DRAW the Subway

On Saturday afternoon, August 25, 2018, more than 50 artists met at Union Square with their sketchbooks, packed into the cars of the Q train and rode the new Second Avenue Subway up to 96th Street and back downtown, drawing their fellow riders along the way. Sugarlift organized DRAW with the artist Guno Park. Anyone was welcome to join in or simply watch, and Moleskine supplied sketchbooks and drawing gear.

From Prince Street the group walked to a pop-up gallery at 2 Rivington Street, where the artists tore the pages out of their sketchbooks and put them straight up on the walls for a one-night show that evening. The walls filled with Guno Park's sketches of riders, Devon Rodriguez's commuters, Evan Kitson's portraits, Dorian Vallejo's collages and even small low-relief sculptures by Jiannan Wu.

The show was a benefit for Young New Yorkers' Art Not Jail program, which gives court-involved teenagers an arts-based alternative to incarceration, and two graduates of the program were among the artists. "At times we dominated the train, and most passengers had no clue. It felt like we were all in on our own little secret," said Guno Park.