A fading poster reads 'time to unperson,' a memento from the original Miniluv exhibition in Narrowsburg in 2023.

RR photo by Liam Mayo

ROSCOE, NY — A mural on the side of a furniture store in Roscoe remains unfinished after backlash from members of the Roscoe community caused the artist to pause work on the project. 

The mural as planned will depict the words “time to unperson” in white text on a black background. “Unperson” is a concept from George Orwell’s book “1984,” a text depicting a fictional repressive government; it denotes the process of removing a political dissident entirely from existence through alteration to the written and visual historic record. 

The work is part of the series Miniluv, which artist Seth Carnes began in 2023 as part of an Orwell-focused iteration of Narrowsburg’s Deep Water Literary Festival. Miniluv refers to the Ministry of Love, a government agency in Orwell’s “1984” responsible for the torture of political dissidents. 

Carnes told the River Reporter the series does not have a specific political message. 

“It’s a contemporary artwork in how it may fit our time, but not a specific reaction to a given political party, country or situation,” said Carnes. “There are universal, historic forces and patterns at play, something Orwell recognized in the 1940s with his work on ‘1984,’ that are still applicable today.”

Carnes began painting the mural on the side of Sunday Home, an upscale furniture store that occupies a space formerly occupied by a guns and ammunition store. He said he had been interested in painting that space since the gun store went out of business in 2024, but that the project only came together when Sunday Home expressed an interest in a mural. Acording to Carnes, his contract is with the owners of Sunday Home, but they ran the project by the building’s owner, Dan Sferrazza, and got his blessing before they proceeded. 

Sunday Home co-owner Paul Giordano told the River Reporter he and his business partner Shaindy Pollack did not intend for the artwork to be political. "We just wanted [the building] to be attractive," he said.

Carnes' typographical art appealed as a match for Sunday Home because he was a local artist, and because the large lettering he used would be eye-catching for travelers driving down Roscoe's Main Street, said Giordano.

Sferrazza told the River Reporter that when he discussed the mural with the business' owners eight to 11 months prior, the mural was to be Catskill related, with a fishing or trout theme. He said he didn't know the new direction the mural had taken until it was too late. 

Work suspended

Carnes began painting on July 21, and worked on the mural until July 25, getting to the point at which “... to unperson” could be seen.

On that day, Carnes said he was up on the scaffolding working on the mural when a man—later identified as Phil Vallone, former president of Rolling V Bus Corp.—approached him. 

According to Carnes, Vallone told him the work had to be stopped, and the whole thing would be painted over that day. 

The two men got the owner of the building, Dan Sferrazza, on the phone. (Sferrazza is leasing the building to Sunday Home.) According to Carnes, Sferrazza and Vallone would not say what they found objectionable about the work, only that it was “vulgar” and that people had found it objectionable. 

Carnes told the other two that he had a contract to do the work, and that they would be liable for criminal vandalism and civil damages if they painted over it. 

Vallone left, but other people continued to stop by the project, with one saying he was there to paint over it on Vallone’s instructions, according to Carnes. 

Carnes set up surveillance cameras and signs warning off potential vandals, and spoke with the state police to file a report. Currently, work on the project is paused as Carnes and Vallone plan to have a mediated conversation later in August. 

The eye of the beholder

It remains unclear what message members of the community have taken from the mural; however, according to Vallone, it appears that some people believe that message does not belong in their community. 

“If the artist can’t create a unifying message, he should bring his artwork elsewhere,” Vallone told the River Reporter. “There’s one thing to be a provocative artist, as he has been referred to; there is another to be simply divisive. That’s what this message is—judge for yourself and draw your own conclusions.”

“My position is the same as many of my friends and colleagues in town, firemen, business owners and in the coffee shop circles…,” Vallone said. 

According to Giordano, a good portion of the community has given the mural a very positive response. 

"I've had people come into the store and thank me for putting it up," he said. 

Carnes said the pressure from the community to stop work on the mural has led the work from being a conceptual artwork to being a piece of art intimately engaged with the community. 

“A few words on a wall in Roscoe have been perceived by a few people as an extreme intervention in the social fabric of their lives,” said Carnes. “So now this manifestation of the project becomes centered on the question of censorship or tolerance, and which path will be chosen.”

According to Sferrazza, a lot of older people, including a lot of people who own businesses in town, are highly offended by the mural. The reading on the phrase he has seen indicates that it means when someone is in political power who people disagree with, people can erase that person by ignoring their existence. 

Sferrazza said he has gotten a deluge of harassing calls since the situation began, with people thinking that he was ultimately responsible for the mural. 

"I'm just kind of stuck in the middle of all of this," he said. "The heat is all on me."

He called himself a very neutral person, and said that while he believes people should be able to express their opinion, he absolutely does not want to offend anyone.

Vallone suggested replacement text for the mural to read, “Dancing in the moonlight, #kingharvest,” referencing the song by the same name. 

The River Reporter asked him what the significance was of that song as a replacement. 

“Feel good, baby,” he said. “Peaceful and joyful celebration of life.”

Giordano sees Roscoe as a community in the midst of change, similar to other communities in Sullivan County such as Narrowsburg, Jeffersonville and Callicoon. 

Sunday Home came into Roscoe in 2024 as a furniture and interior design store replacing a gun shop, an irony Giordano is aware of. "You could see the community was beginning to gentrify, hence us taking a store," he said. 

However, he believes Sunday Home—and Carnes' art—doesn't act inherently as a divisive force in the community, but can rather be inclusive of all the different types of people that make up Roscoe. 

"You have different types of people sharing the same island," Giordano said. "We all have to share the island together."

Editor's note: This article was updated on Tuesday, August 5 as of 5 p.m. with comments from Sunday Home co-owner Paul Giordano and building owner Dan Sferrazza.