“They were a rugged lot in the tradition of cowboys, mariners and arctic explorers. They painted signs on walls, great and small, and they worked like dogs. So they were called walldogs.” – From Ghost Signs, by Wm. Stage
Picture today’s version of a cowboy – for me it’s Sam Shepard – and you can easily imagine the walldogs at Colossal Media (Brooklyn, NY) steadying a swing stage filled with paint-crusted buckets, defying common sense that says walldogs are an anachronism in a digital age and blazing their brand on urban walls that cry out, “NYC’s Got Brush!” (to paraphrase Justin Green’s June “Sign Game,” in ST's June issue, page 12).
Paul Lindahl, Colossal’s owner, said handpainted murals grab attention in an urban environment filled with digitally printed advertisements and LED videoscreens. Colossal’s website (www.colossalmedia.net) says, “All our handpainted wallscapes become an organic part of the urban environment.”
Another benefit to paid-advertising space, the site adds, is the crowd that inevitably gathers to watch a live-art forum.
Influenced by the previous generation of West Coast walldogs, Lindahl enjoys the specialized work, which “few people know how to do. It leaves me with a good feeling of accomplishment and pride to know something you create is only as good as you make it.”
Lindahl, 31, began his walldog career in 1996 with ArtFX in Portland, OR, then went to Universal Signs in San Francisco, Apollo in Atlanta and the Los Angeles-based ArtFX, before he moved to NYC in 2004. There, a graffiti-culture magazine, Mass Appeal, run by Adrian Moeller, partnered with him to attract clients. One of Colossal’s first clients, through the magazine, was Grand Theft Auto, which continues to contract the walldogs for their various release campaigns.
Ready-mix paints weren’t available until the 1930s, which meant that earlier signpainters mixed dry paint pigment with linseed oil and white-lead paste. Despite their toxicity, lead-base paints, which comprised up to 95% pigment, proved extra durable on brick walls.
Colossal relies on Bronx-based |1954| paints and mixes in organic pigments for special tints. Lindahl said, “It’s great to have Ronan in the neighborhood, because we can pick up what we need whenever we need it. We don’t keep a big paint inventory.”
From the start, Colossal has held leases to NYC walls instead of renting them from outdoor-advertising companies. With roughly 50 walls now, the company continues to face the challenges of convincing clients that handpainted murals are a viable advertising medium. The projects that appear on these pages prove that Colossal has “raised its Wanted level.”