But does it need graffiti?

 Added in a drop of graffiti that appears on the sign. Not sure it is needed in the piece. It is a separate piece of shear fabric that can be removed...

I liked the idea of layering the old, original sign with the more recent graffiti.

Forgotten Brooklyn - 5th Avenue and 16th Street

A few weekends ago, I took a walk down 5th Avenue all the way from Gowanus to Bay Ridge to buy running tights at Century 21 on 86th Street. It's a great walk, taking me through many ethnic enclaves, including neighborhoods that sell roasted, salted, and buttered corn grilled on the street, and bakeries with pita bread. 

Along the way, I stopped to photograph signs and buildings that looked out of place, remnants of forgotten businesses. The piece pictured here, "Forgotten Brooklyn, Berkley," is my rendering of a sign left over from an old and now defunct business on the corner of 5th Avenue and 16th Street, the edge of Park Slope before the Greenwood Cemetery. The sign is stained with rust and has graffiti, and the fluorescent lights are literally falling off. I chose not to render the stains or graffiti...but I may go back in later and add these. I like the layering of text. I also appreciate what happens when you embroider architectural images - there is a distortion and rounding out of shapes because of the nature of fabric and how it buckles and bunches under tension.

This is the third Brooklyn piece in my series...I have one more "official" piece to create for the Affordable Art Fair in May. I hope to resolve this soon, since there are phrases dancing in my head that would like to be embroidered.