Los Angeles native Warren Heard presents: A Conversation Without Words. Autobiographical Moments Reworked. Heard explores both the internal and external conflicts of his subjects, approaching his audience with complete transparency. His subconscious narrative to bare, Heard chronicles Southern California culture in a truly unique way. Come, step inside the mind of artist Warren Heard and experience his expressionistic glimpses of pivotal moments never forgotten.

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A plain white cargo truck patiently sits waiting to be transformed into a Mobile Art Gallery. Within the truck several visionaries exchange anecdotes trying to define Claudio Ethos’s philosophy, vision, technique, and methodology. Claudio listens patiently while he lives the moment letting his answers evolve as the words fall from his lips. He refuses to define his art, and feels as if his most memorable piece is the one that is about to be born from his subconscious. He believes “art is about process, discovery, and letting go of yourself until you can wield the medium of a form unconsciously-until it feels right. There are these Balloon makers in São Paulo that do not even know they are artists. These balloon makers fascinate me because they innocently spend months creating a balloon that they decorate with intricate paintings-fantastic paintings-paintings that take as much time as the ones shown in the finest galleries. They create them only to set them free, and not restrict the pure beauty of art to being confined to any one person-to be completely free of ego. That’s like an orgasm to me.”

The conversation spills foreign beers pried open with a cigarette lighter, and we settle on the conclusion that São Paulo is about four times the size of Los Angeles. Ever since Claudio has been here in LA, he has had nightmares. “I dream of my mother’s brother. He sits with me casually at first, and then, his face starts to melt. His skin slowly seeps from his face and his eyes sag out of their sockets and ripple-ebb towards the floor. This is completely scary to me each night. I love it. I love the vividness of these nightmares. Everything is so real. It’s so exciting to me.” While Claudio could reproduce realistic images, he prefers to embrace abstractive tendencies, and explore the more spiritual side of the artistic process. Many of his figures take on characteristics of people struggling through a cramped, concrete megalopolis. His inspirations are rooted in the streets of São Paulo where gangs of graffiti artists from his youth are revered as heroes stumbling masterpieces throughout the city. He does not let himself fall into categories, and rejects assertions that he is a surrealist, or has influences, or even subscribes to any one philosophy. Instead he forges his own black-and-white dreamscapes for public exhibitions, murals, and gallery shows. He does not approach the canvas with an agenda to make a statement, but lets the art manifest itself to his audience. Generated from experience, dreams, and memory Claudio Ethos remains essentially tied to an uncontrollable figurative spirit that he breaks into pieces, adjusts, and elaborates on; he blends suffused realism into detailed abstraction.

Claudio is shy about the fact that he has exhibited in Italy, France, Netherlands, Austria, The States, and Paraguay. He would never tell you that he studied formally for two years and then found it so boring that he left the arena of formal education to fervently work on art he deemed exciting. He prefers to work with dimensions closer to three meters and feels that producing art for galleries is an entirely “different type of communication,” and feels as if he is “very young to he gallery scene.” He has had five solo exhibitions to date, yet still feels as if he is somewhat restricted by the space of a gallery. Although he passionately expresses that he would like to “experiment with more conceptual art in the future,” Claudio embraces each moment as it’s own entity and slowly smiles as he grasps onto ideas that he enjoys. Exhausted from a six-day quest to paint his largest piece ever constructed, he finally gives up that he loves Max Ernst and existentialism, but asserts that it’s not the basis for his work, nor does it have any correlation to how or what he creates. Throughout talking to him one begins to understand that he passionately paints for survival, and lives through his creations physically and spiritually. Claudio’s dreams will continue to haunt audiences universally, forcing viewers to synthesize his figurative abstractions and interpret the message the art ultimately dictates.

Dirty jeans fray the sidewalk of Main Street; traffic brakes dusk, and traces of the Santa Ana’s spin Spanish party dresses whipping in the window frame across from Claudio’s massive mural. Intrigued, inquisitive passerby’s casually drift below the hydraulic lift Claudio paints from, and suddenly he spies a lady carrying several blue, black and orange balloons. He whistles down to us pointing enthusiastically. We pan right—slow motion in the sun as the wind soothes the heat; and it feels much like a dream: the lady, with the balloons; Claudio’s creation containing the same balloons. Claudio, telling us previously, with conviction, his fascination with artistic freedom, and his obsession with the balloon culture in Brazil. We stand, in between, all this circumstance and speak of art, culture, food, spirits, and dreams, and love every minute. We all share the experience of Claudio constructing his newest image, the evolution of experience married with the excitement of execution plagues all of us and we start saying goodbyes and exchanging contact information. Then, disappear into a well-lit Los Angeles, reflecting on Claudio, his humility, and the future to come. We embrace Claudio’s spirit and are certain that we will connect with him again soon.

