M: Uh before we get started I just wanted to know, uh, is this for um uh school?
S: Yes, we're both taking qualitative research methods, which is a sociology class. so we're like
going through the process of doing qualitative research which is basically like interviews...so
thats what we're practicing so we're not like pros at this or anything... but our topic that we
chose to study is street art and how urban art and street art influences the community that its in.
So thats what we're going for and what some of our questions revolve around
M: ok
S: so yeah do you have any other questions before we get started?
M: well I guess it probably doesn't matter one way or another because this isn't going to be
published is it?
S: it's not going to be published. We do post our interviews, we have to transcribe them and put
them up on our blog so we can totally change your name and things like that if you want.
M: well it's only that I'm a professional artist and I try not to um, try not to be pigeon holed. I
don't describe myself as a street artist typically in the professional realm so that's just one of my
concerns. I try to keep it, anytime my name is published like online per say i try not to uh
associate it with graffiti, street art.
S: ok, thats interesting because that's actually kind of like one of our questions, how do you
identify yourself as an artist, because that's one of the nuances that we're interested in
exploring.
M: Wow, that's a tough one to answer briefly, but I guess um as an artist I mean there are
different schools of thought when it comes to street art and graffiti as to whether or not it's art, or
more of a craft, and um but I mean even if you're in any arts school and you're talking to the
craft department or you're talking to the painting department theres also some debate there.
some people approach graffiti with a message...sorry I'm having trouble explaining this. Some
people use graffiti as more of an activity and a craft to be honed rather than a fine art pursuit.
And I think theres, I think those approaches are valid. I think graffiti, traditional graffiti sort of falls
short in a lot of conceptual...conceptuality? haha is that a word? um it, in a conceptual sense it
tends to fall short because usually people are um just sort of ego driven and sort of just
representing this sense of self that they have. And then there's forms of street art if you want to
classify graffiti and street art as being separate, I think in general street art is more of an open,
has more of an open structure. It's not necessarily letter based or word based. It can be
anything the artist uses and um yeah. I'm sorry... am I answering the question at all?
S: Thats ok, yeah yeah! And I guess going off of that I guess you kind of touched on um if we
classified graffiti and street art as different...do you think there's a difference between graffiti and
other types of street art? And also we're using the word street art but are there any other terms
you use? we're just trying to explore how people talk about this subject because there is so
many nuances within it
M: yea there really are, and I mean opinions change from person to person. There uhh typically
when people use the term graffiti, I mean graffiti applies to anything scrawled on you know any
surface typically without permission of the owner of that surface you know. The word itself is
pretty broad but I think the context with what we're talking about you know...most people look at
graffiti as word based images and usually artists have a specific name that they use, and I
guess the distinction would be also a cultural one because uh theres not a lot of um
intermingling between the graffiti, the typical graffiti culture and the street art culture. I think it's a
little bit more common for street artists to come from a fine art background and then um, and
you know this is just generalizing and of course there are exceptions to all these rules you
know, street artists and graffiti artists get together all the time but you know typically um they're
kind of two separate worlds. I think in um pop culture they get blended a little but, but you know
each artist is an individual and so their approach may be similar to other peoples approach but it
always comes down you know in a different place. You know, some people are more devoted to
a traditional graffiti aesthetic and a graffiti approach and aarent really big fans of say like wheat
pasting or stencils or these other typical street art forms. But then some are more into it.
S: Ok um cool, so um you mentioned before the culture...the graffiti culture and the street art
culture...which one do you identify with and then can you kind of identify more the way that
culture functions. Like are there rules, things like that?
M: yeah, well I guess I would identify with the graffiti culture more than the street art culture but I
think i'm somewhat unique in that I'm I consider myself a fine artist and I see graffiti as um as
like uhh astutely different from the art that I make at home and so um so yeah I definitely identify
as a graffiti artist rather than a street artist and uhhhhh I'm sorry so you were asking what the
difference is?
S: so you said you identify more as a graffiti artists, and you said theres a culture within?
M: yeah, yeah its interesting because there, theres, and again this is generalization but most
graffiti artists have a pretty good sense of history uhm within their city or you know ideally within
the nation so they, if you ask someone who's been writing graffiti for a while, if you ask them
about a graffiti writer especially from their part of the country who hasn't written in ten years,
theres still a good chance that that person is aware of the writers work just based on you know
there might be residue9:49 of that persons career around town where you can just...i guess
thats sort of the basis of the culture, an appreciation for um the history, sounds goofy but the
forefathers, the people who sort of innovated the techniques and styles that current generations
are building on and utilizing
G: are there any forefathers that you can identify in the graffiti world?
