Colorado Seen 03/2017
The Art Behind the Art Gallery ALSO n HALLOWEEN PARADE
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From the Editor
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s 2017 comes to a close, ColoradoSeen has started a new venture. In August we joined The Denver Art Society, a cooperative, artistoperated gallery in Denver’s Art District, to exhibit and sell prints of the magazine’s photographs through our own studio space. The mission of DAS is to collectively host a creative community where people of all ages can view, learn, and exhibit local art in all forms. As a part of ColoradoSeen’s commitment to the DAS, we will be featuring the works of other DAS artists for sale, in a donated advertisement each issue on our back cover. Of course, ColoradoSeen, in the person of yours truly, will be on hand for the Art District’s First Friday art walks each month. See you there!
Put Colorado on your wall Prints of pictures appearing in ColoradoSeen are available for purchase. Just click this ad.
Colorado Seen An internet image magazine Editor & Publisher Andrew Piper We welcome comments and letters. Submit them to: coloradoseen@comcast.net To submit work or story ideas for consideration, send an e-mail to: coloradoseen@comcast.net If you would like to advertise in ColoradoSeen, send an e-mail to coloradoseen@comcast.net for information on rates and interactive links. Copyright © 2017 ColoradoSeen
On the cover: Patrick MacGregor creates a painting for Halloween in a different kind of venue – an alley back of the bigger galleries along Denver’s Santa Fe Drive. Page 12
Colorado Seen
SPOOKS ON PARADE
H
orrors! On October 21, 2017, a new tradition was born in Denver — a Halloween Parade through Broadway’s trendy small business district.
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Hundreds of marchers costumed for the evening assembled in the parking lot at 535 Acoma Street for the half-mile march from Third Avenue south to Alameda Avenue. Among the par-
TEXT & PHOTOS BY ANDY PIPER
ticipating groups on display were Bella Diva World Dance Company, in Afro-Caribe outfits, the Wizard’s Chest game and costume store, and decorated cars for children of all ages. n
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WALLHART
The hand of Keith, a recent arrival from New York and experienced graffiti writer, directs a spray of paint onto a new piece he is creating on the back wall of an art gallery in Denver’s Santa Fe Art District.
The alleys back of Denver’s Santa Fe Art District form a gallery all by themselves
A notice warns car owners of an upcoming graffiti-writing session in an alley off Santa Fe Drive. Nevertheless, the muralists considerately cover a car with drop cloths.
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WORDS & PHOTOS BY ANDY PIPER
enver’s Santa Fe Drive between 5th and 12th Avenues has long been a focal point for the visual arts. Galleries line the street, and on the “First Friday” of every month, hundreds of patrons crowd the sidewalks to see the pictures (and
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perhaps drink a little wine). But there are also less well-known galleries in the alleyways out back — swathes of ever changing colorful graffiti, on the garages, the fences, the walls, the doorways. What might be considered outrageous eyesores in other parts of the city are celebrated here, and the creFlip to page 16
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ation of new work is an event.
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n an alley parking lot behind the 700 block of Santa Fe, the signs went up a week early, announcing a mural painting session, and asking car owners to park away from the walls, to protect their vehicles. Nevertheless, the writers who show up on October 28 are considerate — and put drop cloths over the one car that didn’t get the word.
“H
ey, Jolt — do you have a New York Fat I can use?” The speaker is Keith, one of four writers (graffiti artists) taking part in the session. Jolt and Keith are transplantFlip to page 19 A Hawaiian dancer seems to wave byebye as her “run” on a garage wall comes to an end. Jolt uses a powersprayer to buff her away in preparation for his new piece.
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Casey Kawaguchi completes the buffing of the mural wall he will share with Jolt with a paint roller (series above). Keith (right) prefers to just start sketching his new piece of art directly over what is already there.
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ed New Yorkers, who protect their identity (no last names) after suffering through numerous crackdowns on graffiti in the Big Apple. The other two are Casey Kawaguchi, who is painting as a crew (team) with Jolt, and Pat MacGregor, a commercial mural painter.
