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Kunst Speak With Brask - Andrew Schoultz · Kunst Speak With Brask

0:00
Speaker 1: Will come back Thursday, means new episode off. Couldn't speak
0:04
Speaker 1: with brisk Andrew Schultz is all this guest. Andrew's another
0:09
Speaker 1: good old friend looking forward to see Andrew the studio
0:13
Speaker 1: and hear what's news. Andrew, thank you for taking your time.
0:17
Speaker 1: We are in your art studio in Los Angeles.
0:21
Speaker 2: That's correct.
0:22
Speaker 1: And you come from a graffiti background like I do,
0:25
Speaker 1: correct for sure?
0:26
Speaker 2: Yeah?
0:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, can you basically started writing graffiti back in like
0:31
Speaker 3: the eighties during you know, the Beat Street breaking era.
0:35
Speaker 3: I originally come from the midwest of the States, which
0:39
Speaker 3: is Milwaukee, Wisconsin, so right in the middle. And so yeah,
0:44
Speaker 3: some of the first exposure that I had to what
0:47
Speaker 3: you would, I guess describe as hip hop graffiti would
0:50
Speaker 3: be in the movie Beat Street and I believe that
0:53
Speaker 3: came out in nineteen eighty five, and basically from there
0:58
Speaker 3: got really into breakdanceing and graffiti. And you know, at
1:03
Speaker 3: the time, I was really into you know, comic books
1:07
Speaker 3: and tracing comic books and all this kind of stuff
1:10
Speaker 3: that was like what I was just like super super
1:12
Speaker 3: into at the time. And in that movie, the character
1:16
Speaker 3: Ramo says, they asked one of his homies asked.
1:20
Speaker 2: Him like, how'd you get how'd you learn how to
1:22
Speaker 2: do this?
1:23
Speaker 3: And he's like, oh, you know, I got good just
1:25
Speaker 3: you know, tracing DC comics or whatever. I don't remember
1:27
Speaker 3: the exact quote, but then for me, that stuck to
1:30
Speaker 3: me because I was like, oh, I trace comics. Oh
1:33
Speaker 3: maybe I can do this too, And so from there
1:36
Speaker 3: I started trying to just basically emulate a lot of
1:39
Speaker 3: the graffiti in that movie. At the time, me and
1:42
Speaker 3: my brother had pieces of cardboard that we would break
1:45
Speaker 3: dance on, and so that was the first thing we
1:48
Speaker 3: were kind of doing. I was around maybe the second
1:51
Speaker 3: or third grade for me. Yeah, we would draw the
1:55
Speaker 3: graffiti on the on our cardboard that we would break
1:59
Speaker 3: dance on. So I wasn't like in the second grade
2:02
Speaker 3: grabbing a can and nothing yet that that came quite
2:06
Speaker 3: a bit later, more like around nineteen ninety two ninety three.
2:12
Speaker 3: Graffiti started to make its way into skateboarding magazines, which
2:16
Speaker 3: you know, and into the graphics, and a lot of
2:19
Speaker 3: the cool graffiti magazines of the time were like having
2:25
Speaker 3: you know, also graffiti in them, and that kind of
2:28
Speaker 3: like got me, oh, I remember this, And so that's
2:31
Speaker 3: when I started getting back into just like letters and
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Speaker 3: your what you would call your typical form of graffiti.
2:39
Speaker 3: You know, I was doing some tagging in the streets
2:42
Speaker 3: in the early nineties, like you know, just not really
2:46
Speaker 3: taking it seriously so to speak, like where you're like, oh,
2:49
Speaker 3: I'm gonna look at this spot, I'm going to paint
2:52
Speaker 3: that spot, and you make your plan you know whatever
2:55
Speaker 3: to get do your thing or whatever. But basically in
3:01
Speaker 3: or in late nineteen ninety seven, around August, I moved
3:04
Speaker 3: to San Francisco to skateboard for one, go to art
3:10
Speaker 3: school for two, and for three just was really you know,
3:15
Speaker 3: interested in just whatever the scene of like art and
3:18
Speaker 3: street culture and all that stuff was very like.
3:23
Speaker 2: It was starting to resonate with me.
3:25
Speaker 3: I guess around that time, just like streetwear, street culture,
3:28
Speaker 3: graffiti there was a brand, Like there was a brand
3:31
Speaker 3: at the time that I was super into Zo York
3:35
Speaker 3: and a lot of their their skate graphics and T
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Speaker 3: shirts and stuff were you know, graffiti tags and.
3:42
Speaker 2: Stuff like that.
