Underground Sonoma County Artist Shares Inspiration Behind Popular Street Art

Every superhero has an origin story. For Sonoma County’s anonymous Velvet Bandit, it started off innocently enough. Imagine a 46-year-old school lunch lady going about her daily routine — one day pizza, the next, sloppy joes. Then all of a sudden, a pandemic hits. Laid off, and at home with two kids, she was inspired to try street art for the first time. It felt urgent, like shouting into the void to see if anyone was listening. So, late one night in March 2020, she pasted up a small painting of a toilet-paper roll with the words “Let’s Roll” under a bridge along the Santa Rosa Creek Trail. “I stood back and thought, ‘Oh my god, that looks so cool,’” she remembers. “Then I went back into my studio and started painting a bunch more. I was instantly hooked.” Since then, she’s pasted hundreds of vibrant street paintings on alley walls, utility boxes, and street signs from Willits to Los Angeles. They’re often punny (“Not mushroom for hate here” written on a fungus). Sometimes they’re political (“Tax the Rich” on Abraham Lincoln’s face). And other times oddly inspirational, like an award ribbon that reads, “Didn’t quit my job today.” Santa...