bitch painted a ten-story building? Oh, no she didn’t. I gotta do bigger. I gotta do bigger.” It’s like that.

Hrag Vartanian: You still have that competitive little seed, right?

Lady Pink: Shit, yeah. But also it’s important to set an example. “This is how it’s done, baby. This is how it’s done. We’re not playing.”

Hrag Vartanian: How did your style change into the 21st century? How did you feel like your style changed? Did it change at all for you?

Lady Pink: [Shakes head]

Hrag Vartanian: No? How about the artists you were looking at? Who were some of the earliest artists you were looking at or really respected? Then who are some of the ones later that you started looking at? Is there anybody that would stand out? You’ve said in interviews how some people told you your earliest work looked a little like Georgia O’Keeffe, but wasn’t a conscious thing for you. Were there any artists that you were consciously talking to or dialoguing with?

Lady Pink: Yes. The very first books I stole were Frank Frazetta.

Hrag Vartanian: Oh, okay.

Lady Pink: Yeah, early 1970s artist. He did warrior women with lions and tigers and strong female figures, scantily clad but sexy still, and warriors too. He did some of the billboard posters for Star Wars and a few others, I believe. A brilliant artist, and I loved his work so much. Some of my first murals were actual copies of Frank Frazetta, a woman with a couple of lions, tigers or something. The first books, definitely I stole Frank Frazetta’s books. And I now have a lot more that I have paid for, of course. But the first ones that I’ve, uh...

Hrag Vartanian: [Laughs] You’ve gone soft, Pink.

Lady Pink: I have. I no longer like the embarrassment of being caught stealing or anything, it’s hugely embarrassing so I can afford to pay. Other artists I’ve grown to admire are Georgia O’Keeffe. I admire not only her art, but her life. She was a feminist and a strong woman back in the twenties and thirties, blazing her own path and bucking tradition and doing art deco work and such. And I got to exhibit with Georgia O’Keeffe in ’85. My work hung in the same gallery. Sidney Janis on 57 Street.

Hrag Vartanian: An iconic gallery, Sidney Janis.

Lady Pink: Yes. And that was the most I got to exhibit with Georgia O’Keeffe. I admire Frida Kahlo, Lempika and other art deco women. But current ones that inspire me today are MadC from Germany and Shiro from Japan, Mickey from the Netherlands and such. It’s just so many out there.

Hrag Vartanian: A lot of women. I love that you’ve always kept that lineage.

Lady Pink: We have a sisterhood. We have a sisterhood going. I mean there’s one occasional bad apple here and there who get a little jealous about the rest of us who have talent, but you can’t help that. But otherwise, wherever we go, there’s always just a handful of women in said city who are doing street art and we support each other. We love each other and give each other as much help and a leg up as possible because we still need it.

Hrag Vartanian: So what’s your favorite medium now?

Lady Pink: My favorite medium now is still spray paint.

Hrag Vartanian: It is, still?

Lady Pink: It is.

Hrag Vartanian: On canvas? Wood?

Lady Pink: On whatever. I am starting to learn a little bit of stenciling so I can do smaller work.

Hrag Vartanian: Got it.

Lady Pink: We can do really tiny, tiny little stencils with lots of detail and such. But spray paint, because it’s loose, it’s big, and you need your whole body to express yourself. And scale doesn’t scare me. And I love to paint large. I love to paint big.

Hrag Vartanian: Love that. And so now, what’s been inspiring to you now? I mean, I know that the images of women and feminist sort of like badasses have always been something that you’ve sort of engaged with. I mean, the women made of brick. The imagery is always there. The symbolism is always there. How would you characterize that? Were there other? When you think of that, do you think of them as Amazons? In your head, how do you narrate that?

Lady Pink: I don’t.

Hrag Vartanian: Oh, okay.

Lady Pink: I work very visual. I don’t really like to explain my work or define it in words or what it means or why. Why am I painting brick women and such, is...I don’t know. I just do what I do.

Hrag Vartanian: So it’s intuitive for you?

Lady Pink: I believe so. It isn’t pre-calculated, that there’s a reason why I’m doing brick women. No. It just comes to me once in a while, and such.

