--- title: Thank You for Stealing the Mona Lucy | Lake Oswego Street Art url: https://norville.art/ description: Free street art in Lake Oswego, Oregon. Artist norville hangs the Mona Lucy, a new Lisa with features borrowed from Lucille Ball, for anyone to steal. --- # Thank you for stealing the Mona Lucy Lake Oswego, Oregon ## The Concept ![The Mona Lucy: norville’s black-and-white spray-paint Lisa with features borrowed from Lucille Ball, in an ornate gold frame](https://norville.art/images/the-mona-lucy-norville-s-black-01671253.webp) Ever notice that whenever there’s a heist to steal a painting, it’s always the Mona Lisa? The idea was to bring the rush you get from stealing a priceless artwork to the people. I make Mona Lucys and hang them in public but secluded spots around Lake Oswego, just south of Portland. Each one just sits on a hook on the wall with nothing protecting it, until someone steals it and leaves a shadow where it hung. And voilà, you stole the Mona Lucy! Once it’s stolen, the piece is complete. ## Completing the Art A Mona Lucy isn’t finished until someone steals it. ### How it works I paint a Mona Lucy, put it in a gold frame and hang it somewhere public. Next to it goes a small gallery card that says it’s okay to take it. The painting is only half of the piece. The other half is somebody deciding to lift it off the wall and carry it home. [Marcel Duchamp](https://norville.art/duchamp/) said a viewer finishes a work of art just by looking at it. This one asks the viewer to take it. [More on Duchamp and the Creative Act.](https://norville.art/duchamp/) ### If you took one Then you finished it. The empty spot on the wall is your half of the work, and the piece is credited to both of us. We’ll probably never meet. Hang it up or give it away. It’s yours now. ![The empty cinder-block wall in Lake Oswego where the first Mona hung, the day after it was taken](https://norville.art/images/the-empty-cinder-block-wall-in-98174fe9.webp) Steal the Mona Lucy Paint on board in gold frame If there is still a Mona Lucy hanging beside this sign, feel free to steal it. Where the first one hung, the day after. The card is the one that hangs next to every Mona. ## Mona Lisa as an idea The Mona Lisa turned into an idea in August 1911, the day someone carried her out of the Louvre. Most people who know her face have never stood in front of the painting. They know her from copies, and the copies started piling up after 1911. ## Original Leonardo da Vinci started the portrait in Florence around 1503. The sitter was most likely Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a silk merchant named Francesco del Giocondo, which is why Italians call it *La Gioconda*. Leonardo kept working on it for years and never handed it over. It went with him to France, ended up in the royal collection and, after the Revolution, in the Louvre. For a long time it was just a respected Leonardo in the Salon Carré. Critics liked it. Most visitors walked right past. **Mona Lisa, Louvre** Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1503–1519, as it hangs today ![The Mona Lisa in its gilt frame on a dark wall at the Louvre](https://norville.art/images/the-mona-lisa-in-its-gilt-9500e10e.webp) ## Theft On a Monday morning in August 1911, Vincenzo Peruggia, a handyman who had helped put in the museum’s protective glass, came out of a storeroom where he’d spent the night, lifted the panel off its hooks, slipped it under his smock and walked out. Nobody noticed for most of the day. The guards figured it was off being photographed. **Vincenzo Peruggia** Paris police identification photographs from an earlier arrest, dated January 1909. His prints were on file when the frame was found, and nobody matched them. ![Vincenzo Peruggia’s police identification photographs, profile and front view, signed Peruggia and dated 25.1.09](https://norville.art/images/vincenzo-peruggia-s-police-identification-photographs-90e89a34.webp) ![The empty wall in the Salon Carré after the Mona Lisa was stolen in 1911, four bare hooks between two framed paintings](https://norville.art/images/the-empty-wall-in-the-salon-c22ef385.webp) **The Salon Carré, Louvre** August 1911, after the theft The museum closed for a week. When it reopened, people lined up to look at four iron hooks. Kafka and Max Brod were in Paris