To view & purchase artwork from Claudio Ethos, please visit his website at www.claudioethos.com

A shopping cart, piloted by a middle-aged male transient wearing long, shaggy auburn-hair, rattles down Market Street. Hydraulic bus brakes squeal as sirens bleed through an unperturbed sea of multi-cultural urbanites, cloaked in jackets, sweatshirts, and a variety of pants. Automobile motors combined with elevated trains, buses, car stereos, and construction crews fill any gap of silence one might expect. Enter CHOR BOOGIE casually toting several plastic tubs filled with an eccentric collection of spray paints cloaked in white t-shirt and faded blue jeans. Insuppressive mettle, gained in a battle won from an adolescent interim, that functioned as a phantasma of deviance, becomes the impetus for a positive addiction, a co-dependency; composing complimentary and conflicting colors. Find Art Magazine recently had an opportunity to ask Chor Boogie about his personal narrative, the growth of his technique, and what drives his perspective.

Tell us about how you developed your name.

When I got into this art-form, urban-arts culture, everyone had a nickname. I was Jason Hailey at the time, and I gave birth to Chor Boogie because I like the feeling of writing it — it was easy for me to do quickly.  And… this is my chore; and I get boogie with it!

How has San Francisco contributed to the evolution of your art?

I have always worked with colors, but not as fluently as when I arrived in San Francisco and worked extensively with Apex and Vulcan. Even though they are more letter form based, and I tend to gravitate more toward imagery, they were important inspirations in my development. I remember painting Turk Street when I first arrived. I was short on time and started working on another section of the wall and I was doing it really quick. I remember Vulcan looking at me and saying, “So you want that to represent  you?” I said to myself, “Awe shit, alright, I’ll come back and finish this correctly.” Came back, completed the wall, and found this style in which I blend colors, form, and patterns to pop out specific images while incorporating realism. Say like a nose, eyes, or maybe a mouth screaming. That piece I entitled Purgatory. It was constructed near an affluent part of the city, but was a designated area for crack heads, drug addicts, and drug dealers. They were all watching us while we were beautifying this poverty stricken street. I’ve been through trials and tribulations in my life when it came to drugs; I had been clean for about six years at that point and I remember looking in and thinking: this is just purgatory.  These transients are just stuck in the middle.  No up. No down. Just stuck — So I called the piece Purgatory.  Ever since then, I’ve employed the concept as a prominent theme throughout my work.

How do you consider yourself to be advancing the medium of spray paint?

By adding detail and the upside down can technique. There are no additives, there are no preservatives, I don’t use any cheat tools, and still, I am pushing my audience to consider how I achieved my overall effect, you know, to think outside the box.

Tell me about discovering the inverted can technique, and how it impacted your work.

The inverted can technique is an old school technique that originated out of the late seventies, early eighties. Artists used to utilize it for fill-ins in their letter effects, background effects in general, I knew nothing about it at the time. This was when I was living in San Diego, working for a spot called Writers Block. This one artist named Vox came through from LA, and he had some crazy technique, and I was wondering how he got all these thin lines in his pieces. At first I thought he was using a stencil cap so I hit him up, and he said, “no, but try this” and he showed me, and told me I should do that with my characters so I started a piece and it changed my life forever. I adopted that technique shortly after.

What do you mean “adopted?”

I mean embraced it. I took it into my own. I believed in it, and really buckled down to try to take it to a different level. By me doing that, it basically helped me achieve things that are almost impossible with a spray can when it comes to imagery. It also opened up more opportunity in terms of realism and size. Currently I claim the smallest piece in the world done with spray can, which is two inch by two inch. I think I’m going to go smaller this year, which is one inch by one inch, and that is painting my miniature Boogie Birds, all in spray paint, inverted, on little canvasses.

How do you go about composition when you’re commissioned a mural?

I basically just paint. You know, like an orchestra.  I envision something on the wall and paint it. My style has developed within itself. I have found foundations in all the artists I’ve encountered along the way because I listen. Their words have been subconsciously imbedded in my head. I still find meaning in what they were saying in terms of form, shapes, color, proportions in portraits, and life in general. Listening is an excellent tool to get ahead in life. Sometimes, it doesn’t matter how much you know you just gotta shut up and listen.

Who do you listen to and why?

Klimt…Michelangelo…from a historical standpoint …maybe Leonardo? Klimt — because of his use of metallic’s…and Michelangelo —  because of his realism, and the scale that he worked on.