3:43
Speaker 3: So I was like all of a sudden kind of
3:45
Speaker 3: like sparked on it again. But also moving to moving
3:50
Speaker 3: to San Francisco, I mean I got there in ninety
3:53
Speaker 3: seven like kind of in like the heyday of like
3:57
Speaker 3: a lot of like the nineties iconic graffiti that we
4:00
Speaker 3: all know and love now, you know, people like Twist
4:03
Speaker 3: and KR some Amaze, MQ and all the the MQ
4:12
Speaker 3: got there and that was really crazy to see what
4:15
Speaker 3: he was doing. It kind of showed me a whole
4:17
Speaker 3: other thing. You know, the MSK guys Revoke and Saber
4:22
Speaker 3: and Fate and some of these guys had just were
4:25
Speaker 3: there too, painting and just like seeing how crazy it
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Speaker 3: was and all of a sudden kind of being in
4:31
Speaker 3: this city where it felt a little more lawless, you know, like,
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Speaker 3: oh wow, you can just do this here. Then I
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Speaker 3: just really got went full on into graffiti, painting, doing
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Speaker 3: spots everything, and it kind of you know, I was
4:48
Speaker 3: going to art school, but you know, graffiti definitely kind
4:51
Speaker 3: of dominated my life from like around you know, nineteen
4:54
Speaker 3: ninety seven, ninety eight till like all the way up
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Speaker 3: until like around two thousand three, two thousand and four
5:01
Speaker 3: were like really the years I was super active with
5:03
Speaker 3: it in San Francisco. And you know, to be fair too,
5:08
Speaker 3: it was like living in San Francisco was like, all
5:12
Speaker 3: of a sudden a very artistic city. We all know
5:15
Speaker 3: that music art culture, writing all this stuff is like,
5:20
Speaker 3: you know, it's an epicenter for all these things, and so,
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Speaker 3: you know, just being into graffiti and stuff like that
5:27
Speaker 3: and skate. A lot of skaters were also doing a
5:29
Speaker 3: lot of graffiti stuff there, and you know, some of
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Speaker 3: the first guys I met out there when I got
5:35
Speaker 3: to San Francisco, we're really dope skaters, but all of
5:39
Speaker 3: a sudden, I'm like, oh, they write graffiti too. It
5:42
Speaker 3: was these guys from Santa Cruz that were there, that
5:45
Speaker 3: were from the CMA crew. Was the first guy I
5:48
Speaker 3: met out there, Literally first skater I met was this
5:51
Speaker 3: guy Trust and so that was kind of like, oh
5:55
Speaker 3: and we instantly became really tight friends skating.
5:59
Speaker 2: But then all and I'm seeing.
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Speaker 3: Him just doing the craziest spots all around the city,
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Speaker 3: just you know, throw up spid he did underneath the
6:08
Speaker 3: Bay Bridge, he did like all these crazy spots, and
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Speaker 3: I'm just like, whoa, this is my guy right here
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Speaker 3: doing this and it really made me be like, oh,
6:17
Speaker 3: I kind of want to do this too. And so
6:20
Speaker 3: just kind of having him as sort of an example of, like,
6:24
Speaker 3: you know, a graffiti writer that I met when I
6:26
Speaker 3: first got to San Francisco. You know, if anybody knows
6:30
Speaker 3: the stuff he was doing and you know whatever, you know,
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Speaker 3: he was like doing serious spots he got up and
6:40
Speaker 3: that's kind of inspired me.
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Speaker 2: Oh, I want to do that too.
6:43
Speaker 3: But I guess the point of what I'm saying is,
6:45
Speaker 3: as time went on, I also started to get into
6:49
Speaker 3: the politics and the social I guess, the social politics
6:52
Speaker 3: of San Francisco, and I got involved in a lot
6:55
Speaker 3: of the art scene, the community mural projects and stuff
6:58
Speaker 3: like that. Were kind of like, oh, wow, this is
7:00
Speaker 3: a cool scene too that I want to participate in.
7:04
Speaker 3: And you know, and as time went on, I guess,
7:06
Speaker 3: you know, I always enjoy doing graffiti in the streets
7:09
Speaker 3: and writing a name, you know, traditional, very traditional style
7:14
Speaker 3: of graffiti, right, you write your name or whatever. But
7:19
Speaker 3: but as time went on, I kind of just I
7:21
Speaker 3: wanted to paint things big in the streets, but I
7:23
Speaker 3: also kind of wanted to have some sort of a
7:25
Speaker 3: more greater purpose to what I was painting in the
7:29
Speaker 3: street than just writing my name and sort of this
7:33
Speaker 3: narcissist factor you're like running around, Oh look at me,
7:37
Speaker 3: look at me, look at me, and you know, and
7:40
Speaker 3: to some degree, when you're painting anything in the street,
7:42
Speaker 3: it is like, oh, this is my art or this
7:45
Speaker 3: is my thing, or you might have a symbol or
7:48
Speaker 3: a character or this or that. But I guess as
7:51
Speaker 3: time went on, I just really wanted to paint things
7:55
Speaker 3: in the street. I guess that were like maybe addressing
7:59
Speaker 3: social issues, addressing different things in a particular community, maybe
8:05
Speaker 3: historically referencing something just I don't know, I guess just
8:08
Speaker 3: serving a little bit bigger purpose.
8:10
Speaker 2: But I also too.
8:11
Speaker 3: Like painting kind of in what I started to do
8:16
Speaker 3: was paint a lot more like murals, using characters and
8:19
Speaker 3: stuff like that, and using brushes and stuff like that.
8:23
Speaker 3: So you're getting like a completely different style that you're doing.
8:27
Speaker 3: But also, you know, when you're painting in the streets,
8:31
Speaker 3: you know, it's like your audience is this audience, it's
8:34
Speaker 3: like the most diverse audience you can possibly like sort
8:37
Speaker 3: of show your art too, because it's not necessary. It's
8:40
Speaker 3: not an audience that every single one of them is
8:43
Speaker 3: an art fan or not every single one of them
8:46
Speaker 3: necessarily asked to see your art.
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Speaker 2: So with that comes another responsibility.
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Speaker 1: Sense, So we will after the obschool, the graffiti and
8:58
Speaker 1: this gateboat and the mule, just kind of started, all right, Yeah.