that fall and went to see the gap. The face was on front pages for weeks; Apollinaire spent a few days in jail on suspicion, and Picasso was brought in for questioning. For two years the painting was only reproductions and rumor, and somewhere in there it became the most recognized picture in the world. Peruggia had it the whole time, in a trunk in his room in Paris. In December 1913 he took it to Florence and offered it to an art dealer, Alfredo Geri, who called the police. The painting came home with a story attached, and that story is a large part of why people still line up to see it. ![Vincenzo Peruggia holding the Mona Lisa in front of the empty wall in the Salon Carré](https://norville.art/images/vincenzo-peruggia-holding-the-mona-lisa-e0b73b61.webp) **Peruggia with the Mona Lisa** A later photomontage, set against the empty wall in the Salon Carré ## In art, music and movies ![A still from the 1966 film The Mona Lisa Has Been Stolen: a young man in a dark jacket and a woman in a Renaissance gown and headband stand on either side of a gilt-framed Mona Lisa](https://norville.art/images/a-still-from-the-1966-film-96299fc4.webp) George Chakiris and Marina Vlady in [*The Mona Lisa Has Been Stolen*](https://letterboxd.com/film/the-mona-lisa-has-been-stolen/), 1966 ### Mona Lisa replicas and reinterpretations The copying started early, some of it within Leonardo’s lifetime, and artists have been borrowing her ever since. - ![Two early 16th-century copies of the Mona Lisa side by side: the Isleworth Mona Lisa on the left and the Prado Mona Lisa on the right](https://norville.art/images/two-early-16th-century-copies-of-ec9b75c2.webp) Two early 16th-century replicasThe [Isleworth Mona Lisa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isleworth_Mona_Lisa) (left) and the [Prado Mona Lisa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_Lisa_(Prado)), reputed to be the earliest replica. - ![Andy Warhol’s Colored Mona Lisa: rows of the Mona Lisa silkscreened in yellow, pink, blue and black](https://norville.art/images/andy-warhol-s-colored-mona-lisa-14412c03.webp) Andy Warhol, *Colored Mona Lisa*, 1963When the painting came to the United States on loan in 1963, Warhol silkscreened her over and over, the same way he did with soup cans and movie stars. - ![Mr. Brainwash’s Mona Lisa spray can: a black lenticular can with her face showing through, under a pink cap](https://norville.art/images/mr-brainwash-s-mona-lisa-spray-a7797279.webp) [Mr. Brainwash](https://www.mrbrainwash.com/), Mona Lisa spray canHe started out filming street artists, Banksy included, before he became one. Her face shows through the stripes on the can. - ![Banksy stencil of the Mona Lisa wearing headphones and holding a rocket launcher, on a wall with graffiti](https://norville.art/images/banksy-stencil-of-the-mona-lisa-1edd4561.webp) [Banksy](https://www.banksy.co.uk/), Mona Lisa with a rocket launcherHeadphones on, rocket launcher on her shoulder, sprayed on a wall. - ![Mona Diva: the Mona Lisa redone with a big afro, green aviator sunglasses, gold hoop earrings and painted nails](https://norville.art/images/mona-diva-the-mona-lisa-redone-d19fa457.webp) *Mona Diva*, from BFA printsThere are a lot of variations like this out there. This one gives her an afro, aviators and gold hoops. - ![A forearm tattoo of the Mona Lisa with a frown and sad eyebrows, signed Andrea Morales](https://norville.art/images/a-forearm-tattoo-of-the-mona-e8365a43.webp) Tattoo, signed Andrea MoralesShe shows up on skin too. This one turns her smile upside down. ### Music In 1950 Nat King Cole recorded “Mona Lisa,” a ballad by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans written for the film *Captain Carey, U.S.A.