What type of message are you trying to communicate to your audience?

Originality. Originality is the key to survival. I’m a traditionalist. My art is emotional landscapes of a melodic symphony through color therapy, a street romantic voodoo. I want my audience to be free. I want my audience to have the freedom of speech, the freedom of feeling. I want to conger some feeling, any feeling within them. As long as they feel something, that’s it. Whether you had a feeling and it was pleasant or unpleasant, it really doesn’t matter…you had a feeling.

Why don’t you change your name back now that you’ve gained notoriety?

I know a lot of artists that change their name back ‘n forth, but I gave birth to Chor Boogie; and Chor Boogie will be the name I run with till the day I die.

Chor Boogie is living proof that Urban Art is still rapidly evolving. Find loves the fact that he pushes the constraints of his medium — fearlessly breaking through glass ceilings that few will ever see the glare from. We believe it’s his prolific nature combined with his unique point of view that enables him to recreate himself with each piece he completes. We hope that this now third generation of urban artists graces his heels; because even though he encourages listening, he speaks as an urban sage, guiding audiences to once again consider just exactly what they are viewing.

Check out the new Chor Boogie documentary coming out in 2012. www.spraypaint-themovie.com

To view and purchase artwork from Chor Boogie:
www.chorboogie.com
www.chorboogieexpressions.com
www.facebook.com/chorboogie01

A Taste of Limon : Found Artist Defind

Jason Limon’s artwork has been dubbed pop surrealism, categorized as fantasy, and called abstract. The artist himself, however, remains hesitant to apply a label to his work. Indeed he should be. Limon’s work; at times whimsical, at times haunting, defies base description and refuses to be pigeon-holed. “I don’t want to call my art anything specific. It is whatever it is to the people who view it. All of those categories fit, but I’d rather not apply any kind of label on my work. It just is.” The 38-year-old San Antonio native found early success as a graphic designer. Having sought out a formal education for such, and displaying an obvious talent, Limon soon realized that the formality and structure didn’t fulfill his creative needs. Limon would see visions, dreams that seemed to suggest a narrative to Limon, and it became clear that this story needed to be told through his painting. “The paintings I do are a story, and the vision usually comes to me right before I go to sleep at night. It’ll pop into my head, really clear, and I have to get up and sketch it out before I lose it. I generally have a hard time remembering things; I usually forget things [in detail] pretty quickly. But these visions I see stay with me, at least until I’m able to get the concept down on paper. Then I’ll come back later and paint it.” Limon’s work evolved from his earlier paintings in 2008 to his current “Blood/Nectar” series, moving from a more subdued tone to more vivid, vibrant, and contrasting color harmonies. It’s this juxtaposition that lends an intriguing duality, simultaneously cheerful while dreadfully ominous. Most of his work features a curious creature, often mistaken to be an owl, in which is appropriately representative of the artist’s watchful and observant nature (on Limon’s personal website, he describes himself as “an observer of our world, silently scanning its elements and the beings who move among them”) while also raising the question: is this creature keeping a watchful eye, or is he hiding from something? And if he is hiding, what is he hiding from?

“The creature is definitely me, and it’s interesting that you would notice that it is watching over all that is going on around him, but is also hiding from it. The story behind the work, and each piece, to me, is just another part of the story, somewhere in the middle; but it’s about plants, and the growing war between plants, and our environment, and industrialization, and whatever is going on in the world that impedes nature. I never intended to be “green” by any means; it’s just a storyline that popped into my head, and as I started painting these scenes, I would have more ideas for more scenes. It was like I couldn’t keep up with them.” Given the narrative quality to Limon’s work, and the abstract presentation of those ideas, one might surmise that the artist is concerned with how his story might be received. Transcending other artwork that might carry a message or idea contained inside of itself as a stand alone piece, Limon’s work, when considered as a collection, tells an episodic narrative, while still maintaining its ability to be enjoyed and received individually. Yet, to hear the artist tell it, his ability to get his story out and exorcise it from his mind supercedes any concern of public consumption. “I can’t and I don’t really think about how people are going to receive it or think about it. If they ‘get it’ and can follow the narrative, that’s awesome, but if they don’t necessarily see what’s going on and just think it’s something cool to look at, that’s okay too. It’s way more important for me to get this story out. Sometimes, with some of the pieces and the pictures on my Flikr page, I’ll leave comments to help explain what’s going on in the painting if I feel like the concept in a given piece might be a little too broad for most people to understand. But generally, if someone just looks at it and thinks it’s interesting to look at, and that’s all they see, that’s fine. Maybe someday I’ll get around to putting the story down in print form so it’s easier for people to understand. Right now though, I’m just driven to get as much of these images out as I possibly can.” With as prolific as Limon is (he estimates it takes approximately three weeks from concept to completion), and given the vast potential for his “Plants vs. Society” concept, would he eventually FIND an ending to this story? “It’s interesting; I don’t think this story could ever have a true ending. The story, as I see it and experience it, if I live long enough to see that come to a finality, then that story will end, but everything always changes, so if that story does end, there will just be something else that happens, and either a new story will begin, or this one will simply continue on.”

