“I’m living vicariously through [Goldenstash],” the artist says, citing a gallimaufry of personality traits and messages that he associates with the character.
Goldenstash’s full name is Chad Gildenstachen, the artist explains. “It’s very manifold, the iconography of Goldenstash. He’s this swinger sort of hepcat who went to Harvard in the ’70s and then joined a bunch of Freemason guilds. So now he quite literally has lots of gold.”
Goldenstash also possesses laid-back symbolism, the artist says. “Goldenstash is the moment when you can do no wrong, and everything is going in the right direction. He’s a reminder to take risks and not take yourself so seriously. Everyone’s having a good time in my artwork.”
“It’s fun,” says Kerry Simon, owner of the street-art-minded clothing shop Proletariat in Harvard Square. “He’s really doing his own thing. I was totally confused by it at first. I thought it was an advertisement, or a band. Then I talked to people about it, and figured out that it wasn’t [either of those]. Now I have a lot of respect for it.”
On hairy patrol
Boston’s street artists toil away in cluttered apartments and makeshift studios crafting their artwork (“I have to get really stoned, and spend a few hours cutting and pasting,” says Goldenstash’s creator), before fearlessly venturing into dark city streets to leave their mark, which may remain for mere hours or linger for years. I tagged along with Goldenstash’s creator on one such mission.
The artist called me at 1:30 am to ask frantically, for the second time, if I was setting him up and, for the second time, I spent 10 minutes convincing him that I’m neither a narc nor an undercover cop, that I do actually work for the Phoenix. Finally, at about 2:10 am, I arrived by bike at a quiet Inman Square. Bukowski’s went dark, and its staff ambled outside, chatted, then dispersed into the night. The artist rode up on a black road bike with squeaking gears, seemingly more relaxed than he’d been on the phone. He had a paintbrush in his back pocket and carried an old Tupperware container of homemade wheatpaste in his frayed messenger bag. (The paste, for some reason, contained maple syrup, so we both ended up smelling slightly sweet by the end of the night.)
“Let’s do one in the cut first,” he said.
One in the what? “An easy one. Like on a dumpster or something.” So we rode to the nearest NO PARKING sign, where, in an attempt to avoid attracting attention with my squealing brakes, I crashed into the curb, and spilled awkwardly onto the sidewalk. Slightly scraped, but okay, I followed him to the next spot — the box beneath a flashing yellow traffic light. He removed a large sheet of Goldenstash heads and quickly coated the back with a thin layer of wheatpaste.
“Sometimes I like to sit on a park bench and do this nonchalantly,” he said, smoothing out the trapped air bubbles with his hands. Then he waterproofed the installation with an external coat of maple-tinged paste. He says people rarely question him when he’s working; he’s actually posted some of his work in broad daylight— swiftness and casual demeanor are key. The last place we go is one of the ultimate risks in street-art land: a target mere feet away from the Cambridge police station. He carefully concealed his brush from two taxis and an off-duty pizza delivery guy who drove by, and, with little hesitation, posted a large Goldenstash print on a box at the base of a streetlight.
