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| Feature by Roller :: Tuesday, December 16, 2003 |
| Canada’s street art scene is small. Maybe it’s because of the seven month long winters. Maybe it’s because we feel drained after our posters and stickers get removed daily by our lovely anti-graffiti cleaners. Or maybe it’s because we eat too much poutine. Naturally when I found Frend, a fellow Canadian street artists, I was immediately drawn in and inspired. |
| Introduce yourself... Where you from? Occupation? Frend. I just got back from a nine month trip through the many back alleys of Melbourne, the side streets of Sydney, the stickered facades of Munich, and the plastered crumbling walls of Berlin. For food and rent I work freelance as a graphic designer. For fun and inspiration I run an art collective over at thoughtcrimez.com. How did you get started with street art/graffiti? How long have you been doing it for? For as long as I've been taking school trips to Toronto from the small town I grew up in, I've been taking photos of and an interest in the artwork that goes up in the streets. I especially love characters, perhaps a result of all those comics I used to collect. Technically, I went out with a can of blue spray paint with my good friend Toye about five years ago after moving to T.O. for art school, with the intention of painting. I had no idea what to write or paint, and ended up scaling some guys fence and painting the hair of an angel sculpture blue. I started sort of half assed a couple years later when Toye and I did a bit of postering on the streets of Toronto. We didn't have a clue what we were doing and ended up using the wrong mix. The posters were put up around 3am, and taken down by 8am. It was sad, but at least we got photos and had a wicked time putting them up. At that time I had no style of my own, and coming up with an alias just seemed like too much pressure. People had names like DETH and SCAM and at the end of the day I'm just not tough or serious enough for names like that and went with frend. I remember printing off stickers on my inkjet printer and putting them up only to have the rain destroy them the next day. I really had no clue back then. It's a wonder I kept doing anything at all. I gave up for a while and went back to appreciating from a distance or behind a camera. During my recent trip, I met up with a nice guy going under the alias PRISM. He got me back into the hands on part of the scene, and I did some posters in Melbourne. Even there I fucked up large. This dude from Sweden (Sixten) and I made up a batch of 'wheat paste' using flour, water, and 8 beers. HAHAHA. We got the recipe from his friend in Sweden. Naturally it was all a big joke and the dog ended up eating half of it. I think I was pretty drunk most days/nights in Melbourne, and that's the excuse I'm sticking too! (pun intended) Luckily PRISM had a much better recipe. You make some pretty large paste ups? What's your technique? I go with the 'cheap as ass labor intensive' method. I basically just drew a picture, scanned it into the computer, redrew it in illustrator (yay for vectors), blew it up huge, printed it out over many pieces of paper, then spent hours taping them together. I have since discovered that glue works better, quicker and easier then tape. Why don't you use any color in your work? The posters are all laser copies, so there was no color present. I didn't even think about adding color. Then I saw some work from YOK, an artist in Perth, and saw that he used some color. I might try adding color for future posters using the same technique, but I'm not sure. I've got a lot of color in my stickers, and I'm currently working on a different method for postering that involves the removal of paper and the addition of color, an idea I got from watching medium paint on canvas. (Hopefully I can get you a photo soon, weather pending.) You seem to be always covering tags with your paste ups. Is this some kind of statement? What do you look for when choosing a spot? Lately I've just been trying to worry more about placement and concept. I've been working a little with a deer image of mine, and trying to place it low - as if the deer were standing there. I'd rather go huge with good placement and concept then put up 50 posters in a line, or a stencil of a face for no other reason then to stencil - though if done correctly either method can be quite effective. Tags go over other tags, graf artists go over other pieces, it's just the name of the game. There's only so much prime real-estate. With tags and posters, there's also a chance to have a great layering and texturing effect; I love looking at my own poster after multiple people have tagged or went over it partially, it lets me know that people have taken notice. Kind of like a surprise collaboration with an unknown artist. I don't know why the graf scene is such a cock off sometimes. Like 'you went over my tag so I'm gonna kill your dog' sort of atmosphere. Wish they'd all just lighten up. I mean, I can understand if you spent tons of time on a graf piece and somebody x'ed out your characters with silver spray paint and wrote 'toy' on it that you'd be a bit upset, but these are tags we're talking about. I hear ya. What are some other artists you collaborate with? I've gone out with other artists, such as Toye, Sixten, Prism, Flying Fortress etc., but I don't usually work on collaborations in street art. Toye and I are actually working on a piece right now though. It might be too cold to do in here in Toronto, the season might be over, but if not it'll be up soon. Anyone in particular, you dream in working with? Not really. I enjoy going out alone or with one other person. I've tried going out in a big group but it's so sketchy. It's always great to go out with people you look up to or are friends with. There's a bit of a charge in the air when you're both doing things that are quasi-legal together in the night, and you end up talking about all sorts of heavy shit. I enjoy that most I think. That and looking at something you made with your own hands. You believe in Angels? Not really. I've always wanted big feathery wings to fly around with though. Who hasn't? There are all sorts of amazing religious imagery out there though. Hell, a lot of the old masters based a great majority of their work on it. I still have to see a lot of that in person... Any last words? Don't take yourselves so seriously. Have some fun. You might get hit by a truck tomorrow or leave this place a million other ways. Take time to step back and appreciate. Don't be afraid to make mistakes, etc. etc. yadda yadda. Viva La Thoughtcrimez! Thanks for the interview Frend. Keep up the good work. |
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