9:02
Speaker 3: And so yeah, I was in school and doing typical
9:05
Speaker 3: art school kind of stuff, and also was by night
9:11
Speaker 3: doing a lot of graffiti stuff, you know, a couple
9:14
Speaker 3: of nights a week, I'd be out all night. And
9:17
Speaker 3: it's funny just to look back on it, too, because
9:19
Speaker 3: I would be in these like your you know, your
9:21
Speaker 3: traditional figure drawing art school classes with like a nude
9:25
Speaker 3: model and then you're sitting there, you know, doing your
9:28
Speaker 3: sketches and you know it's figure drawing or whatever. And
9:31
Speaker 3: a lot of times I would roll into that class
9:34
Speaker 3: after being up till like five in the morning painting
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Speaker 3: some roof and you know, not even showering, just like
9:40
Speaker 3: going straight to the class, and you know, I'd wonder
9:44
Speaker 3: why people kind of were looking at me a little like,
9:47
Speaker 3: oh who, what's up with this guy?
9:49
Speaker 2: Or whatever?
9:51
Speaker 3: And it's like, oh, man, like why are people weird
9:54
Speaker 3: to me at school? But now, in hindsight, I look
9:56
Speaker 3: back and I go, oh, I see. But a lot
9:59
Speaker 3: of times it would be like in that phase of
10:02
Speaker 3: my life, it's like I can't even imagine this now,
10:05
Speaker 3: but I just had endless amounts of energy. It would
10:08
Speaker 3: be like stay up all night painting some rooftop. Then
10:11
Speaker 3: I'd be up all day at school this and that.
10:14
Speaker 3: And I guess like just if I would go paint
10:18
Speaker 3: a spot at night, I'd just be like so excited
10:20
Speaker 3: to see it the next morning, you know, So like
10:23
Speaker 3: even before I would get to school, I would always
10:25
Speaker 3: go see whatever I did the night before and hopefully
10:29
Speaker 3: get pictures of it. And you know that was always
10:32
Speaker 3: like gave me just so much energy to go see
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Speaker 3: the spot after you did it.
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Speaker 1: And when did you move to Los Angeles?
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Speaker 3: Moved to Los Angeles right at the beginning of twenty fourteen,
10:43
Speaker 3: so yeah, it's crazy. I've already been here for twelve
10:47
Speaker 3: years after being in I was in San Francisco for
10:51
Speaker 3: almost seventeen so yeah, time flies.
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Speaker 1: And what about this skateboarding because if you if somebody
11:01
Speaker 1: of the listeners have following you, they can see that
11:03
Speaker 1: you are doing a lot of skateboarder. You're really good
11:05
Speaker 1: at it. Yeah, and you just showed me a new skateboard.
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Speaker 2: Ye've done that.
11:10
Speaker 3: But yeah, I'll finally have my name like on a
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Speaker 3: skateboard at an amazing age of fifty one years old,
11:18
Speaker 3: which is cool. I mean, you know, I started working
11:21
Speaker 3: with this company about a little over a year ago
11:23
Speaker 3: now called Technique Skateboards and they're based in Reno, and
11:27
Speaker 3: they've always had like a skateboard kind of aesthetic for
11:31
Speaker 3: their brand that was like really focused on art and
11:34
Speaker 3: so you know, just naturally or whatever through social media,
11:39
Speaker 3: through Instagram, like I kind of linked up with these
11:42
Speaker 3: guys and I didn't know at first, but they wanted
11:46
Speaker 3: to put me on and they wanted me also to
11:49
Speaker 3: do some art stuff for them, which has been really fun.
11:51
Speaker 2: And so.
11:53
Speaker 3: Basically after riding for them for about a year, I
11:56
Speaker 3: did a series of boards and they asked me to
11:58
Speaker 3: do one also with my own name on it. And
12:01
Speaker 3: so when I knew that was happening, I made a huge,
12:06
Speaker 3: huge effort to film like a full video part that
12:08
Speaker 3: will also come out when the board comes out, which
12:11
Speaker 3: has been a trip you know for me too skateboarding.
12:15
Speaker 3: I started skateboarding in nineteen eighty five, so that was
12:19
Speaker 3: even before you know, even a really a graffiti interest,
12:25
Speaker 3: although the two kind of will.
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Speaker 2: Definitely overlap each other and very.
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Speaker 3: Like tons of different parts of life and just you know,
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Speaker 3: aesthetically and just even conceptually in your brain. I mean,
12:40
Speaker 3: it's like the way I skateboard or the you know,
12:42
Speaker 3: I think some of the things I attracts me to
12:44
Speaker 3: skateboarding is just being in the street, for one, being
12:48
Speaker 3: in these places that most people wouldn't really like.
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Speaker 2: Hang out or spend that much time in.
12:53
Speaker 3: And you know, also just utilizing things that weren't meant
12:57
Speaker 3: to be used for something for skate boarding. You know,
13:00
Speaker 3: like a bench is not just a bench to me.
13:02
Speaker 3: A bench is a skateboard obstacle. You know, super simple.
13:06
Speaker 3: But like, you know, I think in a lot of ways,
13:10
Speaker 3: that's like a way like artists look at things. They
13:13
Speaker 3: look at how to utilize imagery or how to utilize
13:16
Speaker 3: objects or environments to you know, for something other than
13:20
Speaker 3: what they were actually meant for. So I think those
13:24
Speaker 3: kind of things overlap, you know. And when you're in
13:27
Speaker 3: the streets just skating around, you know, it's like you
13:30
Speaker 3: you are exposed to everything.
13:31
Speaker 2: In the streets.