Prior to this project, he created art for purely personal satisfaction. After this first interaction as a white South African experiencing the “real South Africa,” he asked his parents to, “take me out of the school I was in, transfer me from a private school to a public school—a mixed school.” As an adolescent, Sam found it difficult to understand exactly what was occurring in South Africa, and more importantly, what his role was in this turbulent, politically unstable society. This first mural solidified his realization that, “art was a real gift for me because I had all these complications, and frustrations within my country, and I could use art to have a more sensitive approach, to understand, learn, and dialogue. Painting on the street provided me the most direct communication with the people because I had found an avenue to talk to them. The art became a common ground, an established equality amongst the dividing socio-economics.”

While the rest of Sam’s contemporaries attended traditional Universities, he became a socially charged entrepreneur. His scope and vision was shaped by, “what I do with what I love, and how I love popular culture within South Africa. I wanted to make a lot of money so I could fund campaigns and projects that represent these philosophies that I believe in—not just me—a lot of youth in South Africa believe in. Black, white, we are all striving toward equal playing ground, and want to forget about the negative history.” He called his clothing line: Muthaland, and was determined to spread his message and vision throughout South Africa by finding sponsors, and completing as many different tasks as it took to run his business successfully. Unfortunately, he learned very quickly that many of his investors were only interested in selling to the masses, and cared little about his vision, philosophies, or ideals. “They told me quite frankly that they were going to stop making the clothing proudly in South Africa. Start importing my products from China, sell to the 40 million black people in this country. Not someone who cares about the message on the t-shirt, but rather someone who just needs one. Sell it to them for half the price, but sell ten times more of them. What I like to call the bullshit behind the magic curtain.” Sam soon learned that he did not want to necessarily work with all the high profile investors and requested the opportunity to buy back his stock in order to gain more creative control. Sam’s request was granted and he downscaled from twenty-six stores to six. “But, these were stores that understood me. I’d rather have one hundred people who get me than one million that make me rich. That is not my objective.

Part of Sam’s entrepreneurial promotions included a street team consisting of break-dancers, musicians, and graffiti artists. These artists received free clothing in exchange for promoting his brand. He called his team: “Write on Africa.” Sam handpicked these artists ensuring each person stood for what the brand stood for. “I invited graffiti artists to Johannesburg when I was eighteen to paint the first legal graffiti mural. Because it was the first technically legal graffiti mural, I got a lot of media attention.” Because of this attention, Sam’s brand was broadcasted by several different media outlets, which, in turn, resulted in corporate companies, and established brands “requesting graffiti murals for clubs, boardrooms, backdrops, birthday parties, and university campuses. For four years Sam was a graffiti manager. He managed artists that were ambassadors of his vision.

During this time Sam did not make any money from his clothing line, but found it quite lucrative to work as an art manager. However, being an art manager was not where Sam’s convictions lied. He then partnered with a friend in effort to enable him to focus on the creative side of the business, while his partner handled general operations. Together they set up a new business called, “Word of Art.” The idea was to be freelance agents for freelance artists. “So all those really talented artists, film directors, photographers, and illustrators who did not want to work for a traditional agency because they wanted to do their own thing, in their own style, would be free to do so.” This gave Sam time to pitch boardrooms of advertising agencies and tell them, “we were working with all these artists, but at the same time, I am the creative director and had designed a campaign for them; making use of all our brilliant artists.” Quickly his partner urged him to capitalize, and offer his services to everyone they could find. Once again, Sam refused and held true to his vision. This resulted in a split with his partner and led Sam to other artistic endeavors.

Sam had acquired an industrial building, which had been a clothing factory, that was now half empty, because the clothing industry was being underbid and moved to China. Within this building Sam started his new project. “I invited a whole bunch of other creative’s-after three weeks there were seven of us, after three month’s there were twenty of us, after two years there were over a hundred people. For the first year the landlord told me that I was the creative director, that I have a great vision, and I should explore that vision, and that I must host events, and do it for free. The whole time I thought I had hit the jackpot because here is a patron supporting my vision. But it wasn’t. He had the idea of letting the artist create the flower garden, and then the flower garden belonged to him. So I begged him for a contract.”

