Graffiti removal at Wilcox Hollow
The Deerfield River Watershed Association Board members teamed up with the Town of Shelburne’s Open Space Committee to complete an extensive graffiti removal project at one of the Deerfield River’s most popular hike-in, sandy beach spots. One “artist” had left dozens of graffiti “artworks” that defaced the beautiful river rocks at Wilcox Hollow. It took a lot of experimentation and donated equipment, tools, and supplies, but we finally figured out how to remove virtually all of the graffiti paint without damaging the rocks.
Dozens of graffiti works had been left on rocks at Wilcox Hollow during the Spring of 2020. This defacement stretched up and down the river where there are several pocket beaches along the river. In some places, there were also graffiti dating to earlier urban-type, spray-paint tagging. This was an opportunity to clean it all up.
Before
In most locations, you would never know the rocks had ever been painted. However, our work was not always perfect. Some stone is more porous and it can be difficult to remove some of the deeply embedded paint. Now that we have perfected our technique, we may go back in 2021 and try to remove the residual staining at some locations.
Volunteers experimented with paint removal techniques until eventually finding the most effective technique for removing paint from native stone.
During removal
During removal
After
The old saying, leave it better than you found it rings true here.
The Town of Shelburne Open Space Committee and the Deerfield River Watershed Association are working to help keep the river beautiful.