13:32
Speaker 3: So you're you know, in a lot of spots that
13:34
Speaker 3: are in the you know, in the cuts or where
13:37
Speaker 3: people don't necessarily go, and those spots are also kind
13:41
Speaker 3: of safe places to do GRAFFEEDI So a lot of times,
13:44
Speaker 3: you know, these spots that are in the cuts that
13:47
Speaker 3: we go skate are also good spots to do GRAFFEEDI
13:50
Speaker 3: And you know, so you have that overlap a lot
13:53
Speaker 3: of times with it, and you know, skateboarding, you know,
13:58
Speaker 3: it's really kind of that for the most part, has
14:01
Speaker 3: really shaped me as a person. And you know, you
14:05
Speaker 3: go through a lot of different phases in life. And
14:08
Speaker 3: I think probably around the time we met, I still
14:12
Speaker 3: I mean I always always skateboarded. I'd never left, but
14:16
Speaker 3: like there were times in my life where I, you know,
14:18
Speaker 3: I wasn't doing it as much, or maybe skateboarding went
14:22
Speaker 3: from like going out for hours trying tricks to like
14:26
Speaker 3: skateboarding down the street to the bar, you know, or
14:30
Speaker 3: or you know that kind of thing like yeah, or
14:34
Speaker 3: just you know you have it, but you're not really
14:36
Speaker 3: doing it. And so and also too, you know, when
14:40
Speaker 3: life kind of got busy with all of a sudden,
14:44
Speaker 3: you know, I would say around two thousand and six
14:47
Speaker 3: two thousand and seven is when suddenly my career, you know,
14:52
Speaker 3: started to do okay as an artist, Like I started
14:55
Speaker 3: to be able to make a comfortable living just being
14:58
Speaker 3: an artist. And so at that moment when something like
15:01
Speaker 3: that finally comes to fruition, after all those years, You're like, wow,
15:05
Speaker 3: finally this is working.
15:06
Speaker 2: Finally I could potentially do this for a living.
15:10
Speaker 3: You just got for me, I had to just go
15:12
Speaker 3: all in on it because like it felt so fragile, like.
15:16
Speaker 2: Oh maybe this isn't forever this or that.
15:18
Speaker 3: So as soon as it started to work, I mean,
15:21
Speaker 3: I just poured my whole being into being an artist,
15:24
Speaker 3: and so everything went by the wayside for me, like
15:27
Speaker 3: you know, friendships, my health, you know, skateboarding, pretty much everything.
15:34
Speaker 2: All I would do day and night is make art.
15:38
Speaker 2: I'd be in a studio or.
15:40
Speaker 3: In a room all day, then I'd leave and eat
15:43
Speaker 3: probably some pretty unhealthy food and then make art until
15:47
Speaker 3: them wee hours of the night, wake up the next day,
15:49
Speaker 3: do it all over again. And it works, you know,
15:53
Speaker 3: having that kind of work ethic and just going crazy
15:56
Speaker 3: just being into one specific thing.
15:59
Speaker 2: It works for a while, but you know, as time
16:02
Speaker 2: goes on.
16:03
Speaker 3: You're starting to just like burn the candle at both ends,
16:06
Speaker 3: you know, and you realize your only fulfilling thiss like
16:10
Speaker 3: one thing in your life, and that life is a
16:14
Speaker 3: lot bigger than just you're making your art, and I
16:18
Speaker 3: think having a balance actually in your life of all
16:22
Speaker 3: these other things, and art makes you be able to
16:25
Speaker 3: make better art.
16:26
Speaker 2: And so.
16:28
Speaker 3: That's something I've kind of learned a hard lesson with,
16:31
Speaker 3: you know, over the course of like i'd say, the
16:33
Speaker 3: last ten years, I've really kind of reconfigured myself and
16:38
Speaker 3: put different priorities in the places that they should be.
16:43
Speaker 3: Not that art isn't like a huge, huge, huge priority,
16:47
Speaker 3: but also it's like my family is.
16:49
Speaker 2: A huge priority.
16:51
Speaker 3: Taking care of my physical and my mental health is
16:54
Speaker 3: a huge priority to me. And oftentimes when you're just
16:59
Speaker 3: like so like engulfed by just one thing, you aren't
17:03
Speaker 3: taking care of your mental health or your physical health. So,
17:07
Speaker 3: you know, I'm fortunate enough to have realized that early
17:11
Speaker 3: enough to like sort of correct course on that. You know,
17:15
Speaker 3: I'm sure you probably remember many years back when I
17:19
Speaker 3: was like a lot heavier than you know, probably around
17:24
Speaker 3: you know, two thousand and nine and twenty ten, when
17:26
Speaker 3: I seen you in out in Copenhagen. I was probably
17:30
Speaker 3: pretty big, you know, and like kind of gained a
17:35
Speaker 3: good sixty pounds at that point. And you know, that's
17:39
Speaker 3: no good call that my art, bod.
17:43
Speaker 1: But you look so healthy now, and then you do
17:46
Speaker 1: skateboarding every second day, and only every.
17:48
Speaker 3: Day, right, not every day, but I mean if I could,
17:52
Speaker 3: I would. But you know, it's like definitely a good
17:56
Speaker 3: many times a day, and when I go, I generally
17:58
Speaker 3: do it, you know, five six hours straight.
18:01
Speaker 2: You know. I've also developed like a really good gym regiment.
