Free art is a tragically rare commodity these days — unless, of course, you live in New York City. Until PaperGirl comes to our towns, the rest of us will just have to live vicariously through the denizens of the five boroughs, or at least those of them who were lucky enough to have original art work hand delivered to them on September 15.

Photo: Basila Hickley

According the New York Times City Room blog, a pack of Brooklynites distributed rolls of art by bicycle randomly throughout the city last Wednesday afternoon. It was New York’s introduction to what has become a world-wide phenomenon. PaperGirl was started by Aisha Ronninger, an inspired Berlin art student, in 2005. It has since spread as far as Romania and South Africa, adopted and carried out by enthusiastic supporters of public art, and usually bicycle culture, too.

Photo: Basila Hickley

The dispersion effort in New York was preceded by an exhibition of the works at the Dumbo Art Center. It’s just amazing to see how much time and effort went into most of these pieces — they’re beautiful! Free art, like free lunch, isn’t really a reality, but even briefly removing the element of commerce from the equation really says amazing things about the power of creativity.

Photo: Basila Hickley

The pack of eight PaperGirl NY art delivery people found that attitudes toward free gifts vary by neighborhood and by borough, though. Manhattanites took the cake for being the least enthused — and borderline combative — unsurprisingly. Granted, shoving things at New Yorkers is generally a bad idea, but the inhabitants of the outer boroughs seem to have been rewarded with more art for their kindness.

FYI PaperGirl, the inhabitants of Portland, Maine are definitely not over free art, so if you tire of the urban jungle, we’re available for a delivery any time in the next year. Until then, I guess we’ll just have to buy art like the rest of the world, or move to the Big Apple.