Hrag Vartanian: So when do you know when something’s right? Is it a feeling? Is it, when you know, you know? You’re like, “That’s what I want to do?” Is it like, there’s a tingle? How does that work for you?

Lady Pink: I believe we’re probably channeling dead artists. So just let yourself go in a nice alpha state. Then stuff happens. You don’t overthink it, don’t question it. Don’t know why you’re picking up red and your hand is doing what it is that it’s doing. Okay.

Hrag Vartanian: So how do you get into that state?

Lady Pink: A lot of weed.

Hrag Vartanian: Okay, nice. Do you have a preference of a strain or anything?

Lady Pink: Sativa for sure. Working during the day. Weed all the time. It helps you get into the nice alpha state.

Hrag Vartanian: Chills you out.

Lady Pink: And then music. Got to have music.

Hrag Vartanian: And so what are you listening to nowadays?

Lady Pink: Oh, it’s a wide variety of my playlists. It ranges, everything from a little bit of Latin music, disco music from my youth. I’m heavily into heavy metal. My favorite group, Metallica. Or System of a Down.

Hrag Vartanian: Great. Oh, wow. Nice.

Lady Pink: And such. I listen to a lot of that. But also the Spanish guitar, the Gypsy Kings. I’ve been listening to angry Viking music lately.

Hrag Vartanian: Wow, okay.

Lady Pink: It’s a variety. Arabic music and Cuban salsa. I’m all over the place.

Hrag Vartanian: I love the range you have in all our conversations. It’s like this range throughout the conversation we’re having. And so where does that eclectic sense come from for you?

Lady Pink: Perhaps travel.

Hrag Vartanian: Travel.

Lady Pink: I’ve traveled all over the world. I’ve seen dozens and dozens of countries and I’ve been exposed to so much and I got to encourage young people to travel. And my young assistants, I make them travel, taking them to... Matt’s been with me seven years now, and he’s gone to at least 16, 17 countries and such. And you got to open your horizons and your eyes and see that the world does not revolve around America. And then a taste of culture. So my fondness too is heavily into archeology, anthropology, archeo-anthropology, all of that stuff, since I was a kid.

Hrag Vartanian: What’s your favorite site?

Lady Pink: Lately? I was just at Göbekli Tepe.

Hrag Vartanian: Oh, wow. Yeah, in Turkey.

Lady Pink: And Karahan Tepe, in Cappadocia, I went to a 12-day tour with a YouTuber. History with Kylie.

Hrag Vartanian: Oh, wow.

Lady Pink: She organized this and I got to go see all these wonderful archeological sites that I’ve only seen videos of and such. I’ve been to Machu Picchu and Chichen Itza, and a dear friend of mine right now is in Angkor Wat, and I want to go there.

Hrag Vartanian: So what is it about those sites that speak to you? Because it’s like some people say it’s an energy, some people say it’s sort of just the sense of history. What is it?

Lady Pink: I’m a history buff. It’s all of that. Putting humanity in the small space and time that we’ve taken place here on earth. We’re just here briefly, but our history is rich. So I love the origins of man, the origins of Homo sapiens and such and all of that stuff. I love to study all of that. It’s just thrilling to me. We are one people, our one big planet. Everyone is so diverse. But we started off originally as just one people down in Africa. So all of that is important. It’s important to know our history, to know our geography, to understand other human beings. And where does art fit in all of this? So we are culture. We are part of culture. We must help enrich human culture. We’ve been doing this for 3 million years, scribbling on walls and leaving behind a permanent mark and enriching others and teaching others.

Our culture is important. Music, dance, visual arts. Now that Afghanistan is run by the Taliban, they’ve outlawed culture. None of that. You’re not having any fun. Absolutely not. So it is important. It is part of what makes us human. And our duty as artists, those of us who were born with talent, is to help enrich human culture. It’s just our duty.

Hrag Vartanian: Amazing. So are there any books or movies that you continue going back to in your own imagination? I mean, music we’ve talked about. That seems to be a constant. Are there other things that you think are real touchstones for you culturally?

Lady Pink: Wow. So I love Studio Ghibli.

Hrag Vartanian: Oh, yeah.

Lady Pink: I love not just their storylines and movies that they have made, but their art. So I just put on YouTube, I put on their music—

Hrag Vartanian: Their music too.