18:05
Speaker 3: In the gym, like six days a week, doing a
18:07
Speaker 3: lot of cardio, do a lot of stretching, like now
18:10
Speaker 3: at my age to skateboard and just still be jumping
18:14
Speaker 3: down big stairs and jumping over big things and like
18:17
Speaker 3: you know, as we might say, keeping it real. Like
18:23
Speaker 3: you know, it's something I take really seriously now because
18:25
Speaker 3: I have to. It's like a lot of the weight
18:28
Speaker 3: training and keeping a good cardio and stretching and all
18:32
Speaker 3: these different things. It's like how I can manage to
18:35
Speaker 3: do what I'm doing and not get completely hurt even
18:38
Speaker 3: though you still do get hurt. And that's, you know,
18:43
Speaker 3: something I'm really conscious of. But also you know, you
18:47
Speaker 3: can also just get hit by a bus walking down
18:50
Speaker 3: the street too, So it's like, you know, I hear
18:52
Speaker 3: this a lot of times from different artists and stuff
18:55
Speaker 3: for different people, and they're like, oh, I quit skating
18:58
Speaker 3: because like I don't want to hurt my hand because
19:00
Speaker 3: that's my livelihood or this or that. But it's just like,
19:05
Speaker 3: you know, I can respect that to some degree, but
19:08
Speaker 3: I also think, like, you know, anything can happen. I mean,
19:12
Speaker 3: you know, you should always be if you love something,
19:15
Speaker 3: you should always be pursuing it or doing it or
19:18
Speaker 3: you know, if there's a will, there's a way. So
19:20
Speaker 3: many times if like someone's like, oh yeah, I don't
19:23
Speaker 3: want to do this or I don't want to skateboard
19:25
Speaker 3: because I don't want to get hurt, well like for me,
19:27
Speaker 3: I feel like they probably don't have the same amount
19:30
Speaker 3: of passion that I have for it, you know, And.
19:34
Speaker 2: That's really what it comes down to.
19:36
Speaker 3: It's like, you know, when I was younger, I skated semi,
19:40
Speaker 3: I got I was sponsored, I wrote for companies and
19:42
Speaker 3: all that stuff, the whole.
19:43
Speaker 2: Nine filming Da da da da dah. You know.
19:47
Speaker 3: Got into the like late nineties and got pretty hurt actually,
19:52
Speaker 3: and at the time too, I was living in San Francisco.
19:55
Speaker 3: I was also getting heavy, heavy into doing graffiti really
19:59
Speaker 3: hard or a lot of art things and this and that,
20:02
Speaker 3: and at the time too, just getting hurt and then
20:05
Speaker 3: sort of just having your sponsors kind of not even
20:08
Speaker 3: support you. It was like a different environment for skateboarders
20:11
Speaker 3: back then too, But I just kind of saw the
20:14
Speaker 3: writing on the wall, you know. So I was like, well, shit,
20:18
Speaker 3: I can see a future and doing art and all
20:21
Speaker 3: these things.
20:22
Speaker 2: I should probably.
20:23
Speaker 3: Focus the type of effort I'm focusing into skateboarding into
20:27
Speaker 3: this because I actually did see a future in it.
20:32
Speaker 3: Living in SF too, you know, there's a culture there
20:34
Speaker 3: with skateboarders, and you know, they call it couch surfing,
20:38
Speaker 3: and so it was like I lived in a house
20:40
Speaker 3: on Hayte Street for many years and like with some roommates,
20:43
Speaker 3: and like there would always be some random person sleeping
20:46
Speaker 3: on the couch that was there to skate and you know,
20:49
Speaker 3: it was cool at the time when you're young, you
20:50
Speaker 3: had another homie there whatever, but like as time went on,
20:55
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, it would be like, whoa, this
20:57
Speaker 3: is this skateboard This guy was a pro and you
21:01
Speaker 3: know in the nineties, and I like looked up to
21:04
Speaker 3: them and they're sleeping on my couch like kind of
21:06
Speaker 3: shit where you're like whoa, Like, you know, really put
21:10
Speaker 3: it into perspective, just seeing like these legendary you know,
21:14
Speaker 3: skate pros around usf that you know, we're really struggling
21:18
Speaker 3: to get by in life, you know, and not for
21:21
Speaker 3: lack of trying hard or any reason really, but like
21:25
Speaker 3: that struck me, you know, really like in a real way,
21:29
Speaker 3: and that I was like, well, if this guy didn't
21:33
Speaker 3: have a future in this, like how could I expect
21:35
Speaker 3: to have a future in this? And so, you know,
21:38
Speaker 3: to be fair like sort of at that time, in
21:41
Speaker 3: the like late early two thousands, I kind of was like, oh, well,
21:44
Speaker 3: I'm going to focus on my art. But then I
21:47
Speaker 3: also I always skate. I'll always skate, and you know,
21:50
Speaker 3: and it skating took a heavy back seat for me
21:54
Speaker 3: for a good four or five years, and you know
21:59
Speaker 3: while I was like really kind of trying to build
22:01
Speaker 3: my our career, but as time went on, I just
22:04
Speaker 3: I missed it, you know, and you know I would
22:07
Speaker 3: barely be skating. But why am I still walk like
22:10
Speaker 3: driving down the street and I'm looking at the ledge
22:13
Speaker 3: off the forest stairs like ooh, look at that thing,
22:15
Speaker 3: or like it's like, you know, so intuitive, it's like
22:19
Speaker 3: drilled in my brain, you know, where you're just like
22:21
Speaker 3: the way I look at everything around me is like
22:23
Speaker 3: I'm looking at how to skate it, or potentially how
22:26
Speaker 3: to paint it, or potentially oh look at that shape
22:31
Speaker 3: or this or that that's a good shape or whatever.
