By Yepoka Yeebo
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
UNION SQUARE — Union Square art vendors have come up with innovative ways to display their work despite new restrictions on the number of artists who can set up shop in the city's parks.
Instead of lining up at 6 a.m. for one of the 18 spots available in designated areas in Union Square, vendors like photographer Bryan Close have gone mobile with their operation.
Close sells his art from a meticulously engineered 5-foot wide sandwich board made of two mesh screens, PVC pipe and wood. Close uses hooks to hang his framed artwork from the screens.
The artist walks the 100-pound rig around Union Square, talking to people about the new rules, and occasionally, selling one of his framed photographs.
"It's the most rewarding thing I've ever done in my life, and I don't want it to go away," said Close, 27, who has been selling his framed photographs in Union Square for over 2 years.
Close, from Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn, said selling his art was "not a good living, but a living." But he said the new restrictions made making that living even harder.
"I print and produce my own pieces, I'm my own manager, accountant and web designer. I work seven days a week, 12 hours a day. I'm already going on 5 hours of sleep a night, I can't get up at 4 in the morning to queue for a spot."
Miriam West, 50, a painter who used to sell her art in Union Square now sells her work from what she calls her "cardboard apron" — a box that hangs from her neck and is cut open and covered in pink paper to create a display case. Small painted canvasses hang from ribbons.
"The last three weeks have been horrible, just horrible, I don't even know if we can pay our rent this month," said West, who had been making a living selling her artwork from the park for six years.
Even worse, she said, is the impact the new rules have had on her right to express herself.
"I feel like I don't have a voice," said West. "I refuse to let somebody take something so important from me without even hearing what I had to say."
Several artists, including Close are suing the city over the new restrictions.
