Greetings From...

Greetings from… & Goodbye to New York! On our rooftop in Chinatown during Fall of 2014, we painted a quick large letter postcard mural for ourselves to mark the official start of our mural tour.  How we got the idea of Greetings Tour is hard to pinpoint, but it went something like this: Returning from a West Coast road trip (Summer 2014) that we didn't want to end, we were inspired to make a lifestyle change.  We envied people traveling the states and working from the road, so we put our professional backgrounds together and created the Greetings Tour.  

Considering positive reactions from previous Greetings murals Victor had done in Redhook and Chinatown, we both knew it was possible to share this with other cities and states in the USA. If we were going to leave New York City for somewhere else, it had to be in exchange for everywhere else at the same time. 

At first, we tried to do a Kick Starter campaign and get some sponsors, but we didn’t really succeed without something to show.  We didn't want to wait around to get someone else's approval, so we took a huge risk purchasing a RV and packed our lives into it.  Leaving a few items in storage, we drove away from New York City in April of 2015.  The original goal was to do just one year on the road, but now painting and traveling the USA is our life indefinitely.

We had someone call the cops on us for painting this mural. They must have seen us from another rooftop and thought we were illegally painting graffiti. The NYPD showed up on the rooftop, and we explained that we lived there (and had semi-permission.) Luckily, Victor had the PBA card and his friend worked in the local precinct that the cops came from. There were no issues and we continued on! The clean white painting suit definitely helped out story too. This is one of the first photos of the Dickies coveralls that have been worn across the country since 2015.

Looking back, leaving New York for this project was one of the best decisions of our lives. We’ve had so many experiences and opportunities come out of it. We would highly recommend that everyone follow their dreams and give it a shot. Don’t be scared of failure because you’ll regret not trying even more!