LADY PINK: I started off as a teenage feminist, and I wasn't even aware that I was a feminist.
I was just standing up for myself, doing my thing.
But this was over 30, 40 years ago, and the women's movement still has not caught up.
So we still International Women's Day to help bring awareness
to the inequality that still exists, in not just this country,
but in many minority countries. The African American ladies, Asian, Latinas, like myself, you know.
We're still fighting to get equality. So any little bit helps.
[upbeat guitar music]
I'm Lady Pink. I'm an artist, a street artist, perhaps!
My name Lady Pink came from the desire of being able to stylize letters,
and my friends, the group that I had joined, which was all male-dominated, felt that if they were going to
lug around a woman, a girl, I needed to have a feminine name.
So the word "pink" is definitely feminine.
You can stylize the letters, kick out the "K" and such. And "Lady" I titled myself because
Uh... In high school, we were royalty! [laughs]
I've always been an artist since I was a toddler.
But it wasn't until I started in high school and at the age of 15
I started writing graffiti.
And I was introduced into the New York City subway trains and the excitement and thrills of
vandalizing those, and that was my opening into the world of art.
At the same time, this was in the early 80s.
The gallery exhibits were starting and all the vandals, all of us were invited to exhibit
above ground, and my career as an exhibit artist began.
[music continues]
I came to this country from Ecuador when I was a small child.
I guess I would be to have been called a Dreamer. I grew up in New York City.
So, I am fully American.
I assimilated into the culture, and as an immigrant,
I feel that I was perhaps welcome--being a minority--into the graffiti world, which was predominantly male,
but it was also predominantly minority.
African-American and Latinos was the, about 80% of the graffiti artists in New York City,
and about 20% were white, definitely.
So I fit right in. I was Latina, I was bold.
They welcomed me in. In the 1970s, men were becoming already enlightened.
So when the first exhibits and the first events were happening the guys felt
"Oh we need a girl. We need a girl."
And I was the only female out of about 10,000 boys in New York City that was painting.
So they invited me to be part of the show.
And I know I was a token female at the age of 16, I realized that,
but I got my foot in the door, and
Although I was a novelty, I have kept the door open by always putting out brilliant work.
[music]
LADY PINK: When I first started painting on canvas,
I was doing my own name, which is the same thing that we did on subway trains.
But very quickly, we realized that we have to say a little bit more about ourselves
than just "look at me! Look at me, here I am!"
My first painting, that was not my name,
was of a beautiful orchid oil in spray paints and purples and lavenders.
And people told me that this looks like Georgia O'Keeffe's work, and I was only 16,
I was not aware of who Georgia O'Keeffe was.
So they handed me a book, and her work was absolutely amazing.
And sure enough one of my pieces looked just like hers! And she became a hero.
I read her life story and learned all about her, and she was a rebel back in the 1920s and 30s and so on.
I love how she lived her life and I love her work and I got to exhibit with her, in 1985
my work hung in the same gallery as hers, which was absolutely amazing!
[music]
LADY PINK: The very first piece that put me on the map,
per se, was the very first time I went to go paint a subway train with a bunch of guys.
They took me to some place in Brooklyn and had me doing...
My name on the train while a bunch of them were standing and looking over their shoulder at me--
as if it's not scary enough! To be standing on the train tracks, bunch of guys staring at me!
I'm trying to do straight lines and...
But when I achieved it and I got it done from beginning to end,
that put me on the map, and the guys were like, "Yeah..."
"Yeah! We've got to give her respect!"
And what put me on the map above ground was some of the very first exhibits.
It was at the end of 1981.
I was invited to show with the best of the best, the best graffiti writers: Lee, Crash, Days, Zephyr, Futura, Dondi.
These guys were my heroes!
They were legends, and suddenly I'm meeting them!
And I'm invited to exhibit with them in my very first graffiti piece on canvas.
I did my name, as we always do, but I had help from the king of graffiti, which was Lee.
And he outlined my piece for me because I was too nervous. Again,
the guys looking over my shoulder, and these these guys were like legends.
I was still an amateur, a toy, and I'm trying to do straight lines again.
So Lee helped me out, but that was the only time I ever let a guy outline my piece.
I got good fast.
I had to exhibit with these guys. After Fashion Moda, there was PS 1, the new museum,
and then suddenly we're traveling around the world!
And it was a whirlwind of activities
with exhibits with Keith Haring and Basquiat, and I was going to parties with Andy Warhol at the age of 17,
traveling the world, doing films, documentaries, and books!
And it was just amazing! I barely had time to finish high school!
[music]
Some of the projects that I am most proud of, looking back,
perhaps is being a role model and an inspiration to other young women.
To empowering ladies around the world to do their thing,
blaze their own trails, paint gigantic murals, take on big projects.
Now I've exhibited in some of the finest museums around the world from
The Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of the City of New York, and I've got a piece hanging up now at MoMA
Museum of Modern Art, and also at the Tate Modern in London. I have three pieces hanging there.
So these are some of the great achievements of being in permanent collections in museums
where my works will be preserved for centuries and educate young people forever
I've also done some very large and amazing murals
around the world, eight stories at the Chocolate Factory Russian in Kiev, Ukraine.
Which was a wonderful experience!
Um... Some of the projects I've been very proud of is actually work with teenagers.
When I can pass on my skill to young people
and have them paint gigantic murals that they didn't even think that they could do,
and watching them go off into life and become artists
because of the inspiration that I've given them perhaps those are some of my best projects that I've done,
working with the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in the city. since the
Since the 1990s, new women have been appearing all over the world,
and girls are being made stronger and braver and just as reckless as the boys,
but I've been friends with some of the European ladies, like Mickey and Blue, for four decades now, and...
Faith 47 from South Africa and Amina from Brazil and Shira from Japan.
And we have a sisterhood going on around the world
and we support each other and love each other and...
Absolutely. It's, it's happening because of the lack of support that some of them have from their own boys.
So there you have it. We definitely have a sisterhood and in a friendship forever and ever!
[music]
The message I hope to leave as a legacy is that you don't underestimate
any female. I was a little tiny
Latin 90-pound weakling or so they thought.
But the heart that I displayed and the courage that I have for this kind of
work was just unstoppable. So with determination, hard work, perseverance,
I want people to realize that you too can become a success.
You can become an artist and
and live life to the fullest.
[music]