Rust-Oleum, Federal Safety Red: Formerly Owned by Lady Pink

Graffiti is one of the four major expressive art forms of hip-hop culture, along with DJ-ing, MC-ing and break-dancing. Beginning in the 1970s, hip-hop flourished in the impoverished, urban setting of the Bronx and soon spread to other areas. Street art and graffiti hold cultural significance in the way they help artists express their individuality and critique political, cultural, social, and economic issues, as a subculture with a message. Graffiti writers are highly knowledgeable about all varieties of spray paint.  A paint's color and thickness and the pressure of the spray can are all important considerations for the writer.  Rust-Oleum was the brand best known for its ability to withstand “the buff.”  The Metro Transit Authority instituted the buff in 1978 to eliminate graffiti from its subway cars.  The cars were passed through a kind of car wash in which they were sprayed with gallons of chemical solvent to remove the graffiti.  This was a nightmare for writers—a graffiti masterpiece that had taken many hours of planning and painting and which had been done at great risk was destroyed in a matter of minutes.  According to Lady Pink, Rust-Oleum was prized for it's thickness. She said that at only 13 ounces, "it had that magic quality that seemed to make it last and last and last until many almost empty cans of it were just thrown away in disbelief.”

Lady Pink (Sandra Fabara, b. 1964), is an Ecuadorian-American graffiti and mural artist. Her career focused on using graffiti and murals as acts of rebellion, empowering women and self-expression. Lady Pink’s name was chosen for her aesthetics because the name “Pink” is feminine and she wanted other artists to know that she was a girl. She started calling herself Lady Pink because of her love of historical romances, England, the Victorian period, and the aristocracy. Lady Pink was nicknamed the "first lady of graffiti," because she was one of the first active women in the early 1980s New York City subway graffiti subculture.