“I quickly realized what we had created was very important. I started thinking if we could embrace this spirit, in ten years we could be the only building in the world that still has this artistic integrity, and the rent would still be inexpensive. Because in New York there is nothing like this, in Berlin there is nothing like this. It was specific to Cape Town. People from New York had moved to Cape Town just to be part of it. But I soon learned I would be given no contract.” With no contract Sam still wanted to be involved as an instigator, “Because building creative community is my number one passion as an artist. I get more kick out of seeing things take on a life of their own organically. Allowing things to blossom.”

Sam currently runs a new-brow, urban art Gallery that hosts affordable exhibitions in Woodstock, South Africa. Although he does not want to be a gallerist, this does provide him a platform to build a community of artists. He wants his gallery to have an atmosphere “that artists can come and create art, meet other artists, and feel the vibe. Otherwise I’m just a preacher. I want to create a space, have people interact with it, and then shift perception.” Sam’s next phase is to generate money to do free art classes in his gallery in support of two contemporaries: Jim and Willard from Zimbabwe. Their passion is teaching children to paint— workshop facilitating, and he would like to help them find a career in this. “They do pop up art seminars from their car during the week, then have a gallery show on Saturday, and it’s sustainable. If you want to be involved, you come to the exhibit. Not like send me money, or help me with the PR. I’m not interested in that….that will come, if someone really wants to make a difference, they can come meet one of the kids.

Sam also is concerned with proving art that can make a difference in his community, and is taking a very scientific approach: “A close friend of mine came to me with this idea. There are thirteen schools in South Africa with a zero percent pass rate, which means no one is passing—an all time low. There are rural schools, meaning some kids walk barefoot for three hours just to come to school. Furthermore, there are schools in the city with the same problem. What if we had an international project in which we had thirty artists from around the world; and within one month we went on a road trip and we hit every school and we painted them: classrooms, corridors, inside, outside, an extreme makeover. I want to paint these thirteen schools and go back in one year and see if there is any pass rate. If there is one pass rate we have proved there is one per cent change.” Ultimately, Sam is looking for this to be a global art project in which 50,000 participants look at one problem—a case study; can growth be shown where art is employed as the chief tool for change?

Sam’s artistic philosophy stems from the attitude that, “Africa will teach the world simple philosophies: goodness, communities, family, right, wrong on a very simple basis.  The world we live in now has lost sight of what is right and what is wrong. But in the village it’s very simple. I love that, and I want to promote that, and the way I know how to do that is through art.” Sam is not taking native African art and exporting it. But applying it to his community, which entails creating public art to inspire social change.

“I think art is a catalyst for change. A lot of the art we see today has to do with popular culture. It’s a bit recycled, a bit washed out, but it’s aesthetically    pleasing, and we can identify with this because we are so used to all these images in our life, and when someone reproduces that in an art form, it’s easy, it’s accessible, I get it. If there is a punch line, or if there is not a punch line, if I like the colors, or if I like the graphic, it’s modern, you know? But I think there needs to be a revolution in art concerning substance. Can art make a difference? Can we use radical ideas for radical change in the world we live in? Maybe the solution is radical. At the moment the world views art as it’s number one phenomenon. More and more people are becoming artists—it’s the new rock star, but on the same side, do we need more rock stars, or do we need more Bob Dylans? Perhaps we need to look at the world more as a marathon race, and not as a sprint. Perhaps we need to preserve our culture. There needs to be more jazz in this world. Jazz in the sense of real emotion, sensitivity, and rawness in what we produce in art being reflective of us as humans and honest with ourselves. Simply put: we need to inspire ourselves, to inspire others, to create change.”

Freddy Sam was brought to Southern California by a grant sponsored by the Do ArT Foundation. To view & purchase artwork from Freddy Sam and get more information about his founderies, please visit: www.freddysam.com | www.writeonafrica.org | www.a-word-of-art.co.za

Looking into the street art community and its boundaries, it is a culture founded on the fringes of expression and I perceive the mainstream as a danger to undermining its defining factors.

For me, it’s about getting it out to more people and getting more people to see it. Staying true to what you believe and your integrity. Just last night I dropped a 500lb gravestone on Charlie Sheen’s star on Hollywood Blvd. That’s what I’m talking about. You should be able to do both. It shouldn’t be straddling the line between, “Oh yeah, I only do gallery shows now and that’s what I am, I’m turning my back on these roots.” For me, those things are really the interesting dynamic of it all. Spending four days painting a massive wall because more people will see it rather than in a gallery, that’s the important factor. I’ve been doing it long enough now to where I hope that it will always be pre-eminent.

