It's kind of like seeing the puppets AND the hands in a puppetshow. Cassandra also works cheerleaders and flamingos - the two things that are in least need of reinvigoration -  into elaborate kalidoscopic tangles. 

Oooo

 Why can't I post any pics? I've never been able to and I really want to share my gnarly skate injuries with the readers. 

My face and arms are basically hamburger meat. Ah well, consider it an exercise in descriptive writing...

When Michael De Feo's status says that he's 'planting flowers', it means he's pasting art on the streets of whatever city he happens to be in at the moment. His work is magnetic, from the screen-printed flower emblem to the free handportraits and sinister, copulating corpses. Somewhere on the 'flower' end of his spectrum , Michael has published children's book and produced lemon illustrations for the annual High Line Street Festival's World's Largest Lemonade Stand. Alphabet City, is a picture book tour of the alphabet using paste-upstreet art on the streets of New York. A is for ant; B is for beach ball ; C is for cherries...and yeah, F is for flower. Nothing softens inner city streets like toddler-friendly illustrations plastered onto trash bins and rotting clapboard. "Ever since I was a kid, I've wanted to make a children's book. Over the years I've come up with numerous ideas, however, none of them strong enough for me to approach publishers. It finally dawned on me that I should marry this desire of producing a children's book along with my passion for street art. Remarkably, I just emailed Gingko Press some images and described the concept. They loved the idea and requested a partial dummy copy. Once they I gave them that, they gave me the go-ahead."

So, you're in Hong Kong right now. What's going on?

Thus far I've installed tons of flowers both small and large all over the city. I intend on getting up some self portrait paintings this evening. Aside from doing my own work, I've been seeing a lot of interesting museum and galleries shows. Most notable are JoseParla's show at Ooi Botos and the Louis Vuitton exhibition of artists they've worked with or collected at the Hong Kong Museum of Art.

Yeah, there were some great examples at Ben Frost's show. Is there typically a sense of spectacle at the Brooklynite shows?

Spectacle.  That's the perfect word I would like someone to use when referring to the our Openings.  It's not just simply about finding the right music to fit the show's theme.  Patrons come here and never know what to expect.  An old school slushie man shaving a block of ice, bucket drummers on the sidewalk, a Fife and Drum Band echoing off the apartment across the street.  There is always an added attraction.  City buses pass and you have people sticking camera phones out the window to grab a photo of what's going on.  I love that.   But the most important thing is the LIVE element of it all.  Like watching Tyson fight back in the day.  Had to see it live not on tape.
We have guest hosts who interview people throughout the evening and people from over 40 countries watching and chatting on our site. Someone at our last show said to me they felt like it didn't matter what else was going on in New York that night because this was the place to be.  Now just imagine you're the artist who's exhibiting work that night.  You have your fan base attending, but now there's new people being introduced to your work because of the atmosphere they've come to expect.

When did Brooklynite open and what were the early days like?

Brooklynite opened in June of 2008 after three exhausting years of construction.  It took so long due to money, time and the fact that just myself and one other person rebuilt the entire place.  The early days were quite interesting as I transitioned from managing an artist and building a gallery to dealing with lining up shows and appealing to new clients.  When we had the first opening here and people from all over the world as well as from around the corner came out to support it was pretty special. To be doing something good in a neighborhood that has had so much hardship for so long is an amazing feeling.

You seriously built the whole thing, ground up?