08.27.2007 | 8:32 am | Houston
What’s in a name, particularly yours?
Chapa, my birth name, or Chapa 182
How long you been writing?
I’ve been an artist since I was a scallywag, but writing since ‘92. I started Hyroglifx Krew…182
How long you been doing those art boards?
The art boards, or panel project, got started in ’99. I was the only one doing this in Houston. Before that I used to stencil and wheat-paste early ’97 to ‘98.
How long do the panels usually ride?
Not long. People take them. Thanx. Free marketing, you can say.
You see them as different, conceptually, from regular graffiti?
Yes. Nothing to do with graff. More art graff is straight aerosol. Spray paint. This is found art, public art, guerilla art, a new concept but I still write graff and paint and sculpt.
You mind if I steal one? Just kidding. Sort of.
Naw, man. Collect them all if you give ‘em away. That’s why I do this. Yeah, go for it.
Click here and here for more panels.
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02.12.2007 | 8:07 am | Houston
Derek Shumate sent us a description of the Lollipauperz collective last? November.? His words are in italics below.
Ok, so this is in no way a definitive recap about the Lollipauperz activities, but here goes… We’re just an art collective that was established about a year and a half ago. We started off having art parties all the time and would invite all our friends over to chill and create visual art on found pieces of wood which all ended up on the streets of Houston, Galveston, Austin & NYC. ? We ended up doing about 150 to 200 pieces before moving on to other things.
Something else that has been in the works are a bunch of jam sessions. There’s been a lot of musicians and non-musicians getting down at the Lollipauperz house. A fellow member has been recording all these sessions onto tapes and is currently editing all the stuff to make a single great tape. I hope this gets done because it would be a great CD to pass around to people. It’s totally organic and lo-fi. Sounds awesome.
Hmmm what else have we done… hair mail, book swaps, public collaging, street poetry, etc…
As a group, we’ve sort of been on hiatus due to a number of personal conflicts. We decided to stop creating and start finishing up old projects on an individual basis and start promoting it all. Hopefully one day we’ll all get back together and start the creation process but as for now we’re taking some time off and have nothing planned outside of what I mentioned above. What we experienced this past year was so intense. Regardless of what’s happening in our lives it’s probably best to take a break anyway so we don’t burn out.
But fear not! We will be out and about with our works. The spirit still lives on and we’re still friends.
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01.29.2007 | 8:45 am | Wherever
We tracked down Eats, of Southern Freight Revival, and asked him a few questions about his crew. His comments are in italics below.
The deal with SFR is that we all live in the South. We all crush freights. We all paint old school, classic style graffiti. None of that 3-D bullshit. Simple, fresh and readable.
SFR as is it today started in about 2001, I think, but Rek and Vos were putting up SFR as far back as ’93. (Silent Force Refugees – what a 90′s name!) But it was a different crew back then. Then it resurfaced in about 2001 to become the Southern Freight Revival.
The current members: Rek, Goose, Renk, Guts, Aser, Eats, Vos, Kerse, Res, Rio, Ken82, Epic, Dayser, Snake Eyes? – hope I didn’t forget anyone.
Everyone is located south of the Mason-Dixon Line, except for the few who migrate from city to city.
I can’t speak for everyone, but I focus on trains because I live in a city where graff is pretty sparse, so it’s kinda pointless to go out and bomb when there are only about six people in the city who would even notice and appreciate it. So I stick to trains. It’s a better way to gain national recognition and, well, trains are the shit.
I see other SFR trains all the time, whether I am benching or in a spot. Lots of trains stay in certain regions or on certain routes, so it’s not uncommon to catch a few of us rolling on one line, especially in the South. When a person paints 400 trains in a year, the odds are pretty good that you will catch them a lot.
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12.11.2006 | 8:33 pm | Houston
Watchful eyes have been popping up in the Montrose over the last couple of months. They come courtesy of B~Kay, a Houston-based artist who’s also pasted in Austin and San Francisco.
Here, B~Kay shares some of her flicks and offers up a few words:
I love to see people’s reaction to things and I am a big people-watcher. My favorite part of the human body is the eyes. I think you can tell a lot about a person through their eyes.
When I am painting my third eye opens and I get lost in it. Painting is like a drug to me; I am always craving it. Art is a magical thing; it brings the best out of everyone. Street art is the most positive thing coming out of the world today.
Houston
Houston
Austin
San Francisco
(All photos courtesy of B~Kay.)
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10.25.2006 | 12:53 pm | Houston
The DUAL series popped up on the Houston scene about a year ago. The artist bounces around from pasting to stickers to painting, always keeping it fresh, almost always making use of duality in one way or another, just like his name suggests.
I managed to track down the artist and asked him to comment on his work. You can see what he has to say below, but before we begin, let us give thanks to Groovehouse for sharing these flicks.
Okay, here we go.
The special gift one is pretty self-explanatory. I can take anything — doors, buff marks, dumpsters, etc — make it mine and give it back to the environment. I chose the little kids to represent innocence. Keep an eye out for more of these kids.
A favorite actor of mine, Bert Lahr, the Cowardly Lion. His expression brings a sense of worry and timidity. Which is exactly how I wanted people to feel when they first started seeing these.
Billy the Kid, a perfect icon for being a wanted rebel.
The skirts, a mirrored image of a girl, was just a fuckaround… ha ha
Double-headed eagle, based on a 15th-century crest, to which I added another head, represents power and duality.
Richard Pryor – This is just an homage to him which contains a little snippet from a stand up, which I thought was pretty clever. The white man might not… =)
All of my work is based on the idea that the world was created by the concept of good and evil, black or white. Thus the name DUAL… Two heads on an eagle, two girls, two little kids – they all back up my theory of duality.
(Photos by Groovehouse)
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