Lady Pink: The music Studio Ghibli, and then the visuals roll by and I study that as an illustrationist. I love what they do with sunlight and how they draw everything and such.

Hrag Vartanian: Love that.

Lady Pink: I sit there in front of the TV and just absolutely immerse myself in Studio Ghibli illustration, music and all of that stuff. Favorite movie? Howl’s Moving Castle.

Hrag Vartanian: Really? Oh, I love that. Love, love, love. And how about, do books play a role in your work or writing or anything like that? Or maybe some other? Is architecture something? Outside of archeology, is that something you’re still interested in?

Lady Pink: But I’m still interested in archeology and just picking up a smidgen of it. Or just kind of knowing archeology over the years. I can walk through a city and kind of date buildings of what decade or century they were built in and such. That’s a knack I still have. But what was the question again?

Hrag Vartanian: Just any buildings that really interests you nowadays or a certain style or kind of like the archeological sites, right? Where it’s, you’re like, I want to go to Angkor Wat. Are there any buildings you’re dying to see that you haven’t been able to experience yet?
Lady Pink: Oh my goodness, there are so many. A lot of the Mayan ruins, Palenque down in Mexico, that is going to be one of my next travels for sure. I would love to go see Easter Island and all of these, but these aren’t that old. These aren’t as old as all of that. But I have seen some of the oldest now, Göbekli Tepe and Karahan Tepe. And we got a private tour by the archeologist of a new site there. It isn’t even open to the public yet. We got lucky.

Hrag Vartanian: Amazing.

Lady Pink: They opened that up just for us and that was just the most thrilling experience I’ve ever had.

Hrag Vartanian: Oh, that’s amazing. I love that. I love that you’re still challenging yourself and sort of experiencing these things. What do you think people may not know about you that you think would help them understand your art?

Lady Pink: Well, I’m depicted as a very strong woman, a badass Amazon lady. But you don’t realize how much I am into little animals and pets. I have an aviary. I raised hundreds of little baby birds, feeding them with eyedroppers, tiny little things and weaning them later and such. And having a garden, always flowers, flowers and gardening and growing things. I cook a lot. A lot of homey stuff that I was taught and I can sew. Not a lot of women do that.

Hrag Vartanian: I love that. No, not anymore.

Lady Pink: I can sew. I haven’t done anything for exhibit with sewing, but I do sew just for fun and make little...I know how to embroidery and do all of that stuff.

Hrag Vartanian: Yeah, I love that.

Lady Pink: And I can do that. All that feminine stuff. It comes out around holidays. Around the holidays I make Christmas ornaments and funny things.

Hrag Vartanian: Did you learn that from your family? Some of those things?

Lady Pink: That was taught in school since I was very, very young.

Hrag Vartanian: Oh, okay, right. Gotha.

Lady Pink: First grade...

Hrag Vartanian: Home Ec.

Lady Pink: ...second grade you are taught how to embroider and cook and everything.

Hrag Vartanian: We learned sewing in school too. I remember that a little bit. I mean, I’m actually pretty bad at it, but.

Lady Pink: Well, if you could sew a button on then it’s a useful life experience.

Hrag Vartanian: It is. It is a useful life experience.

So now in terms of other things about your art, what are some of the goals that are left for you, for yourself? You’ve had major shows. Are there certain institutions you’d still like to show in? Are there certain types of work you’d like to still do that you don’t feel like you have the support to do yet?

Lady Pink: Well, yes, of course. There’s always bigger museums, better museums. A few years ago, Jenny Holzer also had a solo show at the Whitney. I want one. She had a solo show at MoCA Museum of Modern Art, Contemporary Art in Massachusetts.

Hrag Vartanian: MASS MoCA, yeah.

Lady Pink: I’d like a big show too. Yeah, I did collaborate with her there. We painted rooms and rooms of collaboration of her posters and my graffiti and illustration. That’s cool. So yes, I would like some bigger, better shows, stuff like that.

Hrag Vartanian: Love that.

Lady Pink: Let’s see, other goals that I have...I play Minecraft with my husband and we’ve got goals in our games.

Hrag Vartanian: Oh, I love that.