22:33
Speaker 3: It's like, you know, everything is just so intertwined. You know,
22:37
Speaker 3: even you know, driving home from my studio or whatever,
22:41
Speaker 3: you drive around LA and you see all these different
22:44
Speaker 3: buff marks. You know, for the most part, a lot
22:47
Speaker 3: of graffiti's running pretty hardcore here in LA right now.
22:50
Speaker 2: But they still buff things.
22:52
Speaker 3: And it's like, you know, I'm always so conscious that
22:55
Speaker 3: the colors are using to buff things, like Wow, that's
22:57
Speaker 3: a nice green or this or that. So it's it's
23:00
Speaker 3: just funny because like between skating, graffiti and just art
23:04
Speaker 3: like that, it's just like literally the lens I view
23:07
Speaker 3: the world in now. And the more I've like come
23:10
Speaker 3: to realize that the more the more you're like you
23:14
Speaker 3: even do it. So but I you know, I enjoy
23:18
Speaker 3: that part of it. But I guess to go back
23:20
Speaker 3: to what I was saying is that, like, you know,
23:23
Speaker 3: I never really pursued skateboarding to be like, oh, I'm
23:26
Speaker 3: going to be a pro at this or this or that,
23:30
Speaker 3: and then all these years later it's just like sort
23:33
Speaker 3: of basically probably about ten years ago is when I
23:36
Speaker 3: like really fell back in love with skating, like where
23:39
Speaker 3: I'm like, wow, I love this, and it's like loving
23:43
Speaker 3: it for like the most purest reasons, like the passion
23:48
Speaker 3: you feel when you do a trick, the passion you
23:50
Speaker 3: feel when you ride your skateboard down the street, this
23:53
Speaker 3: passion you feel when you pop your tail up a curb,
23:56
Speaker 3: or just like it really is a few you know,
24:01
Speaker 3: and it's a feeling I love and I hope to
24:04
Speaker 3: do it for as long as I possibly can.
24:06
Speaker 1: You know, fifty one, you're still doing it. It's so
24:08
Speaker 1: much respect and of that, and you're still doing as well.
24:13
Speaker 1: A lot of murals around.
24:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I try to. I mean it's it's a difficult. Uh,
24:19
Speaker 3: it's a difficult thing to do. If I could be
24:22
Speaker 3: painting walls like all the time, I would definitely choose
24:27
Speaker 3: to do that more than anything, because I just really
24:29
Speaker 3: love it. I love just being outside in the street.
24:34
Speaker 3: Posts it up in some neighborhood that maybe you're not
24:37
Speaker 3: super familiar with.
24:39
Speaker 2: But then after you paint the mural, you know everybody
24:42
Speaker 2: that lives there.
24:43
Speaker 3: You know the person that runs the restaurant down the street,
24:47
Speaker 3: the guy at the bar this and that I really
24:49
Speaker 3: enjoyed that experience as well. Of painting a mural is
24:53
Speaker 3: kind of like getting to know the community that's ultimately
24:57
Speaker 3: going to live with whatever you're doing. I also think
25:01
Speaker 3: that's like a really important process or part of doing
25:04
Speaker 3: a mural is sort of knowing the people and knowing
25:06
Speaker 3: the community that you're putting something in. But nowadays, you know,
25:11
Speaker 3: I basically started doing murals in San Francisco around the
25:15
Speaker 3: year two thousand. The first one I ever did was
25:19
Speaker 3: in a project called the Clarion.
25:21
Speaker 2: Alley Mural Project in San Francisco.
25:24
Speaker 3: It was a basically like a really torn up kind
25:28
Speaker 3: of drug alley that a bunch of artists in the
25:31
Speaker 3: early nineties transformed into like an avant garde.
25:36
Speaker 2: Art gallery kind of thing.
25:38
Speaker 3: And so it's not your what you would call your
25:41
Speaker 3: traditional Chicano murals. It's more like contemporary art style. And
25:46
Speaker 3: for me, you know, it was one of the first
25:49
Speaker 3: things I came across when I when I moved to
25:51
Speaker 3: San Francisco too. It just turned out another guy that
25:55
Speaker 3: I had met that was a graffiti writer who writes
25:59
Speaker 3: piece he lived on this alley and then you know
26:03
Speaker 3: him and who I mentioned earlier Trusts.
26:05
Speaker 2: They were in the same crew, and so.
26:07
Speaker 3: I met them and ended up going over to his
26:09
Speaker 3: house one night, and all of a sudden like walking
26:12
Speaker 3: through this.
26:12
Speaker 2: Alley going whoa, like, you.
26:15
Speaker 3: Know, this is amazing, holy crap, And then all of
26:19
Speaker 3: a sudden kind of realizing that some of the murals
26:22
Speaker 3: that I was seeing in in that alley were murals
26:26
Speaker 3: that were actually in a Thrasher magazine that I had
26:29
Speaker 3: seen a few years earlier. There was a mural by
26:32
Speaker 3: this underground cartoonist named Mattz. There was another mural that
26:36
Speaker 3: was like a photo realistic mural of an escalator, and
26:41
Speaker 3: that one stuck out to me. I don't remember the artist.
26:45
Speaker 3: There were just several murals in there that I recognized.
26:47
Speaker 3: I had seen them in Thrasher Magazine of all places,
26:50
Speaker 3: and so all of a sudden I was like, WHOA,
26:53
Speaker 3: what is this thing? And then years and years later,
26:56
Speaker 3: when I was interested in trying to do a mural,
26:59
Speaker 3: I had met the guy running the kind of loosely
27:03
Speaker 3: running the project at the time.
27:04
Speaker 2: His name is Aaron Noble and other artists.
