lets take this to the streets

I recently found information on a Seattle based artist who goes by the name of the "Chicken Kid" spreading his work around the U.S. by means of an oddly skewed version of a chicken as well as other awkwardly drawn visuals. The chicken kid exposes a street style unique to the outside street art world, and with it he spreads his name across states in the most peculiar places. He places his drawings anywhere from the backboard of a basketball hoop, to the high-rise of a city bridge, and also has the capability to compose large scale drawings on the street which is difficult mainly because you are not able to see the drawing as a whole while you are working on it, but in piece by piece phases instead. I believe the backbone of the chicken kid stems from his ability to produce in studio art as well, targeting different audiences with different techniques that involve similar subjects. He continuously stays true to what brought his name up between a group of teens at breakfast, or in an old couple’s conversation mid power walk. He produces what he is known for, but provides style changes to experiment and blanket his work over social diversity.
For the Chicken Kid’s inside work he provides a collection of stick figure comic drawings, digitally composed work, and a folder of various mediums he labels “analog” to provide an underlying meaning or cause in their presentation.

His organization has provided him with an entire website or his work where you can not only buy paintings, etc. but t-shirts as well.

I enjoy his humor in the places he chooses to expose his work.

Another anonymous

The afternoon had an odd tinge in its daylight. I walked in with a look of knowing something might be wrong, and pretending I didn't. You were sitting in a white wicker chair leaning your elbows on the glass porch table when every day before that you had always sat back into its dying blue cussion. I watched your panicked eyes drill the tops of your knees as if they provided some sort of answer, and i smiled. What could possibly be this bad that I had to drive an hour home to watch your mouth move when you told me?
You were holding my step-dad's hand, the one i had hated for years but who i had suddenly felt an ease with because of his upright position, structured with a sighing compassion.
I sat down and threw my feet up on the table. The chair felt unforgiving agaisnt my curved back, and still you wouldn't look at me, you didn't say a word.
So you are my mother, and our relationship was different in the year following your divorce. I walked you through your packs of cigarettes and the days you starved, laying back into the rocking chair creaking in the echos of the oversized chimney. I siffoned life through your fingertips when all you could mumble was death and sunken cries.
Four years later and all my stingy mind could focus on was you falling back into your 'no way out'.
Turns out it's cancer, turns out theres more to worry about than your husband cheating, then your kids failing. It turns out life is more important after all.

The good people

In the 22 years I have known this place, I’ve never seen the city come together more than the weekend after you were gone.
And I’m sorry I took a chance on Tampa and failed. I’m sorry I came back only 7 months before you weren’t here anymore, and that I missed out on so many hugs, and that our sarcastic encounters never got as far as I would’ve wanted them to.

I see your brother around at night sometimes and he has your smile in his eyes. He hugs the same way you used to, but it’s different.
Sometimes I wish it would’ve been me and that the people I love wouldn’t be hurting so much, drinking so hard, getting angry at everything.
I’ll always have your face burned in my memory and your name will never be the end of our conversations.

You brought this town together in the most tragic way.

5:30 A.M.

I'm sorry for almost always having my eyes closed when you come by. I know it's been a while since we have seen eachother, and yet everytime you tick my clock off I ignore you and stay in bed. It's hard for me to do much when youre around, and I know you get lonely, but breakfast is never made yet and the air is always cold even after the hottest day of summer. I do see you more often then, however. I hope you notice the way my speach slurs on those mornings. I try and make an effort in smiling.

sick on my busiest day of the week

I've settled into my bed for most of the day trying to get the urge to stop coughing and start typing. For some reason around 8 oclock I had the most powerful idea I had come up with in 24 hours. So let’s talk about good things going wrong, because for some reason I thought going heavy on the vicks vapor rub would stop my coughing completely, and because of this, it took me a whole two minutes to stop my eyes from watering and still another fifteen for my chest to stop burning. The cough won this one.

I was wandering around the internet today with several punches to the keys and I came across an amazing site that completely encompasses the whole relationship between positive messages and graffiti art. The vibe I had the other day glowing around task and gues, once again shocked my energy enough for a few extra coughs. ok, not really, but I am extremely excited about this site.

The site is dedicated to a program which uses graffiti art in therapeutic form, to help stem the issues going on with angry teens who deface public property out of pure emotion and/or gang related violence. The program is directed by Dr. Janice Hashino and it's intentions are outlined on the site ( http://www.graffitiverite.com/graffitiartTherapy.htm) by Dr. Hashino as such:

This study investigates the therapeutic effectiveness of using art therapy in conjunction with graffiti art and culture in the treatment of socially-defiant adolescents who have been detained and/or put on probation for defacing public property with graffiti. A group of seven boys will participate in a six week Graffiti Art Therapy group facilitated by an art therapy graduate student and a legitimate graffiti artist/youth worker. T tests will be run on the Adolescent Treatment Outcomes Module (ATOM) pre to post to determine level of significance (p<.05). In addition, journals kept by participants provide data for a qualitative analysis of Graffiti Art Therapy treatment effectiveness.