* It went to number one and won the Oscar for best original song. ![Nat King Cole in a dark suit and bow tie, smiling and gesturing toward a framed copy of the Mona Lisa hanging on a wall of portraits](https://norville.art/images/nat-king-cole-in-a-dark-8248915e.webp) Nat King Cole with the Mona Lisa, 1957 ### Books and movies ![The cover of The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, with the Mona Lisa’s eyes showing through a torn red cover](https://norville.art/images/the-cover-of-the-da-vinci-f9587f72.webp) *The Da Vinci Code*, [Dan Brown](https://danbrown.com/books/novels/the-da-vinci-code/), 2003 [Dan Brown](https://danbrown.com/books/novels/the-da-vinci-code/)’s *The Da Vinci Code* turned her into a puzzle. The book opens with a murder in the Louvre, and one of the first clues is written on the glass in front of the Mona Lisa. It has sold more than 80 million copies worldwide, and the movie followed in 2006. - *Vanished Smile: The Mysterious Theft of the Mona Lisa* R. A. Scotti, 2009The 1911 theft and the two-year search, told as part art history and part detective story. - *The Crimes of Paris* Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler, 2009The theft set against Paris at the time, including the arrest of the poet Guillaume Apollinaire as a suspect. - *The Day They Stole the Mona Lisa* Seymour V. Reit, 1981One of the first full accounts of the heist, written seventy years after it happened. Movies keep coming back to her too, usually as the thing in the heist. - ![Poster for The Theft of the Mona Lisa (1931): the painting beside a man in profile, with the title in big red letters and stars Willy Forst and Trude von Molo](https://norville.art/images/poster-for-the-theft-of-the-09f15c88.webp) *The Theft of the Mona Lisa*, 1931 Peruggia’s side of the 1911 job, filmed twenty years later. - ![Poster for The Mona Lisa Has Been Stolen (1966): a woman in a corset in front of a man carrying the framed Mona Lisa over a Paris skyline](https://norville.art/images/poster-for-the-mona-lisa-has-4d54939e.webp) [*The Mona Lisa Has Been Stolen*](https://letterboxd.com/film/the-mona-lisa-has-been-stolen/), 1966 A French remake of the 1931 film, with George Chakiris as a young picture framer in Paris who plans the theft. - ![Poster for Glass Onion (2022): the cast lined up on a Greek island shore under the yellow Glass Onion title](https://norville.art/images/poster-for-glass-onion-2022-the-559777b9.webp) *Glass Onion*, 2022 A tech billionaire borrows her for his private island, and she gets destroyed. - ![Poster for Masterplan (2026): Stanley Tucci and his crew in front of the Arc de Triomphe](https://norville.art/images/poster-for-masterplan-2026-stanley-tucci-f1e1bd93.webp) *Masterplan*, 2026 Stanley Tucci plays an old thief planning one more job on the Louvre. ## Marcel Duchamp and the Creative Act In April 1957, [Duchamp](https://norville.art/duchamp/) gave a short talk in Houston called [“The Creative Act.”](https://ubu.punctumbooks.com/papers/duchamp_creative.html) His argument was that an artist can only take a work partway. You start with an intention, you end up with an object, and there’s always a gap between the two. The viewer closes it by looking, interpreting and deciding what the thing is worth. In his words, the creative act “is not performed by the artist alone.” He’d been working that way for a long time. In 1919 he drew a mustache and goatee on a postcard of the Mona Lisa, lettered L.H.O.O.Q. underneath, and left the joke for the viewer to find by reading it out loud. She’s been the picture people reach for ever since when they want to argue about copies and who owns an icon. This project takes his idea one step further. A viewer who looks and interprets still walks away and leaves the piece on the wall. Here the viewer has to become a collaborator. You decided to lift it off the hook and carry it out, and that’s what completed it. **[Marcel Duchamp](https://norville.art/duchamp/), L.H.O.O.Q.** Rectified readymade, 1919. This version is annotated April 1942, with the mustache credited to Picabia and the goatee to Duchamp. ![Duchamp’s L.H.O.O.Q.: a postcard reproduction of the Mona Lisa with a drawn mustache, the letters LHOOQ on a strip below, and handwritten inscriptions](https://norville.art/images/duchamp-s-l-h-o-o-f93dff37.webp) ![Marcel Duchamp, smoking a cigar, holding up a framed copy of L.H.O.O.Q.](https://norville.art/images/marcel-duchamp-smoking-a-cigar-holding-d0d748d8.webp) **Marcel Duchamp with L.H.O.O.Q.