S: that you look up to?
M: personally?
S: mhm
M: oh man this is really tough. I'd feel more comfortable speaking more generally you know
through the broad range of graffiti writers
S: ok
M: if you were to research it and try 10:58 to get a good sense of like the history of graffiti you'd
probably start in Philadelphia in the mid to late 60s and that's when what most people think of
as modern graffiti started happening and also people you'd look at would be...there was a writer
"cornbread" and a writer...I'm trying to think um uh there are just a whole bunch of them uh. if
you were to do a google search for early Philadelphia graffiti, theres a lot of documentation on it
and then uh
S: yeah and we've talked to a writer from NYC so we have some historical context from him, so
that's really interesting
M: out of curiosity did he mention NY to be the first place that showed up?
S: he was specifically talking about the trains and stuff there, so we didn't go into the specific
origins but we talked about the beginning of the movement with the writing on the trains
M: gotcha yeah thats sort of a subject of debate, I've lived in Philadelphia for a while so I kind of
it got ingrained that that was the birth place, but there are people in NY that claim that they
started it so...
S/G: (laughter)
M: either of those two cites I think is an acceptable answer
S: So I just want to clarify, Madeline Moravitz is the one who told me about you, she said that
you were like a "famous muralist" and did all these murals across the country
M: she may have been exaggerating a little bit
S: yeah she does that sometimes...and I know you live in Richmond, correct?
M: yes
S: so were you involved in the Richmond Mural Project at all?
M: yeah I was, I took a more non-graffiti uh approach on that one
S: so can you tell us more about what it was like to be involved in that project? Because that's
also something that we're interested in looking at since that's a really big visible part of what
people think of when they think of street art in Richmond...
M: Well, uhm, lets see my experience with the street art festival was a good one, I really
enjoyed it and um I think it's a positive thing. It's a Its a tricky subject though because graffiti, hm
how do I phrase this, its something that people, the public, tends to enjoy when they have a little
control over it, you know? But the funny thing is, by definition graffiti is illegal and is done
without permission and is really hard to justify honestly...well from a legal standpoint you can't
justify it and um sort of moral standpoint its really theres some grey areas and so we have a
graffiti festival like that it kind of goes against the nature of graffiti itself um because its you know
here it is, its open to the public, its accessible, its like this community building thing which, you
now can be also when its done illegally it happens sometimes. its just like a graffiti artist spends
a lot of time trying to avoid attention and doing things in private and uh then when you have a
graffiti festival like that the artists are asked to come out and paint in front of people and so it's,
it can be unnerving because you're expected to answer questions and talk about your work and
umm you probably can't be 100% truthful and still have people walk away from it with an
appreciation for it you know? So the street art festival, I did enjoy it, the act of painting, again it's
nice to be appreciated but also it's sort of a contradiction in some ways.
G: so do you think graffiti changes when it's not done in private and its being commissioned kind
of like the Richmond Mural Project?
M: yeah well I've thought about this a lot recently because the first 10 years of my graffiti career
i was pretty adamantly apposed to any sort of "graffiti-like" commissioned work, I just wouldn't
do it. I would, like I said I'm a fine artist that would do all kind of commissions, but anything that
had to do with graffiti I thought it was sort of, I just didn't think it was appropriate to commission
it because it sort of uh...In a way it loses it's soul if its paid for. It's one of the few art forms that
cant17:35 really be bought or sold. In, this sounds so corny, in its truest form it's not attainable.
It's there for the public and usually it will get destroyed within a matter of weeks or months so, I
think that, when I think of graffiti that's what I'm talking about. and when it comes to a street art
festival or somebody wants graffiti painted in their gym or their son wants a big graffiti painting,
that's...I think of that more a graffiti influenced artwork. It's not really graffiti. Like I said
definitively graffiti18:18 is um done without permission and uh so that's where I think I like um
draw the line between graffiti and art I guess you could say?
S: cool, so you said for the first 10 years of your life as an artist you were opposed to doing
graffiti commissioned...could you tell us how you got interested art, how you started writing, and
how you started doing fine art?