27:07
Speaker 3: And I approached him about doing a mural there and
27:10
Speaker 3: then basically put in a proposal and whatever.
27:16
Speaker 2: As time went on, I.
27:17
Speaker 3: Ended up doing the first mural there in that alley,
27:20
Speaker 3: and so that's kind of where it all began for me.
27:25
Speaker 3: And the mural I ended up doing, ironically, was about
27:30
Speaker 3: sort of like the gentrification going on in the Mission district,
27:33
Speaker 3: which is where the Clarion Alley was or.
27:36
Speaker 2: Still is actually to this day.
27:38
Speaker 3: And so at the time, everyview, all the artists and
27:41
Speaker 3: all the all the cultural cultures that were in the
27:45
Speaker 3: mission were like sort of being eradicated out of the
27:49
Speaker 3: out of that zone because of you know, as the
27:52
Speaker 3: as the tale goes, the rich people come in and
27:55
Speaker 3: fancy cafes go in, and then all the rent prices
27:58
Speaker 3: go up they start kicking people out. So you know,
28:01
Speaker 3: this is a huge, huge issue in San Francisco, still
28:04
Speaker 3: is to this day because it's such a small city
28:07
Speaker 3: so space is very limited too. But the mural I
28:11
Speaker 3: ended up doing was kind of about like that. Loosely,
28:15
Speaker 3: that sort of the underlying theme was that the soul
28:18
Speaker 3: was being kind of sucked out of San Francisco by
28:22
Speaker 3: these you know, dot com tech people. That was kind
28:25
Speaker 3: of the underlying theme of the mural. But basically, when
28:29
Speaker 3: once I did that, like so many people saw it
28:32
Speaker 3: in this alley, which was surprising, and it just led
28:35
Speaker 3: to so many other opportunities doing murals around San Francisco.
28:39
Speaker 3: You know, actually directly after the that I did Clarion,
28:44
Speaker 3: I just that's all I wanted to do, even though
28:47
Speaker 3: I was still in school. It's all I wanted to
28:48
Speaker 3: do is pay murals. And so I started just going
28:52
Speaker 3: up to corner stores and this and that similar similar
28:55
Speaker 3: technique that a lot of graffiti writers did at the
28:58
Speaker 3: time too, just approaching convenience stores and stuff like that,
29:01
Speaker 3: seeing if you could paint their wall outside. And so
29:04
Speaker 3: I was trying to do that a lot, and that
29:07
Speaker 3: didn't really work out super much. I think I got
29:10
Speaker 3: like one mural doing like on a convenience store doing that,
29:14
Speaker 3: and then as time went on, I kind of was
29:16
Speaker 3: just like already kind of comfortable like painting, you know,
29:20
Speaker 3: large long graffiti pieces like in cutty spots, you know,
29:25
Speaker 3: out down at the time, down off a Third Street
29:27
Speaker 3: and sixteenth was pretty much no man's land. That's where
29:31
Speaker 3: the Golden State Warriors play now, but that was like
29:35
Speaker 3: a dead zone down there. There was all these areas
29:37
Speaker 3: of San Francisco where you could just go paint. So
29:41
Speaker 3: for me, I just started to go kind of down
29:43
Speaker 3: into some of these dead zones and start painting more
29:46
Speaker 3: like murals with brushes, like on walls. I'd find walls
29:49
Speaker 3: and I'd kind of just like almost set up like
29:52
Speaker 3: I was doing a legal mural or something, sometimes even
29:56
Speaker 3: wearing like the orange vest, and then you know, start
30:00
Speaker 3: painting stuff. And then at the time I started painting
30:04
Speaker 3: one down on sixteenth and third, which was kind of
30:06
Speaker 3: in the cuts, and I just kept going back to
30:09
Speaker 3: the same one for like month, two months. And then
30:13
Speaker 3: another artist, Aaron Noble, who I mentioned earlier, was running
30:16
Speaker 3: Clarion Ali Murro project at the time. He decided to
30:20
Speaker 3: join in, and basically, in like a month and a
30:23
Speaker 3: half's time, we had painted like about a block and
30:27
Speaker 3: a half long on this wall, like full cohesive looking
30:31
Speaker 3: mural and with no permission and just somehow set up
30:35
Speaker 3: like we were doing, you know, a legal mural, and
30:39
Speaker 3: we did it and basically too Then from there, like
30:44
Speaker 3: people actually saw this thing a lot, and all of
30:48
Speaker 3: a sudden, I started to get a lot of more
30:50
Speaker 3: opportunities doing like murals around San Francisco, even some private
30:54
Speaker 3: murals and stuff like that. But then also at around
30:58
Speaker 3: that same time too, some different art galleries around San
31:03
Speaker 3: Francisco it kind of took notice of that as well,
31:05
Speaker 3: and so I started to get like contacted by galleries
31:09
Speaker 3: around SF that were like, oh, we want to, you know,
31:11
Speaker 3: do a show with you or whatever, and so I
31:14
Speaker 3: was like, oh, okay, that's cool, and so just you know,
31:18
Speaker 3: basically dove into all that stuff. And you know, it's
31:22
Speaker 3: funny too, because at that time, I would take a
31:25
Speaker 3: long time.
31:26
Speaker 2: To do murals.
31:27
Speaker 3: Like literally there was a mural that me and Aaron
31:30
Speaker 3: Noble did in San Francisco that became pretty well known mural.
31:33
Speaker 3: It was on eighteenth and Lexington in the Mission District
31:37
Speaker 3: and literally took like a year on and off to
31:40
Speaker 3: paint this mural, which to me nowadays is just like
31:43
Speaker 3: unheard of. Like I mean, I didn't live far from it,
31:46
Speaker 3: so it wasn't that big of a deal. But like nowadays,
31:49
Speaker 3: you just bang murals out in like four or five days.
