Up until seven months ago, Gregory Wietrzychowski, otherwise known as Sisto Maximo, created street paintings. His work ranged from massive detailed copies of Renaissance masterpieces to abstract surrealism, playing on pop culture references.
A native of Milwaukee, WI, he worked with homemade chalk or oil pastels softened with turpentine, and his art was splayed on sidewalks in Florence, Italy near the Uffizi Gallery and in Paris, France outside the Louvre.
Now Wietrzychowski is in the desert, as he called it.
In January, he entered the Department of Homeless Services (DHS) program and began living in the first of two city shelters. Because he served in the Army for three years starting in 1978, Wietrzychowski was able to gain entrance to the veterans' residence program.
About three months ago, a double hernia that he had developed years ago, flared up when he was transferred to the Borden Avenue Veterans Residence in Long Island City, and until he had a surgery to alleviate the problem, he has been unable to find a steady job.
“No one was going to hire me with a double hernia,” he said, explaining that when he is able to find manual labor jobs, the funds help to pay for his art supplies as well as his cost of living.
With no work, no studio, and no supplies, he can only sketch in pencil ideas that he hopes to one day recreate in paint. He said he is not even allowed to bring in art supplies like metal frames or turpentine inside the 410-bed shelter.
“It's like as an artist I'm dead,” he said, outside of the shelter on Thursday, July 25.
Moreover, once the Borden Avenue residence closes for renovations, Wietrzychowski does not know where he will go next. He has been told that for at least two weeks' time he will have a bed in Long Island City, but afterward, he believes he will be sent somewhere else.
From street painting to the streets?
By Christina Santucci
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