M: well again, they're kind of two separate courses in my life. The art, the general interest in art
came very early. I had a lot of encouragement from my mom, she was a fine artist, and my
sisters really talented also so it was sort of like a family thing, always encouraged. I don't really
think most people, you know most people have a creative side its just a matter of, to some
degree its a choice to pursue that or not. of course people express themselves in all kinds of
ways. But I think it was the encouragement I got from my family and in school too, they had
some pretty great art teachers that were very encouraging. I had a lot of exposure to different
kinds of art so it kind of just naturally progressed. And graffiti is kind of like an after school
special type story20:16 where my, a friend of mine moved from my home town in NJ, and he
had learned about graffiti, he was born in NY and learned all about it and in NJ he knew a bunch
of graffiti writers and he sort of brought it down and he was the bad influence on me (laughs) so
yeah thats basically it and its just a lot of fun, yeah.
S: So, you don't have to answer this if you don't want to but do you still actively go out and tag
things or like write i guess?
M: uhh not too actively. Like it's been probably like the busiest time for me for graffiti was around
2009 or so and it sort of tapered off and other things in my life have gotten more serious so
that's taken a back burner but I also, its kind of important to my i don't know to my sanity like its
that big of deal, but theres something about it that um really calms me down and I've talked to
friends about it and we all sort of understand it as living in the moment because we, everything
else just vanishes from your thought process and you're just kind of focusing on what you're
doing and its, I think it's good for people, not necessarily graffiti, but I think its good for people to
have some kind of passion or activity that they do that is separate from their day to day life. So
thats what it is for me, its just an escape. Yeah, I mean I don't really uh paint like peoples
buildings very much any more
S: ok, just wondering. that's something Gabby and I, since we started researching, have had an
interest in...we're just inspired by everyones stories
M: it's funny because, its hard for me to really endorse it because for instance I'm a homeowner
and I really care about my property here and really I don't feel like i'm contradicting myself, I've
never painted anyones house, I've never done that but you know as I get older 23:18 I
understand that too, like even if it's something, lets say a freight train for example, that doesn't
really belong to a single person you know it belongs to big large companies that have literally
thousands of these things rolling around so that was sort of my justifications for that, its almost
like public property, doesn't really bother anybody but as i get older i get to realize you know just
because it doesn't belong to someone on paper doesn't mean the don't have an intimate
relationship with something. if it's involved in their day to day life, their job, their work, people
take pride in stuff like that. Graffiti a lot of times is seen just solely disrespectful as such
disrespect and is not really appreciated as art or even as human expression so, it's kind of
frustration because I don't mean it as a personal attack on anybody and I24:36 don't mean it, I
don't look at it as destruction but you have to come to terms that you're in the minority if thats
how you feel because most people see it a destruction and disrespect.
G: Thats really interesting that you say that, we interviewed a lady a few weeks ago whose
really interested in advertising and the use of public space and she kind of argued that every
day you walk outside and you see all these ads and sometimes those things aren't even legally
placed, and its almost offensive to feel that every moment you walk outside you're automatically
viewed as a consumer and that becomes part of your identity and part of like how you relate and
you know people can look at something like graffiti and be like, even if its not legal or part of a
project, and look at it and be like "oh thats vandalism i don't want to see that" but there are
people out there that don't want to be walking around and seeing billboards for Budweiser or
gran theft auto
M: oh absolutely, I mean when you're looking at graffiti in relation to a billboard or an
advertisement, I think that's one avenue you can kind of justify it in that this was created by a
human being with a human hand and its real expression as opposed to you know uh an
advertisement thats just trying to get you to buy something. Have you looked into Margeret
Kilgallens work at all?
S: No
M: she's an artist, she died in 2005, 2004 somewhere in there yeah Margaret K-i-l-l? No, K-i-l-ga-l-l-e-n I believe. But she is a really excellent fine artist who branched into the graffiti world and
uh her and her boyfriend were kind of like a team and they did a really great interview for PBS,
they did a series called art 21, where they interviewed 21 different artists, they were really really
really great interviews. Margaret Kilgallen in her interview talked about exactly what you were
just saying, they lived in san fransico and she just talked about the every surface of the city is
just covered in ads, and how she felt like she was bombarded in that and that graffiti was way
less offensive than that 27:37
S: so one question that I have - where is there room for art in public spaces?