** The artist and his framed postcard ## Theft Theft is where you come in. A copy on a wall is one of millions. Once someone wants it badly enough to take it, it gets a history of its own: it hung here, someone took it, nobody knows where it went. That’s 1911 again on a much smaller scale. [Banksy](https://www.banksy.co.uk/) got to a version of this by accident. People started cutting his pieces out of walls, and the cut-out pieces got more attention and sold for more than they would have where he left them. The shredder came later, and that one was on purpose. The theft is the part I leave to you. I provide the face, and somebody else has to commit to it. You made a choice nobody asked you to make, which takes more than looking does. Peruggia said he did it for Italy. You have your own reason, and it’s part of the piece now, even if I never hear it. ## Cinema Movies keep coming back to Leonardo’s [Mona Lisa](https://www.google.com/search?kgmid=%2Fm%2F0jbg2&q=Mona+Lisa), usually as the thing in the heist, and now and then as a clue in a story about someone hiding who they are. 1. Heist ### *The Theft of the Mona Lisa*1931, directed by Géza von Bolváry ![Poster for The Theft of the Mona Lisa](https://norville.art/images/poster-for-the-theft-of-the-09f15c88.webp) A German comedy-drama told from Peruggia’s side. It appeared twenty years after the theft and was the first feature to take on the actual events. [Not on Rotten Tomatoes. Watch it at the Internet Archive](https://archive.org/details/1931DerRaubDerMonaLisaGezaVonBolvaary) 2. Mystery ### *The Da Vinci Code*2006, directed by Ron Howard ![Poster for The Da Vinci Code](https://norville.art/images/poster-for-the-da-vinci-code-87c9f301.webp) A message on the protective glass that only shows up under ultraviolet light keeps the plot moving. The Louvre wouldn’t let the crew light the real one, so every Mona Lisa you see on screen is a replica. [Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/da_vinci_code) 3. Target ### *Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery*2022, directed by Rian Johnson ![Poster for Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery](https://norville.art/images/poster-for-glass-onion-2022-the-559777b9.webp) Edward Norton plays a tech billionaire who keeps the painting on his private Greek island, supposedly on loan from the Louvre. It gets destroyed before the end. [Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/glass_onion_a_knives_out_mystery) 4. Heist ### *Masterplan*2026, directed by Thomas Vincent, Prime Video ![Poster for Masterplan](https://norville.art/images/poster-for-masterplan-2026-stanley-tucci-f1e1bd93.webp) Stanley Tucci plays Roger, an old thief who puts together a crew of two young specialists and then tells them they’re brother and sister and he’s their father. They were already shooting when the Louvre really was robbed in 2025. [Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/masterplan_2026) ## The Mona Lucy ![Four Mona Lucys in different gold frames laid out on a wood floor, some with L.H.O.O.Q. lettered on the bottom rail](https://norville.art/images/four-mona-lucys-in-different-gold-2f6284b0.jpg) Why not just reproduce Leonardo’s Mona Lisa? Leonardo painted one woman, Lisa Gherardini, and for five hundred years hers is the face everyone copies. [Duchamp](https://norville.art/duchamp/) gave her a mustache and [Banksy](https://www.banksy.co.uk/) handed her a rocket launcher, and her face stayed the same. The Mona Lucy is a new Lisa. She keeps the pose, the folded hands and the gold frame, and she borrows from [Lucille Ball](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucille_Ball), mostly the lashes and eyebrows, and the dark lipstick too. So it’s basically two really famous faces mashed into one. You know a famous face before you even think about it. You spot it from across the street, it feels like running into someone you know, and you walk over. Leonardo’s Lisa has five hundred years of that. Lucy has seventy years of *I Love Lucy* reruns, a show that was the most-watched in America for four of its six seasons. Put a little of each into one portrait and people stop, look twice and start trying to place her. Yours has a certificate of authenticity attached to the back. Keep it with the piece, and please don’t post it online. Register Your Mona LucyRegistration opens soon. ![The Mona Lucy in an ornate gold frame, black spray paint on a pale board, with L.H.O.O.Q. lettered on the bottom rail](https://norville.art/images/the-mona-lucy-in-an-ornate-ba34052f.webp) The Mona Lucy ![norville cutting the Mona Lucy stencil by hand with a craft knife, tile 1 of 3, on a cutting mat](https://norville.art/images/norville-cutting-the-mona-lucy-stencil-e2ed9ee6.jpg) Cutting