Two weeks are in the books at the Great New York State Fair, but with a long weekend ahead of us, there are still lots of gems to see.
Today we’re taking a look inside the Expo Center. It is a great place to check out some live art. Arcy is a spray paint artist, and he’s nearing the end of a mural. It’s hard to miss.
“Well I’m doing what I love to do and I’m inspiring people to do that, too,” said Arcy. “You don’t have to go into the arts to do what you love to do, just see that I’m happy and I’m creating and I am spreading good energy and I think that’s the most important thing that we can do.”
At about 180 feet long and 8 feet tall, he calls the mural small because it’s a tight fit for working with spray paint. His lines only shrink down to about half an inch wide.
Arcy brought about 300 cans of spray paint, so he has a plethora of different colors and only uses a little bit of each can.
This mural is an ode to New York State history — recent and through the decades. The part he’s working on now is an ode to the heroes of the pandemic. All in all, Arcy puts a lot of time and energy into this piece.
“I really wanted to kind of hit on different cultural aspects of the state and just different time periods that everybody can relate with — young and old,” said Arcy. “So you know what, I did my research and I really only have so much space to work with so I wanted to kind of take to work on things that people be like, 'wow,' when they see you and I get drawn in.”
The mural might look familiar to many fairgoers. If you come in gates 6 or 7, there’s a mural to the left. It’s an extension of that piece Arcy painted in 2017.
You can check out Arcy in progress each afternoon in the Expo Center. It will take him the remainder of the fair to finish up. He usually paints from around noon until 5 or 6 p.m.