M: oh man in public spaces? well i mean i guess I'm kind of biased as an artist but I feel that
pretty much everywhere theres is an opportunity for, whether its architecturally a little more
attention to detail, or a mural on a wall thats lackluster, everything down to just a hand painted
address or you know putting a flower on the door...I think theres room for it everywhere and I
think our society sort of is drifting away from that. Well I guess it all goes back to the correlation
of art and craft and you know peoples hand in what their doing, you know you look back in time
at older buildings there was just so much more attention to detail and craft put into it and now
buildings you know when you're talking about public space, buildings are just getting thrown up
and they all look the same and its about the quickest way to do it and the least amount of
money. So yeah I think theres definitely room for creative expression there but then also
Richmond is a pretty good example for what a city can do with murals. Philadelphia too,
Philadelphia I think has more murals than any city per capita in the world? definitely in the
US...but they just really have a lot of great incentives for mural painters and for businesses. they
make it really easy to have a mural painted. And i think there are even tax breaks they give to
businesses if they have mural painted? which I think is a great idea. So again, I'm biased but I
think theres room in pretty much any aspect of an urban environment for an artist to do
something.
S: thats cool, well I guess this is our closing question and if you have anything else you want to
say or any questions about our project we can talk about that, and I guess the last question we
have prepared is how does public art contribute to the overall community?
M: 30:50 Well from the standpoint that i mean if you're talking about public art its effect on the
city in a large scale sense i've seen, not single handedly, but i mean a mural in the right place
can really transform a community in that it's a lot of times a mural is the first sign sort of of a
community coming back to life and its a sign that people care about what the community looks
like, so it has potential in that way to uplift parts of the city. And then its sort of up to the artist at
that point to engage the public in the content of the mural, and I think that's something that sort
of makes or breaks 31:47 public art a lot of times because some i see some mural painters uh
just really getting stoked on doing their thing and putting their images out their and doing their
air, i think its important that if you're creating something that's site specific or public, specifically
public, you know if you're painting a mural in a mexican resturaunt then the content can be for
the mexican restaurant. 32:19 i guess what i'm getting at is if its for the public i think the artist
should really consider imagery that will either be enjoyed or appreciated by the public, or at
least will engage the public32:33 so i think thats important like you know and so i think thats
important to have...but that i think that sort of responsibility of artists that can really make or
break, it can be really successful and sorry what was the question again? I'm getting on a
tangent
S: how does public art contribute to the overall community? ...from your experience?
M: I've had experiences that are kind of funny where while working on murals i've talked to
people specifically and have had some pretty funny, some people with positive things to say,
some people with negative things to say but uh honestly just getting out there and doing it is the
first step and thats a huge step but like i said just a little bit of hand made expression can really
just change somebody day
S: you said you had had positive and negative feedback while you're painting out on the
streets...do you remember any examples of what people have said to you?
M: the most notable ones...well somebody actually wrote on a mural i was painting it was, I was
painting a wall with two other artists and someone wrote while I was gone like overnight and
someone wrote like "this sucks...except for this one" and then an arrow pointing to the mural
next to the one that I was doing, but you know thats just someones opinion and i didn't let it get
to me, it was more of a comical thing when we showed up the next day. honestly thats one of
the only negative comments I've gotten. usually when i'm painting people stop by because
they're happy about it34:49 so actually i was painting in Philly one time, i was painting a graffiti
wall, like a legal commissioned graffiti wall and uh this guy stopped by and he was probably in
his sixties maybe late fifties but i think he was in his sixties and he was really excited about it
and we started talking and it turns out that he used to write graffiti in Philadelphia in the early
seventies and he started telling me all these great stories about how it was back then and i just
realized that philadelphia and i guess new york city too are just unique in that way that theres a
history that goes back so far and that theres a real, I just get the sense that more people
appreciate graffiti there than in other cities. For example in Richmond people really can't stand it
here. So I, i never thought it would have this effect on me but it really does make me not want to
do it here because i feel like most of the feedback would be negative..where in Philadelphia
theres pretty good chunk of the population that are currently or have previously been involved
in, so its just a different context. And sorry I feel like i've just been rambling this whole time but if
you have any more specific questions later, feel free to call me back.