Lady Pink: But I don’t think they’re valid in real life.

Hrag Vartanian: Well, they’re all different kinds of goals, so I totally get that. Now, is there a role that art criticism plays in your life? Because I’m an art writer, I’m always curious what role we can play in the lives of artists. Now, do you find art writing?

[Both laugh]

I like that you laughed.

Lady Pink: You can destroy an artist with just a sentence.

Hrag Vartanian: We can also build them up.

Lady Pink: You know you have that power, so.

Hrag Vartanian: I don’t know how much power we really have.

Lady Pink: You do.

Hrag Vartanian: Okay.

Lady Pink: I was in my twenties, I was told my work looked like Disney.

Hrag Vartanian: Is that a bad thing? Maybe in that era?

Lady Pink: It’s always been a bad thing.

Hrag Vartanian: I don’t know.

Lady Pink: You don’t want to look like Disney if you’re trying to be a serious fine artist, my goodness. But it has got to have been true.

Hrag Vartanian: Got it.

Lady Pink: Because I did have a Disney encyclopedia since I was growing up. So it was a whole 20 books of everything in the world as told by Disney characters to children. I read it cover to cover, loved it.

Hrag Vartanian: So that was accurate then. What’s wrong with that?

Lady Pink: I learned to illustrate a lot like the characters of Disney. Those are some of my first illustrations for sure. But my fine art didn’t really have anything to do with that. It was perhaps uplifting, Pollyanna-esque or something, but not Disney. Anyway.

Hrag Vartanian: Okay, I see.

Lady Pink: So some horrible art critic called my work that in my twenties and it has never gone away.

Hrag Vartanian: Got it.

Lady Pink: So, in my entire life...

Hrag Vartanian: Oh, so you still have that, you feel?

Lady Pink: Of course. I’m trying very hard not to do Disney up to today.

Hrag Vartanian: But I’ll tell you as an art critic, I would be like, I don’t know if that’s necessarily a bad thing. I think it’s sort of like, it just means maybe your flexibility in the different artistic languages. Right?

Lady Pink: No, don’t let that scare you though. If you got to say harsh words, do that. Because as artists, we need to grow a thick skin. You need to pick yourself off the floor and stop crying and do more art. The same thing with actors. They audition constantly. They don’t get the part, they don’t get the part. Disappointment after disappointment. You will only get maybe a quarter of the gigs you go for. So learn to live with disappointment. It isn’t personal. It is, there’s always somebody that’s a little bit better than you. Always, always.

So just learn to live with it and keep on going. Don’t let that stop you. Don’t let the harsh words of a critic stop you, but do grow from it. And I will never try to do anything Disney. Although I love Disney.

Hrag Vartanian: I do too.

Lady Pink: I love all their movies.

Hrag Vartanian: Absolutely.

Lady Pink: I catch every single one.

Hrag Vartanian: Yeah, exactly.

Well this is such a pleasure, Pink. I mean, it’s been so nice talking to you and learning from you. Now, is there anything you’d like to bring up or something that maybe... What excites you right now in your work? What ignites your imagination right now?

Lady Pink: So I’ve been working now for 44 years. It is difficult to keep it fresh, to keep inspired. That’s why I employ young people. They keep me relevant, they keep me going. Having a huge following on Instagram is important because I do hear from fans, and they might say silly stuff, how much they love me and things, but that does help. It keeps me going. It’s hard to keep it fresh and stuff inspired. So I watch a lot of YouTube and AI videos lately and some of that stuff is infiltrating how much better the work I can be. I haven’t used AI in my own work, but it is inspiring me in that way.

Hrag Vartanian: Well, you seem open to it.

Lady Pink: Yes. I can step up a level. I can make things a lot better than I have been. So there’s, it’s challenging. I don’t want to be replaced by AI. Somebody already sent me...they said that we combined your work with this other artist’s work and AI and this is what came out. I didn’t see anything in there that looked like mine. It was a lot of pink color, but that was it.

Hrag Vartanian: Superficial, it sounds like.

Lady Pink: Yes, yes.

Hrag Vartanian: And how about the role of politics in your work?

