Mae Curry Makes Union Square Subway Flower

By Suzan Mazur

“And instantly, an intolerable desire would awaken in me to go out in the streets. I would feel, without a feeling of wild longing, pain, and joy, that I was missing something rare and glorious, that I was allowing some superb happiness and good fortune to escape from me by staying in my room. It seemed to me that some enormous joy, some glorious and joyous event — some fulfillment of glory, wealth, or love — was waiting for me everywhere through the city. I did not know where I must go to find it, on which of the city’s thousand corners it would come to me, and yet I knew that it was there, and had no doubt at all that I would find and capture it.” — Excerpt from The Train and the City (1933), Thomas Clayton Wolfe (1900-1938).

Not since Keith Haring’s provocative stick-figure art first adorned West 4th Street subway walls has the NYC underground looked so interesting. Not to mention lovely! And it’s because of Mae Curry’s flowers.

The Brooklyn-based artist, a former ballerina who eventually outgrew her pink slippers (Curry is now six-feet tall), moved to New York from Nashville several years ago believing that inspiration for her paintings—i.e., “some enormous joy,” “some superb happiness” — awaited her everywhere in the city. Her quest for surprise is what drives her.

I first met Curry a couple of years ago on one of “the city’s thousand corners” selling her sublime flower art to pay the rent.

All the best, Mae and thank you for turning a snowy February in Manhattan into June!

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Suzan Mazur is the author of five books and has contributed to publications including Financial Times, The Economist, Forbes, Newsday, Archaeology, Astrobiology, Huffington Post and Harvard Law School’s Art Law Syllabus 2008. She has also been featured on PBS, CBC, MBC and Fox News. Read more about Suzan Mazur at oscillations.net

Mae Curry The Balancing Act.

Mae Curry The Ballerina and the Jester.