Kate Just, A Sign of the Times: A knitted translation of Steve Powers, A love letter for you, Philadelphia, a billboard installed in 2010 along the Market / Frankford train line train line (2026)
Hand knitted acrylic yarn, timber, canvas
51 x 71cm x 2.5cm

Steve Powers is a New York City artist from Philadelphia’s Overbrook neighborhood who at one time wrote graffiti in Philadelphia and New York under the name ESPO (Exterior Surface Painting Outreach).

Meticulously painted like old advertising signs, Steve Powers’ murals and public works have been lovingly embedded into the street dialogue of cities including New York, Philadelphia and Belfast.

On January 4, 1997, ESPO began his most ambitious non-commissioned art. He painted on storefront gates in Fort Greene, Bedford-Stuyvesant, TriBeCa and the South Bronx. Powers painted in daylight, wearing street clothes; he told the New York Times in 1999 that when passersby asked what he was doing he would tell them, “I’m with Exterior Surface Painting Outreach, and I’m cleaning up this gate.”

He described his graffiti as a public service, and by 1999 said that he had done 70 gates.

This billboard by Powers that I’ve materialised in knitting was part of an incredible 50-painting series of murals in West Philadelphia that the artists sees as a “love Letter” from Philly residents to its city.

Peter Eleey, curator and associate director of exhibitions and programs at MoMA PS1, writes of Powers: “He offers self-help slogans turned outward to the neighborhood, with a punning visual style that mines the tricks of street trade…”

My love of Steve Powers’ work is ongoing but it is especially fitting in harsh times. It sends a message of love and connection into the world which is much needed.