Lady Pink: So I was definitely not voting for this administration. And I had a mural of Kamala Harris done just before the vote, but I was out of town at the moment. I couldn’t do a campaign that I wanted to and put up a lot of portraits. But anyway, it didn’t go our way. And now I have shut the news from my life. I refuse to watch any of it. I’m living in a bubble. I don’t want to hear how our entire country is being dismantled and destroyed. They voted for chaos and a wrecking ball? This is what they get. I don’t want to hear it. So I would rather just move the fuck out of this country and go someplace nice like Switzerland or someplace. I don’t know, my country’s not an option. That’s also gone to pieces. Ecuador.

Hrag Vartanian: Oh, yeah. And so you moved out of the city. How is living in the country? How has that influenced you and how has that changed your kind of vibe around what you do?

Lady Pink: So I think I was probably always a country girl, but I was forced to live in New York City most of my life. And when we had that last police raid, when they came with a SWAT team to my door and took my husband away and everything, spray paint, computers, books, photos.

Hrag Vartanian: And was that here in the city?

Lady Pink: When I lived here in Astoria, it was the second raid. Again, flimsy warrant. The SWAT team came with helmets and shields and guns drawn in my hallway. It was horrifying. And they took everything in my house away and had an open investigation for over a year and such.

Hrag Vartanian: Did you get it back?

Lady Pink: We got the stuff back after more than a year, but within six months I moved out. I was like, “The hell with this.”

Hrag Vartanian: Understandable.

Lady Pink: I bought a house upstate, New York, in the country, literally in the woods. Nice, big contemporary house with a little pool out back and all. So it’s just amazing. We’re 15 minutes from the nearest town and everything, supermarkets and everything. Not a problem. So we’ve got peace and quiet, tranquility, nothing but just birds and deer and an occasional bear. That’s a little unnerving. But otherwise it’s just super. Everyone is wonderful up there. People are nicer, they’re polite, the kids are nicer. So I’ve hired local young people to work for me and we joined up with a local group of artists called Gardner Open Studio Tour. And these are older artists. They’re in their seventies, they’re in their eighties and doing traditional art, photography, ceramics, all kinds of different stuff. And we opened our doors to do an open studio tour and we’ve made friends with these people.

Hrag Vartanian: Amazing.

Lady Pink: So there’s lots of artists and it’s a wonderful vibe, and I’m thrilled to have been up there during COVID. So I wasn’t shuttered. I’ve got more than an acre of land. My husband built my own art studio there on the property.

Hrag Vartanian: Amazing.

Lady Pink: So we can roam around and we’ve got freedom.

Hrag Vartanian: And how do you both influence each other in the work you do?

Lady Pink: We both know our places. My husband is a style master. He works with letters and fonts and whenever jobs come in for that, we do corporate graffiti, a bit of style, but you can read it and all. He handles most of that. He also manages my staff and the administration and the accounting. He preps jobs and sometimes goes out and paints big buildings for us. He did a lovely seven-story hotel in Miami for me, and the next job coming up hopefully is a five-story building in Singapore.

Hrag Vartanian: Woo! Okay.

Lady Pink: That’s on him.

Hrag Vartanian: You’re still thinking big. I love that. Still thinking big and get bigger. I hope. Until we die. Right? Until we die.

Anyway, thank you so much, Pink. This was an absolute pleasure. It was so wonderful hearing your story because I think it’s been inspirational to a lot of people. And I think the fact that you continue to make your work has been so important. And really, I mean now talking to you, I get a sense of really where some of that comes from in this sort of drive you have. And also respecting your work is a professional thing. It doesn’t just come to you. It’s sort of something you’ve really worked at through the years and gone through the different things. So I just want to say thank you so much.

Lady Pink: Well, thank you so much for having me. This has been delightful.

Hrag Vartanian: Thank you so much for listening. The producer of this episode is Isabella Segalovich, and this episode is made possible by Hyperallergic members. So if you believe in independent arts journalism that tells the stories you want to hear, please consider becoming a Hyperallergic member and helping us sustain Hyperallergic for years to come. For just $8 a month or $80 a year, you too can support independent arts journalism that matters.

I’m Hrag Vartanian, the Editor-in-Chief and Co-founder of Hyperallergic. Thanks for listening. Until next time.