Two weeks after the opening of his one-man show at Eyejammie, the painter Jackson Brown continues to create new pieces for it. At noon on Saturday, February 19, Brown set up a large blank canvas on the sidewalk in front of the West 25th Street gallery and devoted the next five hours to the creation of a brand-new work. Entitled "Black Jesus," it is a portrait of Kool G Rap, the pioneering Eighties-era "gangsta rapper" from Corona, Queens.

The weather that day was marked by a bright blue sky and temperatures in the twenties. It was, in short, "mad brick." Despite the cold the street was thronged with gallery-goers, many of whom stopped to chat with – or take photos of – Brown at work.

Brown himself was a model of good humor. In addition to his paints and brushes, he'd equipped himself with a beat-up old boom box. From it issued a steady soundtrack of Eighties hiphop classics by the likes of Biz Markie, Whodini, Slick Rick, Dana Dane, KRS-One, the Fat Boys, Whistle, Run-DMC, and Eric B & Rakim. Brown was hatless, but wore a muffler around his neck. Beneath his coat he wore a garbage bag, which provided additional insulation from the cold. He said it was a tip he'd picked up playing wintertime football on the streets of Queens as a kid. .

Working from a small black & white photo of Kool G Rap taped to a corner of the canvas – and painting with both ends of his brush -- Brown used brightly-colored acrylics, spray paint, and Magic Marker. Occasionally, he'd put down the brush and apply paint directly to the canvas from the end of one of his gloved fingers. In all it was an illuminating and entertaining demonstration of "how it's done" in a neighborhood in which the finished product is all one normally sees.

Approving visitors to the worksite included Big Al, G Rap's manager, Chuck "Jigsaw" Creekmur of allhiphop.com.

Brown spent Sunday the 20th recovering at home. After a day immersed in the bitter cold, he said he felt like an astronaut who'd just returned to Earth and was having some trouble readjusting to the old atmosphere.