Stephen Powers started drawing on the walls at home when he was toddler. His parents didn’t mind. Says Powers, “My mom says I started at three and I never stopped. My parents were really encouraging. I’m not sure if they were proud of it or they were just neglectful, but they left it up on the walls for my entire childhood. I remember being really mortified until I was 16, and then I got really psyched again about it. I think artists would love to have a record of everything they ever did and they would love a chance to destroy it all over again.”
At 16 he started doing graffiti. He tells Show Daily, “I came late to the game. The trend in New York and Philadelphia was to start when you were 10 and then join the army, or get out of high school and get a job when you were 18. I stayed with it until I was 32 and then I grew up and became a real artist.”
Currently, Powers is known for the large-scale murals that he paints in cities around the world. Five years ago, he did a massive 50-wall project in his hometown of Philadelphia called, Love Letter, which in his words was “meant to be a letter for one, with meaning for all.” The murals contain personal messages or phrases like, “If you were here, I’d be home now,” or “Picture you, picture me, picture us, picture this.” Some of the work he did there, as well as in cities around the world has been photographed and collected in A Love Letter to the City (Princeton Architectural Press, Mar.), which includes his art work in the United States and such far-flung places as Dublin, Johannesburg, and São Paolo.
Here in New York City, Powers has an ongoing project at the famed Strand Book Store. In March, he painted what he called “ A Love Letter to the Indie Bookstore” on the East 12th Street wall of the Strand. In addition to the large, five-panel mural outside, which, he says, “hopwefully is something that I can embroider on and keep adding to,” he’s making art inside as well. Powers notes, “Strand it’s already perfect, I’m just trying to make it a little more perfect.”
Powers will be signing copies of A Love Letter to the City today in the Princeton Architectural Press booth (2827) at 2 p.m.