Are there slight dangers in losing the tenets of the scene, especially if kids come up trying to emulate, dare I say, Banksy?

I think the problem is not how many people see it; it’s where people draw their inspiration from. It’s as much about society in general as it is about the scene. Look at every car, it’s based on the other car that sold really well because they know it’s the public’s idea of what should be accepted; therefore, if Banksy is mainstream popular and everybody loves him, or the perception is everyone loves him, then every kid that’s looking at it that ever wanted to do a stencil, ever wanted to do graphics, or was interested in graffiti, sees somebody getting paid for it, then obviously that’s going to be their point of reference. The problem is when everyone starts looking internally as opposed to looking externally, that’s when the dangers come and you end up with artists being copied.

Are you pushing boundaries in your work where you weren’t before?

If I sell work, I get to invest my money back into what I want to do. I say to people, my wife in particular; “I think I may paint the Queen dead. It’s her 80th birthday, everyone’s thinking, ‘When’s she going to pop the clocks?’” She’s like, “That’s such a bad idea. It’s going to look terrible” Brilliant I’m doing it! That was my gauge, how bad she thought it was going to be is how good it will be. That’s kind of like the shift in my work. When I did the gravestones, to cast them, and put them out, that seemed like a simple operation compared to when I did the Oscars. The goal posts are moving all the time with how ambitious you are going to get with your street installations. For me, I just don’t want to paint walls. I just don’t do stickers. I don’t just want to put posters up. I want to try to get the public’s interaction with that work to be ever shifting. And the best way to disguise it, for people to question it, is advertise. That’s what I do. Because advertising is around you so much, you don’t even notice it. In a way, doing a stencil on a wall or putting a sticker on a lamppost – has become part of our visual understanding of what surrounds us; whereas 10 years ago you put up a wheat paste and people were, “It’s not an advert, what is it, what’s it for?” They had that interaction with it. But now they’re, “Oh, it’s street art.” So then you have to start switching it back up. I will do it in a way you haven’t ever seen it before. It won’t be in your conscience, in your psyche of “Oh, that’s street art.” We dropped one of those tombstones on Santa Monica Beach – a tombstone on the beach, we poured sand in front of it, two candles burning – people that saw it were like, “What? Who? Why? Who’s done that? What’s that about? Is that an art thing? What is it?” I want people to just question it. Hopefully they’ll come back from that with a broader vision, a bit more of an open mind with what visually they surround themselves with.

The balance of power has shifted a bit. What used to be street art, on the furthest edge of expression, away from the galleries, contemporary vocabularies have learned to include it. Do you change their vocabulary?

It’s the same as graffiti. People’s perceptions on graffiti have become very clearly focused. It’s letters on a wall. It’s tags. For me personally, once people began referring to me as an urban artist, I wanted to push that perception further and further. Who knows what that is and I don’t know where it’s going to take me. I have great fun making my work. I don’t want it to be dead-pan serious. If you start with doing your thing, having no agenda, no reason, just because it’s your own interest, that’s what remains. If you start shifting your work for a particular audience, that is when it becomes dangerous because you are not being clear to your own vision.

Matters of the heart require a certain level of selfishness.

Anything that is creative and if you’re putting it out in the public domain – whether an actor, musician, visual artist, whatever – it’s really heartfelt. You have to take the negative and the positive with that. Some people deal with it better than others. I’d rather people hated my work than people thought it was just OK. I think the line between love and hate is so close. Mediocre is not what I want to achieve. I want people to be insulted and upset, stoked, grand, feeling that it’s the sickest thing they’ve ever seen.

Hypothetically, we ran a foundation with a half million dollars and decided to give it to you with no restrictions. What would you do with the money?

That would be such a rad opportunity. I don’t know – I’d hire a plane to dump a load of paint on the Statue of Liberty – something nuts, something where people would say, “You can’t do that:” Well, I just did! Other than that, I would probably invest it into a gallery that is self-generated, which is what we’re trying to do with Stolen Space, It’s built upon friendship and trust. That’s the main part, is building friendships. It’s a community and that community is really important. But at the end of the day we have to rely on sales to keep it running, and it needs to have a staff to remain open. I would do something like that to help other artists coming through who share the same idea.

That’s similiar to our mission with FIND. . .