the stencil by hand. ![Freshly sprayed Mona Lucys on white boards, next to an orange board covered in black overspray, on a drop cloth](https://norville.art/images/freshly-sprayed-mona-lucys-on-white-92060b0d.jpg) Fresh off the stencil, still drying. ![The back of a Mona Lucy: a white card reading Thank you for Stealing The Mona Lucy, Spray Art on board in gold frame, with www.norville.art and a QR code, above a certificate of authenticity sticker with its serial number blurred](https://norville.art/images/the-back-of-a-mona-lucy.webp) The back, with the QR code and the certificate. [More about the Mona Lucy →](https://norville.art/mona-lucy/) ## L.H.O.O.Q. ![Close-up of the bottom rail of the gold bamboo frame, with L.H.O.O.Q. hand-lettered in black marker just below the Mona Lucy’s stenciled white hand](https://norville.art/images/close-up-of-the-bottom-rail-9c2d0c2b.webp) On the bottom rail of every frame, yours included. The letters are a joke you only get by saying them out loud. Read them one at a time in French and you’re saying the letter names: elle, ache, o, o, cu. Say them fast and they run together into a sentence. LelleelElleHacheahsha ch‑Oooh‑audOoohauQcukew, lips roundedcul. Word by word: elle : she a : has chaud : hot au : at the, in the cul : ass Literally it’s “she has a hot ass,” and it’s slang for being turned on. *Cul* is the vulgar word, nearer to arse than to bottom. So [Duchamp](https://norville.art/duchamp/) put a mustache on the most respected woman in painting and captioned her with a dirty joke that stays hidden until somebody reads it aloud. The frames use the same trick. Now you know what yours says. **[Marcel Duchamp](https://norville.art/duchamp/), L.H.O.O.Q.** Rectified readymade, 1919. This version is annotated April 1942, with the mustache credited to Picabia and the goatee to Duchamp. ![Duchamp’s L.H.O.O.Q.: a postcard reproduction of the Mona Lisa with a drawn mustache, the letters LHOOQ on a strip below, and handwritten inscriptions](https://norville.art/images/duchamp-s-l-h-o-o-f93dff37.webp) ## The empty nail Each hangs from a single nail or hook and lifts off easily, so taking one is a quick decision. Each one gets photographed in place, then again after it’s gone. How long it lasted gets written down. A Mona Lisa that lasts three months tells you something different than one that’s gone by lunch. The first one lasted a day. There’s a photo of the empty spot yours left behind, too. ![The first Mona Lisa hanging in its gold frame on a white cinder-block wall](https://norville.art/images/the-first-mona-lisa-hanging-in-9c945c37.webp) **Before** The first one, hung ![The same wall the next day: the painting is gone, and a spray-painted black corner mark is left where the frame hung](https://norville.art/images/the-same-wall-the-next-day-c7a653a8.webp) **After** Gone within a day ![The Mona Lucy at night in an ornate gold frame on a dark wall, lit from above by a small battery light](https://norville.art/images/the-mona-lucy-at-night-in-9f559392.webp) > “I will make a Mona Lucy, you will steal a Mona Lucy, and the ART is complete.” > > ![norville](https://norville.art/images/norville-7c7a26a3.webp) ## FAQ About the project ### What is Thank You for Stealing the Mona Lucy? A street art project by norville in Lake Oswego, Oregon, just outside Portland. He makes the Mona Lucy, a new Lisa with features borrowed from Lucille Ball, puts each one in a gold frame and hangs it in a public place, next to a small gallery card that says it’s okay to take it. A piece isn’t finished until someone does. ### Why the Mona Lisa? Every heist movie goes after her, and since the 1911 theft she’s been the most copied face in art. [Duchamp](https://norville.art/duchamp/) drew a mustache on her in 1919, and Warhol, Banksy and plenty of others have had a turn since. She came with a hundred years of context already attached. ### Why Lucille Ball? Because people know her face on sight, and a face people already know does a lot of work. It pulls you across a room before you’ve decided anything. The Mona Lucy is a new Lisa that borrows Lucy’s big lashes, arched brows and dark lips, so from across the street she reads as the Mona Lisa and up close she’s someone you can’t quite place. *I Love Lucy* was the most-watched show