After some back and forth texting one morning with the artist behind ‘Not Art,’ he told me to meet him at Winthrop Park in Harvard Square outside of Peet’s Coffee. We bought some drinks and he and the barista played around with the phrase ‘on and off’ turning it to ‘off and on’ and then ‘often on.’

“I may have to use that as a visual pun for a piece,” he said.

We meandered around Harvard Square looking for a sheltered spot to talk about his ‘Not Art’ work. Around fifteen minutes later, we ended up where we started and sat on a bench in the park.

Although he wishes to remain anonymous, the artist actively communicates with his fans and critics alike through social media. He’s an active Instagram user and tries to comment on everything that is posted under #notart.

“The hashtag of ‘Not Art’ allows me to go and look at it and I can see what people did when they take a photo,” he said. “Which is awesome, and then they’ll comment and usually say something like, ‘Or is it?’ or ‘Oh thanks for pointing that out.’ What’s awesome is I can make a comment as the artist.”

Sometimes though, the comments aren’t so positive. Just look at any of the articles written about ‘Not Art’ and you’ll find accusations of vandalism and imitation.

“I know it’s going to piss people off,” he said. “To me, it’s very much like writing a comment, but in the real world. I’ll stand behind that comment. I stand behind what I do.”

The idea of ‘Not Art’ began around 2007, when the artist was a waiter at Rendezvous in Central Square. Before that, as a student at Oberlin College, he experimented with assemblage and collage work but, according to him, it didn’t really go anywhere.

During a shift at work, he brought in a burnt-looking box to show his coworkers and placed it by the waiters’ station. He got mixed reactions from customers at the end of the night, but the common thought among them was, ‘what the hell is this box and what’s in it?’