A 21-year-old self-proclaimed artist from New York has apparently painted cartoon-like portraits in national parks across the west.
Federal investigators were first tipped off after Casey Nocket posted photos of her creations on her Instagram page, a social media photo-sharing site. Her canvasses have included Yosemite’s Vernal Falls, Utah’s Canyonlands, Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park and Oregon’s Crater Lake.
National Park Service spokesman Jeffrey Olson told a San Francisco media outlet that vandalism was illegal and could damage and sometimes destroy treasures.
The news prompted The Cortez Journal to ask if graffiti was an issue across parks and monuments in the Four Corners. Jim Dougan, superintendent at both Natural Bridges National Monument and Hovenweep National Monument in Utah, said no.
“We get graffiti from time to time, but it doesn’t happen very often,” said Dougan.
When it does, Dougan described it as “superficial graffiti,” saying that a child, for example, might pick up a rock and carve their initials into a larger piece of sandstone. At Natural Bridges, park rangers clean up those types of etchings a couple of times a month. The instances at Hovenweep occur less frequent.
“They’re removed immediately,” said Dougan, “because graffiti attracts more graffiti.”
Armed with a spray bottle of water and a kitchen-scouring pad, the graffiti is fairly simple to eliminate, he said.
Nocket, however, didn’t scribble her initials into sandstone. Instead, she used acrylic paints to paint rudimentary profiles, including one with a dangling cigarette.
Vandalizing a national park carries a fine of up to $5,000 and a maximum prison sentence of one year.