in America for four of its six seasons, and seventy years later people still recognize her instantly. [The Mona Lucy](https://norville.art/mona-lucy/) page has more. ### What does L.H.O.O.Q. on the frame mean? It’s a nod to [Duchamp](https://norville.art/duchamp/). Read the letters out loud in French and you’ll get the joke, which is a little rude. The [L.H.O.O.Q.](https://norville.art/#lhooq) section has the translation. ### Where do they get hung? Quiet public spots, mostly around Lake Oswego, Oregon, just south of Portland. Locations aren’t announced ahead of time, since that would take the fun out of finding one. Follow [@art\_norville](https://www.instagram.com/art_norville/) on Instagram to see where they turn up. ### How many are there? The first prototype went up and was stolen within a day. The Mona Lucy is made in a small numbered run. If you took one ### Did I just steal a painting? Technically, you finished one. Taking it off the wall is part of the work, so it wasn’t complete until it left with you. ### Am I in trouble? Not in the least, thank you so much!! It was hung there to be taken, and you took it. That was the arrangement all along. ### Is it really mine now? It is. Hang it somewhere with decent light, or pass it to someone who’ll appreciate the backstory. ### What’s the certificate on the back? Proof that your Mona Lucy is the real thing, with its number. Keep it with the piece, and please don’t post it online. A way to register your Mona Lucy is coming soon. ### Can I post about it? Please do. With stolen art, knowing where a piece ended up is half the story. Tag [@art\_norville](https://www.instagram.com/art_norville/) on Instagram so norville can see where it went, and keep the certificate out of the photo. About the artist ### Who is norville? norville parchment, an artist and designer in Lake Oswego, Oregon, just outside Portland. He spent more than 20 years as a creative director at agencies, then led the user experience groups for Cisco.com and [Intel.com](https://brick-owl-56837459.figma.site/). He left big tech to put more of his time into making things by hand. ### What’s his background in art? norville parchment studied fine art in Lincoln, Nebraska, and founded an art magazine. He used to co-manage NIMBY, an art space in West Oakland where a lot of Burning Man art got its start. He’s shown his art in New York, San Francisco, Oakland, Portland and Lincoln, and he has hand-built [26 books](https://norville.art/books/), each a fully designed remake of a book he wanted to understand better. The books have won a bunch of awards. ### What else does he make? Marionettes and hand puppets, five board games including [Race Cards](https://www.finish-race.com/), a cognitive bias flashcard app with cats called [Purrplexed](https://www.purrplexed.me/), and smoke rings fired from homemade vortex cannons with [C.A.T.S.S.](https://catss.tech/) He makes music most days, too. ### Where has he shown his work? Mostly paintings of angels, back when he still thought he was a painter: - *Short Love Tails*, online show, Kunstmatrix, 2022 - Group exhibition, Gallery 114, 2019 - Group exhibition, NIMBY, Oakland, 2011 - *Angels Among Us*, solo exhibition, 2010 - *The Angel as Protagonist*, SOMA Artist Open Studios, San Francisco, 2010 - *Falling Angels*, group exhibition, Red Ink Studios, San Francisco, 2008 - *Oil Paintings of Angels*, solo exhibition, Madusalon, San Francisco, 2006 - *When Angels Dream*, solo show, Market Street Gallery, San Francisco - *Field of Dreams*, New Year’s Eve, San Francisco ### Can I see a puppet? ![Jacked Al, a marionette of Albert Einstein with wild white hair, a white mustache, a teal ascot and an orange vest, strings visible](https://norville.art/images/jacked-al-a-marionette-of-albert-3cb9b8d5.webp) **Jacked Al (Einstein)** An antique I took apart, changed his hair and clothes and restrung. Then I changed the hair again, and then again. Still working on the hair. This is what I thought he might look like as a superstar today, with sleeves, a cape, biceps and an ascot. ![IRON Neil deGrasse Tyson, a boxing puppet with a mustache, black face tattoos, a white shirt and red boxing gloves](https://norville.art/images/iron-neil-degrasse-tyson-a-boxing-0ef1a2c3.webp) **IRON Neil deGrasse Tyson** A boxing puppet who loves science. ### Are