Stay Golden, Collaboration No. 1 with Graffiti Artist Olga Correa by L.A. Pagán in New York

You'll read in my bio that my interest in art began in the 1980s graffiti movement. I was too young to hit the streets at night. Hell, it didn't even occur to me (at that age) that the graffiti writers went out at night to "bomb" the trains. My mom wouldn't have let me go anyways and we lived in a railroad apartment in the South Bronx, so sneaking out was almost impossible. I wouldn't have even known where to go! "Ma! Take me to Woolworth please! Can you buy me markers and black book so I can draw in it?" For safety reasons, mom brought us (sister) sets of 16 or 24 (don't remember) water based markers. With these a bunch of us in school were graffiti writing in our black books (sketch pad for the graffiti writer) loose paper, brown paper bags, whatever we can get our hands on. You see, after the movie Beat Street, we were all inspired to create pieces (slang for graffiti art) almost every night. We would bring our pieces to school the next day and show each other. It was like a little competition (healthy though). I want to say we all respected each other's work. I guess we all didn't want to end up like Spit...watch the movie if you don't know this reference. This experience was in St. Luke's grammar school on 138th Street off of Cypress Ave. Sadly, it doesn't exist anymore. Now it's a charter school...I think. Over the years, this art form faded away as I learned others in art school... but I never forgot about it. A few years back an idea came to me to incorporate graffiti with my abstract paintings. I tried to write again, but it felt like the 10 year old in me is still there and now being a seasoned artist, I knew my graffiti writing wouldn't stand well next to the pro-writers of today. And let me tell you, those pro-writers I'm referring to are some of the same ones that went to the train yards during the 80s. They've been writing for decades and their art form is amazing. So I decided to "stay in my lane" and thought "maybe I can collaborate with a 'graph' artist instead (place lightbulb here). I've met a few over the years, asked a couple and nothing panned out...until I asked Olga Correa during a gallery reception (we were in this show together in Dec. 2022: Voy A Reír, Voy A Gozar, Vivir Mi Vida, La La La La at Comunilife El Borinquen Residence. Thanks Blanka! Your magic works even when you're not directly involved :) On Saturday, May 20, Olga spent about 4-6 hours drawing her character on my painting. Now it's our work! We're challenging ourselves to create 6 paintings to show the depth and variety that makes us who we are. We're looking to forward to finishing this body of work and will showcase wherever people may have us (I actually have some ideas where to show this work...let's see what happens). In the meantime, enjoy Stay Golden.