About Spray Painting
Spray painting is not just for graffiti, although that's one of its main claims to fame. Spray painting's best-known heydays hit the United States in the mid-1970s and 1980s when everything from New York City subway cars to apartment building walls and rooftops were saturated with graffiti. Graffiti art went from the fringes to mainstream pop culture with talented and prolific artists showing off their work. New York has since switched to subway cars that can be power washed of spray paint, but the art of spray painting is still going strong and constantly evolving.
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History of
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It's a good bet that Erik Rotheim, who, in 1927, invented a can that could spray liquids through a valve, ever imagined his idea could morph into the best tool for tagging a bridge. Two guys working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture took it one step further in 1944. Lyle David Goodloe and W.N. Sullivan came up with a way to spray a gas from a can when they were coming up with ways to kill of mosquitoes. Their invention went overseas for soldiers to use during World War II. Then came the invention of the valve that did not clog, thanks to Robert Abplanalp in 1953.
Invented
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Even though spray paint was technically invented by a man, Edward Seymour, it was his wife Bonnie who asked him to come up with it. It is unclear what she hoped to do with paint in a can, but her request was fulfilled in 1949. Its invention led to the formation of Seymour's Chicago-area company, Seymour of Sycamore, Inc., to make the paint. The company still exists and is located in Sycamore, Ill.
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Evolution
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New types of spray paint are constantly popping up, and the product continues to evolve to fill more specific needs. One of the most recent includes spray paint specifically for plastics, manufactured by Krylon, designed not to peel and pucker on the non-porous material. Another has been spray paints with a textured finish, offered by many companies in varieties such as suede and hammered metallic.
Risk Factors
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In addition to being highly flammable, spray paint is good at penetrating lungs and skin. The product is considered hazardous enough for the United States Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to have added a standard for personal protection for workers using spray paints. Those who regularly work with spray paint are often prone to painter's asthma, from breathing in the fumes, and painter's dermatitis, from getting the paint on their skin, according to a safety article by Dupont.
Function
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Spray paint works well for covering large, flat surfaces, hard-to-reach and high areas, and giving painting a feathering effect. It is also been the staple of graffiti artists everywhere. It would be kind of tough to tag and run carrying gallon cans of paint and a paint brush. Graffiti can be traced back to monuments in ancient Rome and was ushered into the modern mainstream with the invention of spray paint.
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Resources
- Photo Credit Photo and artwork by Ryn Gargulinski