S: definitely, this is all great. its good to get background info, general info, to help us shape
things in our head
M: oh have you all heard of that tv show "Street art throw down" thats been a topic of discussion
with a lot of graffiti writer friends of mine because thats a pretty good example of how, what i
was talking about earlier with um the essence of graffiti not really being for sale, you can really
market it and have it still be graffiti, so that show is a pretty good example of what happens
when people try to market it. they really miss the mark a lot of ways on that show. so yeah,
everything from the terminology they use to the artists that they pick its all really off-base
S: well check it out
M: yeah it's definitely worth a watch
G: I have a question from what you said a little earlier... If you're going to be doing graffiti or any
type of street art in a community, it should kind of reflect the community itself?
M: um I was thinking more just with mural painting, when you said public art I was imagining
commissioned public art like a mural or an outdoor sculpture or something, um graffiti is
different from that because this sounds bad but theres really no responsibility to anyone but the
artist being true to themselves when it comes to graffiti and so, but again every person is
different, every artist is different so their approach is going to be different but that is kind of..its
just not the same for graffiti because nobody is paying you money to do this, you're risking your
freedom to do it so you don't really have a responsibility to anyone, you don't have to answer for
anything you do because nobody is really helping you out. and you know another interesting
issue that came up in terms of that is, just a quick anecdote, but theres a sort of gallery type
store in Richmond that has been selling frames and matted photographs of graffiti and, you
know they make no attempt to seek out the artist and give them a cut of whatever their profits
are. A few people have gone there and talked about it how you know sort of disrespectful and
um you know i guess the issue is they're not selling photographs that are artistic photographs
that happen to have graffiti in them, they're just snapshots of graffiti. so they're really just, the
only thing thats aesthetically interesting about the photograph is the graffiti in the photograph
but, the graffiti artist is not compensated so...yeah thats kind of a weird issue
S: yeah thats really interesting
G: so kind of back to like the original question in i guess thinking of more of mural type
commissioned work for the Richmond Mural project, they do a lot of artists that aren't from
Richmond, do you think that kind of changes what the art says about the community? Since
people from the community aren't making it, would it be different if they had more local artists
involved in a project like that?
M: well i think by comparison the, well actually, so are you talking about the Richmond Street art
Festival?
S: we're talking about the Richmond Mural Project where I think it was started by an Art Gallery
called Art Whino
M: ooooh I thought you were talking about the richmond street art festival, which I have actually
never been involved with the other one, I've never done a mural for them so maybe make a note
S: yeah maybe make a note of that, thats interesting we didn't even know they were different
things, we thought they were the same thing!
M: a lot of people do, the street art festival there have been two of them and usually there more
condensed in one area, the first one took place sort of near the flood wall near uh...are familiar
with Richmond?
S:Yeah I'm from Richmond so...
M: ok do you know the murals that are near the flood wall kind of near the pipeline?
S: yeahh
M: so that was the first street art festival, and the second one was up near the bus depot at cary
street, so those are the two street art festivals and all the murals are sort of condensed in those
areas. and the mural festival that art whino is behind sort of um its all over the city and they just
kind of went around and got permission for walls all over town so yeah thats been an issue that
I've talked about with other artists but um the street art festival i think did a much better job
giving opportunities to artists from richmond and the mural project mostly just flew people in
from other places and it goes back to what I was talking about with the murals sort of engaging
the town and the place where it is. I think on on e level we're all humans so we can sort of
communicate what city were from or whatever part of the world were from, we all have
something in common but, i think that i just think its a much more meaningful project when
you have people 44:12 from the area painting because on one side its something that
they're friends and family can be proud of knowing someone who painted that mural and
then also something the whole city can be proud of saying this is someone from this city
who created this and then when you talk about like compensation, you know if the city
can support its own artists it all comes back into the community and its better for
everyone so i, of course i'm biased because I'm an artist but i always want to see that whatever
money goes to artists in a city kind of stay in the city. because you know one thing, especially in
Richmond and a lot in Philly too, artists are kind of a you know we have our own community sort
of and support each other in a lot of ways so its always helpful. Usually if a friend of mine gets a
big job I end up getting some of that too, or vice versa. If i have a big job and need help with
something I'll use some of the money I get to hire some of my friends to help so I think its
important that the support goes to artists that live in the city.
(boring signing off conversation)
S: thank you so much for taking time out of your day to talk to us
M: No problem!