NASHUA — When Adam Brown first landed the gig to do graffiti piece outside of Chicken 'n' Chips restaurant, it was emblematic of his shift from the underground to the terrestrial — from the illegal to the legal side of street art.

“Nashua seems a little old fashioned still,” said Brown, 25, who opened his own skateboard shop on Temple Street with a graffiti wall outside.

“The city says it's a good idea but they don't really make steps to make it happen,” he said. “I had to build my own legal wall on the side of my building to get it done.”

Chicken 'n' Chips hired him to paint the side of their building on West Hollis Street two years ago.

“Now that (the owner) has seen what I've done since then and how much better I've gotten, he's allowing me to do a big nasty mural, better than what's there,” Brown said.

The mural depicts a chicken breaking through the wall to escape the fate of the fryalator. Brown will go through at least 30 cans of spray paint in about eight hours to complete the piece.

Brown refers to professional quality graffiti as “nasty.”

“It's just another level. If I said someone's 'nasty,' it's professional level,” Brown said. “That's definitely what nasty means.”

The word graffiti derives from the Latin word “graffiato,” meaning “scratched.” In its purest form, modern graffiti traces back to its beginning in cave art some 40,000 years ago.

Still viewed as vandalism by many, the contemporary form spread as part of hip hop culture in 1970s New York City.

In spite of graffiti's lengthy history, and even its market value, Brown said graffiti gets a bad name because most of the graffiti that people see around town are “sloppy tags.”

“The stuff you see driving around, it's all awful. So when you tell a person I'm doing a graffiti piece,” that's what they will think of.

Brown said the artistic graffiti is only to be found under bridges and in train tunnels—far from the eyeshot of most pedestrians.

“They'll say this is real art, real painting, and not just some scribbling,” he said.

People often have a hard time believing his only medium is spray paint. “They say, 'you must have done it with a brushing,' ” he said. “But you can get extremely fine lines and detail with just a spray can and caps.”

Fat caps are used for filling in. Thin caps are used for outlining and detail work.

Brown said his “writing,” as it's called, really took off when he began frequenting a legal wall in Beverly, Mass.

“I saw a whole `nother level of writing down in Beverly when I met (the artist) Kems and those guys. That's when I got seriously inspired to do nasty stuff.”

Offering advise for aspiring graffiti writers, Brown said it's best to practice in a sketch book before attempting to paint on legal walls. “Try to get your own style. Then just go out and take it serious.”

Brown's shop, StreetWise, is located at 147 Temple St. in Nashua. Chicken 'n' Chips, where his most recent work is on display, is at 12 West Hollis St.

srios@newstote.com