This outline provides a basis for the intentions of the program and its hopeful ability to provide answers through art. What is interesting to me, is the idea of taking adolescents who have already gotten in trouble for graffiti and giving them a space where they are aloud to create more of it. This is a good way to observe and understand the emotions behind their work the effectiveness it may or may not have on the children who continue to speak out in negative ways, such as involving themselves in gangs.

Hopefully we can continue to see more programs like this, because every walk of life deserves a chance to be understood.


Awww.

interview part one.

Unfortunately, I’ve been sick all weekend and sound like a nine year old, but at least when you read this it will be in your own voice.

In this post I will go over the interview I had with gues and task. The conversation I had with these artists answered a lot of questions I had, myself, created very different possibilities for.

After immediate hellos, I climbed up onto a stool and placed my green folder on the high top table in the back room of the Dunedin brewery. There were four of us and a basket of pita bread hummus being picked at in the center of the sticker pressed table. I thanked task and gues for taking time to talk to me about their work and smiled at my friend sitting across from me, who made the interview possible. Graffiti, to me seems such a life decision similar to the FBI with its identity protecting aliases and the scarcity of details being told to anyone for fear of being found out. I was lucky to even know they own cans of spray paint.
I fired questions at them and took quick notes which piled onto my page in surprising form. They were so unbelievably positive about their work all the while creating for themselves a culture completely separate from that of the gang related street tagging. The bombing they do, which I immediately questioned the point of, is to gain recognition for their work, the more people who see their names somewhere the more likely they are to associate their street work with their alias. This shows other artists their progress in the art, as well as opening the eyes to on lookers who might not normally take an interest in this type of art. Gues asks me for a pen and paper and begins to draw his alias in graffiti style as he helps answer the rest of my questions. Most graffiti artists, including the two I sat in between, are affiliated with different groups, the name gues and task are under is DVK. This helps the people within a group gain recognition wherever one of the group members may live or visit. Groups form camaraderie across cities states and seas that represent a certain message, style and/or association thus reinforcing the idea of strength in numbers.
The ideal placement for their artwork, task when on, is on run down, abandoned buildings, something I found fitting to my answer in previous blogs. The reasons however were different from mine. Run down buildings are ideal because they hold the artwork longer. If task or gues or any other artist were to tag a newer building, the possibility of their artwork being removed would be higher. In tagging old buildings, more people will see their work because it will most likely be ignored by owners, authorities, etc. longer.

They went on with understanding that some places are just inappropriate creating a stronger tie to the average person in agreement that they wouldn’t want spray paint all over their house either.

Happy Birthday dad.

I was a little late meeting up with the artists because my pants took forever to dry, and I’m not lying when I say I own only one pair of pants that fit me the right way.

I ended up in a dress and leggings.

Ok, so where to begin? I’m going to go over the questions I tackled them with and leave you in suspense for a day to reveal the answers. I’m kind of nice like that.

-How did you get started, incentives, influences, exposure, etc.?
-Type of medium preferred?
-Messages behind your work?
-Placement? Based on audience?
-Illegality, does it make work more significant?
-Would you consider tagging a canvas- museum exhibit?

No, I didn’t ask them these questions in incomplete sentences, but you get the point.

So from now on I will be referring to them as task and gues, and they are apart of a larger group known as DVK.

I’ll leave you now with an update to your vocabulary bank:
Bombing- getting your tag name up on a wall as quickly as possible

when your windshield wipers don't work

Just about fifteen minutes ago I was jogging painfully down the street with a friend and all I could feel was the mucus dripping down the back of my throat the way it did when I was eight and my mother would put a tissue to my nose and tell me to blow.

But that’s not what this entry is about.

I feel a bit derailed these days so stay with me, hopefully at some point I’ll make a stop you’ll enjoy.

I’m meeting with a couple of local artists tomorrow to ask them some questions about their works and basically whatever I am confused or interested by at this point. I’ll work tonight on getting a list of questions together so that I might seem to know a little bit about what I’ll be discussing. I want them to be interested in the conversation too, ya know? Things tend to get a bit more interesting that way.

Next week I’ll be posting pictures. One of my friends does a lot of photography so she’s going to help me take pictures of art that seems to fit the bill in the interesting or meaningful category around Tampa.
Sometimes I can’t wait to get out of this area. Well, usually I mean.

So on that note, I’m also working to get my way into the Peace Corps. It’s almost funny to me how many people have negative reactions to that, like they don’t think I’m capable. I know it’s secretly because they’ll really miss me and don’t want me to do something they’re too scared to make a part of their lives. Or maybe they just don’t think I can do it, well at least my mom believes in me. I have the e-mails of two significant people at this point. One is an older guy who has already done his time in the Philippians, and the other is a girl about my age who has already been accepted and is waiting now until departure.

So, it will be like a before and after, knowing of course that everyone’s experience is unique to the individual.

Well at least I’ll always have Vietnam.


Stay tuned for some ART!.