Rainbow Warrior

 Posted by on March 9, 2001
Mar 092001
 
1061 Market Street
San Francisco

This little piece has got to just make you smile.  It is by the Rainbow Warrior, Ernest Doty.

Doty is from Albuquerque, New Mexico and presently lives in Oakland. He has lived a fascinating life which was covered in an interview at Oakland Art Beat.

An excerpt: I’m a high-school dropout, 10th grade was my last year, and I’ve always been an artist, that’s what I always wanted to be when I was a kid. I guess I forgot it for awhile when I was in my early 20s. I was an alcoholic, and once I gave up alcohol I got back into art and making it a career. I made a whole life switch, stop eating the bad foods, stopped that 9-5 job, got back into making art, making it a full time job. Art helped me focus in a lot of ways. Before it just seemed I would wake up most days, hung over, doing a job that I hated, only wanting to go home and relax; I was completely unhappy with every aspect of my life, but art helped me find focus, helped me find myself again.

His website doesn’t mention his rainbow work, but here is an interview with him regarding the rainbow work he did in Albuquerque.

An excerpt from the article about his motivation…  “About three or four years ago … I was feeling really depressed and I had this notion that if I went out and painted a rainbow, maybe someone would see it and feel what I was feeling or feel anything as intensely as I was. The first one I did, I just literally dumped the paint over the side of a pretty ugly, abandoned, alleyway building. It came out OK but not like any of the ones I’m doing now.”

What do you say to the people who don’t like your rainbows?
I painted it for anyone who wants a moment to themselves, or a moment to remember or imagine. To the people that have responded negatively, I challenge them to come and look at it. Don’t look at it on your TV or online or in a newspaper; come see it. Don’t look at it knowing it’s graffiti. Just look at it for what it is. Who can hate rainbows? The rainbow [itself] is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, all you have to do is look for it.

  3 Responses to “Rainbow Warrior”

  1. Cool – the ghost of a rainbow beside a ghost sign!

  2. Well, I like it. I like all rainbows. Even ones sprawled in paint on the side of a building.

    Happy New Year to you!

  3. I just love this!
    I wish you a most wonderful New Year.

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