31:52
Speaker 2: And you're you're gone. You know.
31:54
Speaker 3: Just the idea of posting up somewhere for a whole
31:56
Speaker 3: year painting a mural just sounds insane, like, you know,
32:00
Speaker 3: and that's basically kind of the beginnings of like when
32:05
Speaker 3: you know, I started to get opportunities doing murals and
32:09
Speaker 3: also that's what kind of led to getting shows and
32:13
Speaker 3: galleries too. But again too, it's like, you know, there
32:17
Speaker 3: were I never really had a plan, and I think
32:20
Speaker 3: that's I always think that's kind of an important thing
32:23
Speaker 3: to talk about because like nowadays, it's almost like artists
32:28
Speaker 3: kind of developed strategies of like how to end up
32:32
Speaker 3: in the white que Like how do I get from
32:34
Speaker 3: point A to point D or whatever, like from here
32:39
Speaker 3: to there? Like you know, and it definitely seems like
32:42
Speaker 3: too a lot of artists that paint in murals in
32:45
Speaker 3: the streets or do stuff in the streets, it's it's
32:48
Speaker 3: always kind of funny because a lot of times their
32:50
Speaker 3: aspirations are actually to end up in the gallery. And
32:55
Speaker 3: I guess for me, it was never an aspiration when
32:57
Speaker 3: I was painting in the streets. It was like then
33:00
Speaker 3: when those opportunities arise, it was just like, you know,
33:03
Speaker 3: whatever I didn't like, it was kind of unintentional in
33:07
Speaker 3: a lot of ways. But that being said, I really
33:10
Speaker 3: love painting in the streets murals, like I said earlier,
33:15
Speaker 3: being able to expose you know, an audience in the
33:20
Speaker 3: streets the most of our in my opinion, probably the
33:23
Speaker 3: most diverse audience you could like show artwork too. That's
33:27
Speaker 3: really exciting. But I also think that comes with a
33:30
Speaker 3: responsibility as well, and that you know, when you're painting
33:34
Speaker 3: a mural in the streets, I don't necessarily think it's
33:37
Speaker 3: like always the greatest idea to like punch people in
33:41
Speaker 3: the face with your politics or your ideology. So you know,
33:45
Speaker 3: you can have these things present, you can address things.
33:49
Speaker 3: But I think if you're painting a mural in the
33:51
Speaker 3: streets and you're hoping that thing to be there for
33:54
Speaker 3: at least hopefully five or ten years, hopefully more, the
33:58
Speaker 3: approach is to create something little timeless, that's not so dated.
34:02
Speaker 3: But then that being said, like I really enjoy the
34:05
Speaker 3: environment of a gallery because you can be very timely
34:08
Speaker 3: and of the moment in the way that you you know,
34:12
Speaker 3: address an audience inside of a gallery, and also the
34:16
Speaker 3: audience coming into a gallery as an audience that chose
34:20
Speaker 3: to be looking at art, you know, so like it's
34:24
Speaker 3: kind of like gloves off at that point, like they
34:27
Speaker 3: chose to look at art. So now whatever whatever you're
34:31
Speaker 3: you're deciding to show them is you know, it's fair game.
34:34
Speaker 2: In my opinion, but you know, I don't know if
34:38
Speaker 2: that makes sense to you.
34:39
Speaker 1: It makes total sense. And also like the way you explained,
34:43
Speaker 1: like you didn't wanted to end in the gallery, but
34:46
Speaker 1: you ended in a gallery because all what you did
34:48
Speaker 1: you was looking at it and that made the interest,
34:51
Speaker 1: so you end the there. Now we are in your
34:55
Speaker 1: gallery and you're working on a big solo show for
34:58
Speaker 1: to Buy.
35:00
Speaker 3: I'm working on that, but I'm also I just am
35:02
Speaker 3: finishing a show that will be for Paris that opens
35:06
Speaker 3: March twenty seventh at Gallery Drost. So that's what I've
35:10
Speaker 3: mostly been finishing, which is it's all works on paper
35:14
Speaker 3: for this show in Paris, and there'll also be an
35:17
Speaker 3: installation component to it. And then also working on a
35:22
Speaker 3: show that would be at Valari Gallery in Dubai in September.
35:28
Speaker 3: We'll see how that pans out. With all the things
35:31
Speaker 3: going on there right now, I'm praying and wishing the
35:35
Speaker 3: best for people there right now.
35:38
Speaker 1: But I hope that we will see you soon. And
35:42
Speaker 1: we have been talking a lot about as well, to
35:45
Speaker 1: get you to cooming to do.
35:46
Speaker 2: A mural there. Yeah, it would be amazing.
35:48
Speaker 1: We are working on it. Andrew. Thank you so much
35:52
Speaker 1: for your time. Ye pleasure as all as you and
35:56
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to follow you and visit you all
36:00
Speaker 1: the time, stay in context whatever.
36:02
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, absolutely dude, good to see you.
36:06
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to can Speak with Brisk. I
36:09
Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed the talk with the good Andrew. Please
36:13
Speaker 1: share it with all your friends that love art as
36:16
Speaker 1: much as we love art. Thank you again for listening too,
36:19
Speaker 1: Can't Speak with brisk We will be back next Thursday
36:23
Speaker 1: with a new episode with great art hopefully again to
36:28
Speaker 1: all you guys, thank you so much.