Street Art in the City

I have always been a fan of street art. Minneapolis is full of some beautiful murals, but I knew New York would also hold a huge variety of different works of art. Before our trip I stumbled upon an Instagram picture of a wall decorated in a pair of large wings that a girl was standing in front of. The wall was black and the wings were filled in with doodle and henna like designs as well as random objects. As I looked more closely at the image I noticed that the artist painted a hashtag reading #WhatLiftsYou with her Instagram handle @KelseyMontagueArt. I went to her page and website because I loved her designs. I soon found that she has painted dozens of wing murals all over the world including Sydney, Australia, Los Angeles, California, and even New York City. I became determined to find some of her street art during my time in New York.

When we got to New York I was very excited to see all the street art around the city. There was a clothing store on the corner of 35th St. and Avenue of Americas that we continued to pass called Desigual. This entire two story and corner building was a mural itself full of brightly colored mandala designs. This building was beautiful, but I was still determined to find my wings so with a little internet searching I was able to figure out what streets some of Kelsey Montague's artwork could be found on. Emily and I began our trek to little Italy to find one of the sets of wings that decorate the city, but we not successful. We did find some other lovely and very colorful murals. After a little more Instagram creeping we figured out that a pair of the wings I was in search of could be found a few blocks from the Flat Iron Building. After almost a week in the city, I finally got my picture with my wings! I was so happy that I found what I was looking for, and when I posted my picture one of my friends who studied abroad in Australia commented that she loves that artist as well and saw multiple murals of hers while she was in Sydney. As the week continued, Emily and I decided to start working on our designs by sketching in central park. We sat on a bench and I quickly noticed all the people biking, running, pushing strollers, etc. and was inspired to design an active wear line for women in the city. I immediately thought that the patterns and designs in Kelsey Montague's street art would be perfect for a variety of sports wear pieces like leggings because I saw so many women in Central Park with patterned leggings and couldn't help but to imagine the street art design as a pair of leggings. Overall, my entire trip to New York was inspiring, but my time observing and sketching in Central Park and the mural I was so excited to find ended up truly inspiring my design project.

-Sarah