you even famous enough to have a one-sided feud with Banksy? Of course. In fact, I’m more famous than he is. At least you know who I am, so that’s one more person than him. No one knows who [Banksy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banksy) is. That’s his whole thing. ![The only official photo of Banksy: a person in a gray hoodie with arms crossed and a brown paper bag over their head with a cartoon face drawn on it, against corrugated metal](https://norville.art/images/the-only-official-photo-of-banksy-053b279a.webp) The only official photo of Banksy, from the [TIME 100](https://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1984685_1984940_1984945,00.html). And here’s my sidekick, Dismaland Banksy. ![Dismaland Banksy, norville’s marionette with a paper bag over its head, holding a spray can and a Dismaland flag on a hillside above a lake](https://norville.art/images/dismaland-banksy-norville-s-marionette-with-8377a402.webp)![Dismaland Banksy under a bridge covered in graffiti, paper bag on, holding up a can of spray paint and a Dismaland flag](https://norville.art/images/dismaland-banksy-under-a-bridge-covered-12b5dfe4.webp)![Dismaland Banksy with the paper bag pushed back on a footbridge, face pixelated, gray hoodie over a Union Jack shirt, red shorts and yellow shoes, spray can in hand](https://norville.art/images/dismaland-banksy-with-the-paper-bag-200d447d.webp) He has real spray paint, a Dismaland flag and a Union Jack sweatshirt, and underneath the bag he’s the G.O.A.T. Face obscured here, because he’s Banksy. ### Why give the art away? He’s been making art his whole life. He started selling pictures for a quarter when he was five and hasn’t gotten much better at selling since. Letting people take it skips the booth and the price tag, and turns the person who finds it into part of the piece. ![The Mona Lucy in a gold bamboo frame at home, lit by a small light, with the gallery card beside it and a Miles Davis record leaning below](https://norville.art/images/the-mona-lucy-in-a-gold-4bf3125c.webp) Once you steal one, it’s yours to do what you want with it. ## About norville makes Art in Lake Oswego, Oregon. But not in the lake. norville parchment · artist and designer · Lake Oswego, Oregon norville parchment is in search of a creative life. Failing at everything else, he’s driven to street art. Most of it starts from the same habit: to understand a thing, he makes it again. He separates what a work is trying to do from the object itself, then rebuilds the object until the intent shows. Most days he [makes music](https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mZdsGRCDvkOJS0UUVHknS98OXr-1fpXhY). From 2020 to 2025 he mostly disappeared into [making books](https://norville.art/books/). - [Project Wildflower](https://project-wildflower.com/)Where norville works. - [C.A.T.S.S.](https://catss.tech/)Circular Aerial Temporary Sculpture Society. Smoke rings fired from homemade vortex cannons, from a coffee can up to a 55-gallon drum. - [One Two Tree](https://one-two-tree.com)A tree identification guide norville designed to learn the trees of the Pacific Northwest. - [The Foozle Transformations](https://foozle.art/)A little fun with math. - [Purrplexed](https://www.purrplexed.me/)A cognitive bias flashcard app with cats. So, catgnitive biases. - [Finish Race](https://www.finish-race.com/)What if… with no shame, guilt or gotchas, we could take apart the myth of race in 29 cards? [![A tall stack of norville’s hand-built books on a round black table, including How to Be Happy, Safe for Work, Dancing and Other Problems, Curie, Marie Curie, Exploring Consciousness, Einstein Relativity, The Man in Black Gets Hurt, Aves & Arthropods, The Art of Thinking Clearly and No French Fries Given](https://norville.art/images/norville-books-stacked.webp) 2020–2025The Books26 hand-built books, a few awards and one very nice email from a physicist.See the books →](https://norville.art/books/) [Get in Touch](mailto:norville@project-wildflower.com)[@art\_norville](https://www.instagram.com/art_norville/)[Press](https://norville.art/press/) [About](https://norville.art/about/)[Contact](https://norville.art/contact/)[Press](https://norville.art/press/)[Terms and privacy](https://norville.art/terms/)© 2026 norville Parchment --- © 2026 norville Parchment