Rainworks are positive messages and art that appear when it rains.

Their purpose: To turn rainy days into something to look forward to!

Street art and especially graffiti, has been a part of our ancient city Yerevan for years now. It's not such a huge discovery, I know. What's a discovery for us, is the new kind of street art that has been spread around our city just recently.

"Magic Rain", which is the name of the project a guy named Khachatur and his friends are doing, is supported by "Awesome Foundation" and after a short interview with Khachatur, we found out that he got inspired by http://rain.works/. And so after some research we contacted the geniuses behind this incredible idea.

Who are you, guys? And where are you from?

My name is Xack Fischer, I am the co-founder of Rainworks. I will be answering the questions. The other co-founder is Peregrine Church, and he is here with me and looking over my shoulder as I type. He came up with the idea of rainworks, and I've been helping him since day one.

I was born in and attended high school in California, and moved to Seattle shortly after graduation. Peregrine was born in Alaska and moved to the Seattle area when he was 8 years old.

Did you go to college? What's your profession?

I never went to college. I attended high school in the middle of nowhere in California, and moved to Seattle shorter after graduation. Peregrine attended University of Washington for a few years, constantly changing majors before he decided that college wasn't for him (it wasn't "hands-on" enough), and he left school.

At this point, Rainworks is a full-time job for both of us, so this is our profession. But other than that, we are both magicians. That's actually how Peregrine and I met each other, through magic.

Magicians? Woah! Can you expand on that a bit? Like real magicians?

Yes, we are both magicians. Both Peregrine and myself have been practicing close-up magic since we were teenagers, and we occasionally perform professionally (when we aren't too busy with Rainworks). When we first met, Peregrine was busking (performing street magic for money) and I stopped to watch his show and talk to him. We started meeting up to discuss magic and trade secrets, and our friendship grew from there. We're both involved with our local community of magicians, and we both have a strong passion for magic. We use magic as another way to make people smile, and to make the world a more interesting place.

Okay, now that we are somewhat satisfied, back to the Rainworks. You said the idea of "The Rainworks" belongs to Peregrine. How did the idea to start this project cross your mind?

Peregrine came up with the idea for rainworks in 2013. He saw a video about super-hydrophobic coatings on Youtube, and he thought "Woah, that's awesome." He thought, since concrete changes color when it gets wet, maybe you could use those super-hydrophobic coatings to create hidden messages that only appear on rainy days. We started experimenting with different hydrophobic coating until we eventually found one that was totally invisible on dry concrete!

I saw on your site that you have a long list of people supporting the project now, and I just wonder, did you start the project alone or were there other people helping out?

The main 2 people involved in Rainworks from the beginning are Peregrine and myself. In the beginning, he would make the designs, and I would help him install the pieces, film and take photos. At this point, we both do everything. We've also had LOTS of help from other friends. Every time we go out and install rainworks, we invite our friends to come give us some extra hands. There have been lots of uncredited helpers involved in rainworks, and they are all amazing people!

I assume it's fun to do all those Rainworks, but are the preparations for doing a rainwork also that fun? Tell us a bit about the whole process of doing a rainwork, please.

Rainworks are a lot of fun, but they definitely take work as well. We've come up with a series of steps that we follow whenever we make a rainwork:

-Think of an idea: The first step is figuring out what you want to make. We always try to think of ideas that will make people smile on rainy days. And now that anybody can make their own rainworks, and we aren't the only people doing it, we really have to be especially creative and push the boundaries of the medium if we want our designs to stand out. Thinking of an idea for a rainwork can be the most fun part, or the most frustrating part - depending on the day.

-Making The Stencil: Once we have our design in mind, we make it into a stencil. For our stencils, we use a desktop-cutting plotter, which is a great tool that basically allows us to design anything on the computer and hit "print" and the machine cuts out the stencils for us. This allows us to basically let our imaginations soar - anything we can think of, we can easily make the stencil. This part of the creation process is time consuming, but not necessarily challenging. Sometimes we have to spend several days making the stencils before we are ready to go out and install the rainwork.

-Finding a Location: We're always keeping our eyes out for good spots to create rainworks. We like to use bus stops, because people are often standing outside in the rain at bus stops, and they are just waiting and looking at the ground. Sometimes the location inspires the design, sometimes the design inspires the location - sometimes we've already made the stencil and we just drive around until we find a good place.

-Installing Rainworks: This is when we actually go out and apply the rainwork. We lay down the stencil, spray 2 coats of Invisible Spray, and then we pick up the stencil and leave! It usually takes about 5 minutes before the rainwork is totally invisible - then we let it dry for 24 hours before we reveal the artwork.

What's the most difficult part in creating invisible pieces?

The hardest part is usually the wind. When we're installing rainworks, the wind blows around our stencil, and it blows the spray all over, and we're constantly battling the wind! We use rocks to hold the stencil down, and we use pieces of cardboard to help protect the spray from being swept away by the wind.

Invisible pieces of street art that only appear in the rain are kind of new for people (in Armenia at least, they are), are the feedbacks you get usually positive? Were there cases when people didn't exactly understand why you were doing them for, or, I don't know, they didn't think of those pieces as a part of street art?

The response to rainworks has been overwhelmingly positive. The city of Seattle has been supportive and they've set a great example for other cities by declaring that rainworks are considered legal - since they are temporary, non-damaging, and they aren't being used for advertising purposes. We haven't really experienced any negative feedback so far. Before we had the name "rainworks", though, we were just calling them "rain-activated art", and that was a little more controversial because not everybody considers what we're doing as "art" (who can possibly agree about what qualifies as art?). Since we started calling them rainworks, we haven't really experienced that criticism any more. Personally, we don't really care if it is art or not, as long as it makes people smile. We just want to make the world more interesting and more magical.

Did you know that here in Armenia a group of young people, who were inspired by your art, are also creating some rain works? What do you think about your idea being international?

We think that is AWESOME! Yes, we have seen some photos of the rainworks in Armenia. We have also seen rainworks pop up in Taiwan, Australia, the UK, and lots of other international location. It's completely amazing to see. We love inspiring other people to be creative, and it's completely mind-blowing to see how far this idea has gotten since we started. We hope it keeps growing and growing and people EVERYWHERE will have a reason to smile on rainy days! It's really a dream come true to watch it happen.

Are there any big projects you are planning to do? If yes, tell us about it a bit? If no, what's the next rainwork you are going to do?

We have a lot of really big, ambitious ideas for rainworks. We've been planning to turn a local park into a giant, playable board game which we are calling "Bring Your Own Dice"- that's a really big project we are planning to do this fall. I can't spoil too much, but we're really excited about it.

Anything you'd like to say to The Rainworks lovers? Or street art lovers in general?

Keep making awesome things!!!!

In addition, here is an album of high-resolution rainworks photos:  http://imgur.com/a/R7zld

So yes, that's it. Do you now agree that rainworks are the new black? Yes? Then that's incredible, because we think that, indeed, they are. No? Okay, that's really up to you.