My painting does not come from the easel.—Jackson Pollock

Have you heard of the “landlord fix”? If there’s a crack in the wall, or a dent in the door the solution is and always will be: paint over it. Thanks to this landlord habit I have no idea how many layers of paint there are in my apartment. Our doorknobs are painted over, parts of our window, wires, and more. One time a piece of my wall broke off, and you know what was hiding underneath? Just more paint. My command hook pulled off 4 layers of paint, with much more underneath. I know I’m not alone on this, every apartment in NYC has countless layers of paint. And removing the paint is a total risk. There could be beautiful hardwood walls and brass components underneath it all, but at the same time I’m terrified of uncovering what the obviously painted over lumps in my wall are. It’s a pandora box.