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he first order of business is for the writers to buff
a workspace - overpaint existing murals with a flat color as a fresh canvas. Except for Keith, who is happy to just rough in the lines of his work over the existing art. Keith is also happy to let his paint flow spontaneously. “It’s fun to have no plan — just come out and have no plan, ya know?” By contrast, MacGregor has brought a photograph as source material, covered with a grid for perfect reproduction in paint at 20 times life
size. There is an aspect of performance art to graffiti. As with a theater show, a piece is said to run for days or months or years before being buffed or removed. And four older pieces are about to end their run.
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he four writers each have their own visual style and painting techniques. Keith, Jolt,
and Kawaguchi use the classic medium for graffiti - spray paint. But that is not as rudimentary as it sounds. Different distances from the painting surface, and different can nozzles, such as the New York Fat Keith borrows from Jolt, all produce their own effects. Narrow lines, broad swathes, soft shading or hard edges. A hand is always reaching for a can of a different color, or a different nozzle, Flip to page 22
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MacGregor buffs down his workspace amid a riot of colorful pieces already lining the alley. Another artist in the background works on his own garage wall.
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from a palette of dozens. It’s all in the wrist.
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olt works with hard lines and jagged typographic forms, sometimes verging on wildstyle. Keith’s piece is a bit gentler, playing off rounded letter shapes and almost landscape-like colors. Kawaguchi favors fantasy portraits in the heroic Japanese Manga comic-book style. MacGregor paints with brushes, not spray, and works from photographs or other mockups in a strongly representational style based on a preplanned image. Yet in the end, all four finished pieces fit perfectly into the back-alley gallery that already exists, here in the alleyway behind the more formal galleries. n
MacGregor uses a palette of canned paints and traditional brushes for his work. At right, he sketches in his mural, working from a photograph selected as an appropriate image for the Halloween season.
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The artist’s touch — Pat MacGregor applying paint and turning a wall into a piece of art.
MacGregor steps back to study his work —or is his work studying him?
As Keith fills in his original outline with bright colors, a passerby descends the apartment staircase overhead.
Casey Kawaguchi delicately shades in a highlight with spray paint for his portrait of a Samurai warrior in action.
Keith reaches for a different paint can from a palette of dozens.
A Glossary of Graffiti Buff: To remove graffiti with chemicals or paint over it with a flat color. Cannon: spray paint can. Cap: Or tip. The nozzle of an aerosol paint can. New York Thins, Rustos, and New York Fats are commonly-used caps. Crew: group of associated writers or graffiti artists that often work together. Fat cap: A nozzle used for wide coverage, used for the fill of pieces.
A paint can shares a cover cloth with the remains of a quick lunch, as the crew works through the day.
Fills: Also referred to as bombs or throw ups. A piece of graffiti that is filled either in a rush or with a solid color.
follow a hierarchy in repainting walls; a tag can legitimately be covered by a throw-up, and a throw-up by a piece.
Gallery: location secluded from the general public but popular with writers. Go over: paint directly on top of existing graffiti. Most graffiti writers
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Hollows: graffiti that contains no fill color, outlines. King (or Queen): Well-known and respected writer. The opposite of toys.
Piece: masterpiece, large, complex graffiti. Run: the length of time graffiti remains up before being buffed or removed. Rusto: Rust-Oleum brand spray paint, or their proprietary tips. Tag: stylized signature. The simplest and most prevalent type of graffiti.
Throw-up: graffiti more complex than a tag and less complex than a piece. Toy: adj. - poor work, noun - an inexperienced or unskilled writer. Wildstyle: Graffiti with stylized text, often unreadable. Writer: a graffiti artist.
Jolt paints a fine line with a single quick sweep of his hand, the rim of his paint can scraping the wall. While Casey Kawaguchi, in the background, fills in broad areas from a more relaxed distance.
Working as a crew or painting team, Kawaguchi, left, and Jolt fill in the outlines of their individual compositions, which nonetheless fit together as one piece.
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MacGregor poses with his finished piece, amidst the work of many other writers who have decorated the alley over the years.
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A pleased Keith surveys his finished piece as he blows a stream of smoke from a celebratory cigar. n