
Painted Rock, October, 2002.
Photo courtesy of the Block Island Times.
Quahog.org > Attractions > Painted Rock Painted RockThe paintball with the crunchy rock center! Corner of Mohegan Trail, Lakeside Drive, and Snake Hole Road, Block Island Humans love to leave their mark. Graffiti is found everywhere from the caves of Lascaux, France, to the tombs of the Egyptian pharaohs; from colonial New England slave quarters to the desk of every high school student in the world. And since the invention of spray paint, hardly a surface on the planet has been safe from the impulse of self-expression. Sometimes the results are viewed as art, sometimes as important historical documents. But most of the time they're decried as an ugly disfigurement of public and private property. Just ask ex-Providence Mayor Joseph A. Doorley, Jr. Back in 1987, he had to contend with a boulder in his South Kingstown front yard that was regularly adorned with profane words—"the work of infantile minds," he told the Providence Journal. He eventually solved the problem by having the 10-by-8-foot stone buried under his lawn. So how did Block Island's painted rock get to be so beloved?
Every super-hero has his origin story"Who performs these acts of serial vandalism?" you may well ask. "How did it start? And why hasn't someone put a stop to it?" For many years the second question was asked in vain, but in October 2000 the culprits came clean in a letter to the Block Island Times. In it, islander Wendy Northup revealed the origin of Block Island's premiere art spot: "The first time the rock was painted was on Halloween night, October 1962. It was done by myself and my boyfriend, who is now my husband of 35 years."
The young couple went to the upstairs workshop of Red's Lunch, which at the time doubled as the island's hardware store, and collected several leftover cans of paint. Thus provisioned, they made their way under cover of darkness to the corner of Mohegan Trail and Lakeside Drive. There they hastily slathered a defenseless boulder with sloppy rainbow-colored stripes. "We certainly did it in a hurry for fear of a car coming or Arthur Rose, the town sheriff, showing up!" wrote Wendy. Satisfied with their handiwork, Wendy and Eddie kept their crime pretty much between themselves. Wendy thinks she may have confided her secret to her mother and step-father. In any case, she soon left the island to attend college on the mainland, far from angry, painted-rock-hating neighbors.
According to Wendy, even the sheriff has a sense of humor about it. "Arthur Rose was the sheriff then—Bo Rose… he's still on Block Island. And he laughs about it now…." A door opens upon a small world of artistic expressionAt least one islander was turned on early to the possibilities of the new fresh-air art gallery. The summer after that first coating, architect Charlie Koulbanis got into the act. A native of Westerly who divided his time between his office in New York City and a seasonal residence on the island, he remembers covering up a motif of orange and white stripes with one of his own creations "around 1962." (More likely the summer of 1963, according to Wendy Northup). He continued to paint the rock periodically for years afterward, "probably about a couple dozen times," he thinks, "until everyone else took over."
During the 1970s another island resident, Pat Tanucci, took photographs of the rock's changing face every week, amassing an impressive collection. Unfortunately, when we contacted her, she told us she had had second thoughts about their utility and had thrown them all out. Block Island culture is poorer for their loss. The painting has continued to the present day and is now carried out by a wide variety of wannabe artistes, both island residents and summer people. Understandably, the rock changes colors more frequently in the summer, when the island's population swells from about 900 to about 15,000. Originally most of the painting was done at night, but that's rarely the case anymore as the shifting appearance of the rock has become an established island tradition.
An ill-advised color schemeWe asked Charlie Koulbanis if he had ever encountered anyone who didn't like Painted Rock. He offered the following story:
As a sidenote to the above incident, Mr. Koulbanis added that, "One evening when I was visiting one of the local 'gin mills,' some young punk bragged how he had painted the rock black! I reminded him that I am an off-islander and can only see the rock on weekends or short visits, however, 'You live on the island all year long and have to look at it all year long!' One dark night or two later a car drove into the black rock. Down deep in my heart I always hoped he was the one that drove into the rock!" How many licks does it take to get to the crunchy rock center of Painted Rock?
No, those numbers don't make sense to us either, but that's exactly what was printed in the Times article. Filled with an irresistible yearning to know the truth, we did our own measuring on a visit to the island in early May 2003. We also used the common nail method and found the thickness of the paint to be as follows…
It was estimated at the time of the September 2000 measurement that each paint layer was about .003 inches thick, for a total of 417 layers. If that estimation can be trusted, then the east side of the rock, the side that is usually adorned with messages, is made up of 708 individual layers. At the present rate of accretion, we estimate that Painted Rock will fill the entire intersection in a mere…4,292 years. Update
Former Block Island Times editor Bruce Montgomery, arriving at the scene at 7am on the 4th, found the landmark's top and sides denuded, a ragged ring of paint layers still attached around the bottom. Shards and flaps of paint were strewn around. Montgomery told us later that he believed the layers at the bottom were at least six inches thick, and he sent us a photo with a dollar bill for scale to prove it. The rock itself, he thought, without its clothes on, was about a foot smaller in diameter.
Local authorities weren't able to offer much in the way of resolution. In the August 12 issue of the Block Island Times, the Police Log noted that Police Chief Vin "Carlone said that a group of kids had been seen near the rock at 11:30pm the night before, and that phone numbers painted on the ground nearby did not lead anywhere. Upsetting as the defacing of the rock was for many, Carlone said stripping it of paint was not a crime."
Although it's being painted more often now than it was during its early days in the 1960s and '70s, it may still be some time before Painted Rock assumes its familiar dimensions. So if you're planning a trip to Block Island, don't forget your paint brush! Be Interactive!Do you have a photograph of one of Painted Rock's many guises? Why not contribute it to our slideshow? Please send all submissions to stuffie@quahog.org. Don't forget to include your name, town, and state! Don't have a digital copy? Just contact us at the same address and we'll arrange to receive it through snail mail. All originals will be returned. Painted Rock GalleryView all the photos in Quahog's Painted Rock Gallery on Facebook. InformationCost: free Time required: allow approximately 30 seconds, longer if you want to lick it Hours: open year round, dawn to dusk. Finding it: travel south from Old Harbor on Spring Street, which becomes the Mohegan Trail; pass the Southeast Lighthouse and Mohegan Bluffs on your left, and continue straight along the south coast of Block Island to a sharp right-hand turn at the intersection of Mohegan Trail, Lakeside Drive, and Snake Hole Road; Painted Rock is here. What’s nearbyDistances between points are actual distances, without regard to streams or listless cane toads. Your travel distance will be longer. This article last edited September 7, 2010 © 1999–2021 Quahog.org (with the exception of elements provided by contributors, as noted). |
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