American Graffiti

Graffiti is showing up in unexpected places. We’ve seen it all over Pinterest; we’re seeing it in furniture collections; and we even saw it on an exterior wall at a house we recently photographed. Creative director Jamie Laubhan-Oliver has long been a fan of the illicit paint job. “I always loved seeing it on road trips,” she says. “When you drive, and you see the trains go by and they’re covered in graffiti? That’s the best.” But appreciating loud, graphic graffiti on the road and living with loud, graphic graffiti in your house are two very different things, so for this episode of Treasure Hunters, Jamie and staff photographer Elizabeth Lavin decided to ask local artists to adorn some furniture and accessories. They selected items at Global Views for the experiment. Then they began looking for artists. They researched people who had created murals around the city, and they called for talent on social media. “I had heard of a couple of people, but one of the people we found on Facebook, Brett, is a student at Booker T. Washington,” Jamie says. Jamie and Elizabeth assigned each artist an item and gave them two weeks to do their thing. The result is a fun collection of practical art. “It’s a way of having art that doesn’t merely hang on the walls,” Jamie says. “Although, you probably don’t need more than one of something like this in any room.” Don’t have the nerve to paint the credenza you inherited from your great-grandma? Jamie advises that you can start small. “Try a floor cloth. Apply a base coat and then graffiti it, and throw it in your child’s room!”