When you put yourself up in the street it gives you an opportunity to show your work to other people, but if you don’t have that, it’s really hard to get an opportunity to show your work to other people because the galleries aren’t always welcoming and open. A magazine gives a window — maybe someone will pick up that magazine, and be, “that’s the best stuff I’ve ever seen in my life! Who’s that artist?” Look it up, maybe buy a canvas, have a gallery see it, maybe do a show? Those are opportunities that take time for an artist. A magazine is a very pure way of doing it.

The underlying skeleton in your work appears as if “pop” is only skin deep. Is that how you perceive popular culture?

Death is a part of life. The line between life and death is really interesting. What’s really interesting is that it polarizes people. I really like the idea of celebrating the life of somebody when they’ve passed. Equally the birth of a child is the most amazing experience in the world. Death is an inescapable part of life and what people try and do to stop the onslaught of death by making themselves look younger, or trying to have a different perceived age, particularly in Hollywood and L.A., is really, really interesting. What are you afraid of? Are you afraid that you’re getting old? Well, everyone gets old. Are you trying to dissuade death? I think a lot of times people’s perception of what they should like is way out of whack from what it actually should be. And that’s part of the Hollywood thing I’m trying to get people to see. I’m not saying Hollywood, L.A. is a fucked up place – I absolutely love it. I’m just saying, don’t take it too seriously. Don’t get caught up too heavily in that idea of what you want. At the end of the day, we all have skeletons. What’s outside of it is what you are. We are being judged by our exterior gloss – what clothes we put on, our skin tone, and our face shape. We’re all going to rot back into the earth where we’ve come from. So yeah, It’s very basic. Plus, skulls look cool as fuck.

To view and purchase artwork from D*Face please visit www.dface.co.uk and www.stolenspace.com

5/16 : Carthage, MO – Precious Moments Chapel. Ladies my grandmother’s age very sneakily creep up behind you to tell you how adorable they think everything is. Damn those orthopedic shoes are quiet!! We did find the creep-tastic version of Jamie Johnson, painting a bunny, haha to the irony. The strange truth is that this audience’s interest in Precious Moments schwag mimics our interest in our gallery and our expected audience. The difference being, we’re not in the middle of MO, on some huge plot of land – we’ll at the moment we are, but we’re MOBILE.

Onward to Springfield = flat, flat, flat. How would we find an art scene if we didn’t already have a contact or have phones with Google maps and search capabilities? Not a clue!!

Nick Tarr. Lemon Drop Gallery. Spacetones, Sincerely Yours with Nick Fury. Unsung Hero. Francois Lariviere.
Spacetones – when a white dude in short shorts, with a big red beard, starts dropping rhymes, and shocks you, you listen. Then you look at the person next to you and mouth, “WTF?” Francois’s multimedia approach dominates all corners of the show with paintings and sculptures throughout the room. I met his mom and she is justifiably proud of him, which is great to see. Unsung Hero showed some awesome work too – really digging his painting style – on canvas and rattle can. Check our facebook for more images, please.

We went through the night and talked to a lot of randomly awesome, new friends who dug our concept and came out to support our midwestern friends. If this is Springfield, what else do we have in store? Ooooweeeee, cannot friggin’ wait.

5/17: ‘Twas a good ol’ party in Springfield. Still worried about gas money though. The Fuel Fiend, now named Eileen because of her proclivity to bear the weight of the added gallery floor, needs a fix. She’s the Keith Richards of diesel-fueled, mobile-art galleries. Also, one of the most difficult things to do is to stay organized. It feels like we are losing a few things with bags all over the place and moving all over the place. What are you going to do? We’re 2 guys, on the road.

After having a bit of a break at this art site, I got to thinkin’ . . . there are art sites all over the country . . . send us a list of art sites that we should check out. Do it.

Tore into Oklahoma City — exhausted but glad. The city is being rebuilt from the ground up and there is construction everywhere and the roads are turible!!! Rattling roads + rattling art = rattling Neight and Sean. We found the A.K.A. Gallery in the Paseo Arts District and discovered that the Okies, they love their basketball – so we charged to Kinkos and waited for the basketball game to get out to hand out flyers. Gotta’ hustle I guess.

The A.K.A. Gallery is a great spot. Oklahoma City is a suprising city. A.K.A. had the work of Sarah Atlee,  who does phenomenally rad collage work. Each piece is heavily textured and rich with imagination.

We were nervous about the first show. Just a  bit. But it went well. Sarah’s work was great. Ashley and Andrea were very welcoming and supportive. The truck unfolded as planned. And I, yes your’s truly, added a big FIND logo to the front of the truck.

