From The Underground Up: The Birth of Aerosol Nightmares
Richie Cortes Roldan, a graf artist and cultural organizer, is a 2023 artist-in-residence for the Porch On TAP workshop series at Inside Southwest Detroit.
Early Influences and the Road to Aerosol Nightmares
After years of witnessing Detroit suppress graffiti art while co-opting its aesthetic, Richie Cortes Roldan knew artists needed a space of their own. Aerosol Nightmares is a direct response to erasure. But its foundation was built well before the first jam.
“Richie has long embraced the power of art as an on-ramp to neighborhood engagement outside of existing institutional norms. ”
Richie has long embraced the power of art as an on-ramp to neighborhood engagement outside of existing institutional norms. Growing up in Southwest Detroit, he built his skills in communal settings, balancing passion and learning—receiving from and demonstrating responsibility to the culture in a way that sustained both his own growth and the creative community around him.
As a youth member of Expressions while attending Western International High School, Richie played a key role in developing The Alley Project (TAP) and Blackbook Sessions between 2005-2010. These experiences laid the groundwork for the artist-led vision of Aerosol Nightmares.
The idea for the jam finally took root in a conversation between Richie and fellow Southwest Detroit artist Miguel Faz. As a writer from an earlier generation, Miguel helped bridge connections with veteran artists and more complex, piece-oriented writers. His presence reinforced the continuity between generations, ensuring that Aerosol Nightmares honored Detroit’s graffiti art lineage while it creates new opportunities.
Blackbooks and Free Walls
Blackbook Sessions began in 2005 as monthly Expressions meetups where Detroit graffiti artists gathered to sketch, exchange ideas, and build community. Over time, these peer-led gatherings expanded into artists’ homes and cultural spaces across the city, providing community building opportunities for writers excluded from institutional art spaces.
Since the pandemic, Richie has played a key role in reviving these sessions—overseeing intergenerational meetups at Motor City Street Dance Academy and Inside Southwest Detroit. The gatherings have helped to surface new talent, re-engage veteran artists, and ultimately clarified the vision for Aerosol Nightmares. They reinforced the need for an artist-led platform where graffiti writers could reclaim agency over their public art and operate on their own terms.
The Alley Project: A Community-Directed Model
What began as four garages offering their graffiti-covered surfaces in service of local youth’s creative development expanded into a broader collection of permission walls.
Over time, TAP evolved from free walls and informal mentorship to structured programming, community engagement sessions, and a vision that transformed the space into a lasting neighborhood resource. The project utilized a model for public art that was community-directed rather than imposed from the outside.
“Aerosol Nightmares adapted aspects of this model, translating the approach to a large-scale graffiti jam”
Aerosol Nightmares adapted aspects of this model, translating the approach to a large-scale graffiti jam that puts artists in charge of space transformation. The event incorporates the same core values of autonomy, mentorship, and raw expression while taking the vision to a larger stage.
Aerosol Nightmares: A Global Movement
Aerosol Nightmares doesn’t exist in isolation—it aligns with global graffiti and street art movements that resist gentrification, commercialization, and the erasure of artistic communities. It’s a response to the forces that sanitize and control public art while profiting from its aesthetics.
The grassroots graffiti jam brought over 70 artists together in July to paint in Southwest Detroit and on the East Side on their own terms, not bound by institutional limitations. Driven by the creative community’s passion, the event demonstrated the power of artist-led cultural programming. As corporate sponsorship and political agendas increasingly shape public art in Detroit, events like Aerosol Nightmares offer ways for artists and communities to transform space together.
By transforming city walls into bridges for reimagining familiar spaces, Aerosol Nightmares shows that graffiti art isn’t just part of Detroit’s history—it’s shaping its future.
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Graffiti is Detroit history. And through initiatives like Aerosol Nightmares, that history is still being written by artists who helped build it.