[1] Since moving to New York City in 1979, his work has focused almost exclusively on documenting the art, life and times of the Lower East Side in Manhattan.
Seeking a more experimental and avant garde art scene, Patterson and Rensaa left Canada and took up residence in lower Manhattan.[when?]
[3] The NO!Art movement was founded by the late Boris Lurie, Stanley Fisher and Sam Goodman at March gallery, in New York in 1960.
Though technically trained as an artist, Patterson's sculpture style is more akin to so-called outsider or folk art, often incorporating found objects, vibrantly painted and collaged in elaborate vitrines and decorated frames.
The bottom floor paid the mortgage, and in 1986 he converted the small storefront into an art gallery and Clayton Cap store.
From 1986 to 2003, they showcased a variety of New York artists, writers, neighborhood personalities including Quentin Crisp, Dash Snow, Angel "LA2" Ortiz, Boris Lurie, tattoo artist Spider Webb, Genesis P-Orridge, Peter Missing, Mary Beach, Taylor Mead, Agathe Snow, Swoon, Herbert Huncke and Elsa Rensaa.
As Booksinger gradually retired from manufacturing, Patterson and Rensaa took up the business of embroidering their own designs on hand made hats with a 100-year-old Bonis embroidery machine.
In 1972, Rensaa gave Patterson his first camera and in 1980 he began photographing life in the Lower East Side of New York City.
So my answer to the knuckleheads who say taking pictures is stealing souls is, go back to your middle or upper class existence and stay out of my life.
[attribution needed]On August 6 and 7, 1988, police clashed with the young anarchist squatter population in Tompkins Square Park in the Lower East Side causing a massive riot.
Patterson had initially gone out to video tape a performance at the Pyramid Club, but noticed a lot of activity around the park as well as a sizable police presence.
Patterson's collection of photography, video, art, press clippings, and books comprise a vast archive of Lower East Side history.
The archive also consists of various ephemera from the streets of New York City including brand stamped glassine heroin bags, protest banners and fliers, graffiti stickers and art.
Patterson's documentation of the NYC hardcore punk scene of the 1980s and early 1990s includes footage of Bad Brains, Murphy's Law, Sick of it All, Reagan Youth, Sheer Terror and G.G.
Giger, Kembra Pfahler (of the Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black), Ira Cohen, Pyramid Club dancers Phoebe Legere, Dee Finley, folk historian and ethnomusicologist Harry Smith and numerous tattoo artists, colorful characters and NYC community leaders comprise an extensive historical document of the city.
In a relatively history-rich report on Patterson, 65 years old as of April 2014, The New York Times' Alan Feuer reported the imminent departure of the artist from New York city for the Austrian spa town, Bad Ischl, on the Traun River in the center of the Salzkammergut region of Upper Austria;[5] Patterson is quoted as saying of NYC, that "[t]here's nothing left for me… The energy is gone.
"[6] In the same report, Alan Kaufman, a writer and a friend of Patterson, suggested his departure was akin to "Atget quitting Paris".