After the show, or during – I really can’t recall – I went next door to Picasso’s, a bar. It was loud, so I went. You can’t blame me after the drive from OC to OKC. We were unaware that the Paseo Arts district was the hangout for creative types but we met the members from Saturday Sirens, self-proclaimed desert rock artists; and a local arts and culture blogger, Ashley, who asked us to check out Ali Harter and Lindsey Oleck, also musicians – I think. Ashley feels the Oklahoma scene is undervalued. How many scenes are there just like this all over the country that feel they need representation? I say we should recognize regional talents but not all talents need national recognition, except by those who truly wish to classify American art. That’s why there are critics, right?

After sleeping in the truck that night and waking and walking to go get coffee, we realize we are officially in the land of accents, water towers, and overalls. MOCA may have Art in the Streets but we have Art on the Road. Game on!

The preparation has us running around like The White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland. We’re late and we haven’t even started. With so many elements, attempting to get it all in order was a labour of luck, effort, and magic. A national tour? Sure — get a truck, call some artists, day is done, right? At this exact point I don’t even know if we’re prepared and we crossed into New Mexico 50 miles ago.

We have to thank all those that helped get us on the road. Much thanks to Alex and Giovanni from So Cal Weld for the awesome build of the pop out wall that becomes our gallery floor. Thank you Bud and the OC Diesel Shop for getting the truck whipped into fighting shape. Thank you Ernie for the rubbery tires from Amato Tire. Thank you Geoffrey Doolittle for the marathon of help with wiring and final prep.
 
A special thank you to Lacey and The Living Room Salon & Art Gallery for hosting our send off party, Thursday the 12th, in Costa Mesa. The party was supposed to start at 1:00pm and the Dos Chinos taco truck was there with some amazing tacos – try the pork. But where was FIND? Where were we? Still building. Custom jobs never seem to be ready on schedule. We all got problems, you know?

A few hours late, the truck arrived, with a working door. Jamie Johnson hopped on the roll up door to finish his piece. TEWSR quickly got down on finishing his massive wall. FIND opened up boxes and laid out all the work from artists all over the country and began installing. And, 2 pallets of magazines were dropped off just as the sun went down. Could this be a plan coming together? You friggin’ know it.

As we closed up at The Living Room, we realized we still had a lot to do. So, instead of leaving Friday morning for Phoenix, we finished the final details and made plans to drive straight to Sante Fe – 850 miles – on Saturday.

Day one – Redux: trying to make Santa Fe, NM. Saturday morning, 5 AM departure, CA, AZ, NM. Grab the list, check it twice, and GO Go GO. Neight hasn’t slept but the truck is done. I expected a flood of thoughts on the first moments of such a grand trip but there are none – only thinking about getting to Sante Fe on time. There will be plenty of time and empty road for us to think.

After a fill up in Barstow, then a fill up in Needles, then a fill up in Kingman, then a fill up in Flagstaff, we calculated that we were getting 5 miles/gallon of diesel, at $4.90/gallon! This may be over before it has a chance to begin. This could indicate a large problem that can handicap the entire trip since we are budgeted so tightly. We made some calls, checked the air filter, checked the e-brake, checked the overdrive, changed the fuel filter, checked for leaks, and cursed the Mojave Desert and Arizona heat. We are burning cash and hemorrhaging diesel.

During our pit stop in Kingman, AZ, we dropped in on Mink Ink Tattoo where owner, Michelle, showed us the work of Francis Mann and her own zombie baby creations. This was officially our first stop to talk about the magazine and Michelle, her husband, and staff were all very welcoming and encouraging.

We also quickly stopped in Flagstaff, AZ and found ourselves amidst a pretty rad downtown scene full of shops, galleries, graduating seniors, and walls covered with stencils, posters, and murals. We tried to park the beast that demands 2 spots – such an ego – but couldn’t find a suitable place to open up the gallery. Instead, we canvassed the town and handed out some mags. We asked around about the local scene and those we talked to were well-versed in the artists’ work around town.  I think it should definitely be a planned stop for a future tour.

Back on the road, after our minor repairs, we are screeching across the Arizona, New Mexico highway like a possessed amalgamation of Hunter S. Thompson – at the hellish speed of 60 mph. With all the delays because of fuel economy, we are unable to make it to Sante Fe and decide to push as far as we can toward Oklahoma City. Just around midnight, we caught up on that hunger thing at a cafe in Albuquerque and listened to some local dirt-track racers recount their evening of malfunctioning cars, lap times, and near misses.

After a bit of food and plenty of coffee, we drove into Texas until Neight and I couldn’t drive anymore, indicated by the hallucinations of lights and figures in the roadway. We stopped at a rest stop just over the state border and slept for a little while in the single cab box truck / mobile art gallery that is our home.