#2 KA & MTK76 Cake The Mayor Greg Andrews BURN353 Brian Butler Upper Hand plus Graffiti & Street Art
SURFACE AREA ZINE #2 CONTENTS BURN353 . . . . . . . . . . . 4 KA & MTK76 . . . . . . . . . 10 Cake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Greg Andrews . . . . . . . 22 Brian Butler . . . . . . . . . 28 Graffiti & Street Art . . . 34 Nearly ten years ago, my wife Holly “Apeel” and I set out to make a magazine about street art with a focus on stickers. It was called PEEL, and we made eight issues and a book. We also had an online store and art gallery. In 2008, when the US economy tanked, we lost our gallery and home which we had mortgaged in order to follow the dream. Now it’s nearly a decade later, and we’re back at it with Surface Area Zine mainly because of the encouragement and support of our good friend ChrisRWK and a determination to never give up. This issue that you’re now reading represents what can be accomplished in the midst of challenging circumstances and difficult setbacks with the support of good friends and a healthy dose of determination. A big thank you to ChrisRWK for motivating us to get back on the train, to the artists whose work is featured in Surface Area, to the advertisers who make this zine possible, and to everyone who never stopped believing in the dream. Don’t stop believing! - Dave Combs
i was sitting in my basement apartment looking through emails when i read one asking if i would be interested in doing the cover for a limited edition zine based on stickers. Well that was almost 10 years ago and that email came from Dave and Holly at PEEL. Of course i was in. I was bummed when PEEL stopped putting out issues. First because i’m a sticker addict and second i came to know Dave and Holly like family. So i maybe waited a month and called Dave and said “so when are we doing a zine?”. When he said no i knew it was just a matter of time. 2012 hit and i was working on a simple DIY zine when i got a text from Dave, he was checking in but i knew something else was brewing. So here it is, SURFACE AREA ZINE. - ChrisRWK
Surface Area is copyright 2013, Robots Will Kill (www.RobotsWillKill.com) and PEEL Magazine (www.PE3L.com). All rights reserved. Photos and artworks printed in Surface Area are the property of their respective owners and may not be reproduced without permission. Send stickers and other hardcopy submissions to: Surface Area Zine c/o Combs, 5805 Lowell Ave., Indianapolis, IN 46219, USA. Send inquiries and photo submissions to: surfaceareazine@gmail.com. For more information visit: www.SurfaceAreaZine.com
interview by ChrisRWK
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RWK launched in 2001, around a year later I received a trade/collab request from an artist who I would come to stay in contact with to this day. His name is Burn353. Right off the bat his name intrigued me and his work had an amazing polished yet raw feeling. Let’s get to know him a little better. Where does the name come from? Everyone seems to be curious about that. I took the e’s and the s in my last name and made them into 3’s and a 5. That changed Henske to H3N5K3. Then I just decided to drop all the letters and just go with 353. So for a while I just wrote 353. Then I got the burn part as a nick name. I use to do large pieces on freight trains and my friends called large pieces a burn. Over time my nick name became burn353. I’ve followed your work for a long time. How do you compare your work now to say 10yrs ago? 10 years ago I think I had the same skills but less direction. My work now has its own style and direction. 10 years ago I was just getting out of college and I still had too much influence by professors and outside sources to paint a certain way. Once you distance yourself from all of that you find out who you are as an artist. A lot of your more current work has this slick and clean look. How did that come about? I always strived for that clean look but just couldn’t figure out how to execute it. I think working as a graphic designer as a day job helped me figure out how to get that same clean style in my own artwork. It was just a natural progression. A lot of your newer work has a reoccurring character, Skat the Kat. Does he represent someone/ something specific? Skat the Kat represents classic cartoon characters and icons that just won’t die. To me, my characters represent pop icons--they will always be around. In my sick and twisted imagination they are like zombies or the living dead. They just want to go away or be forgotten but we keep bringing them back. For example, I haven’t seen a Popeye cartoon in forever, but just the other day I saw someone wearing a shirt with Popeye on it. My characters represent those icons. I just believe that after a while immortality would get boring, so they don’t want to be around anymore, hence why they are trying to hang themselves or kill each other. However, in classic cartoon fashion, they just can’t die so it is all in vain.
How do you think the Internet has affected your art presences in the world? I think it has helped me a lot. If not for the Internet I wouldn’t know a lot of my artists friends such as yourself or galleries that I show at. Sadly sometimes the art world is all in who you know. There are a lot of very talented artists but they only show locally and don’t really use the Internet to promote themselves. I use every means necessary to promote my art. It is my passion to have my art seen by as many people as possible. For some reason I have that drive in me. If the Internet went down today you would probably see me nailing my pieces up on billboards next to the highway that night. LOL I hear you have a book in the works of all the collabs you’ve done over the years. So who would you wanna collab with if you could? Living or dead and why? Well, for me my two favorite artists are Jeremy Fish and Jeff Soto. If I could collab with anyone it would be them. As for why that is simple they both have unique styles that are clean and sharp. They are both such great painters and they inspire me to keep pushing to get better. You have a 9-5, do you think it’s helped or hurt your work over the years? It has helped a great deal. My job as a graphic designer helped me find my clean style and hone my skills. It also helps pay the bills so that I can afford to put money into my art. Canvas and materials are not cheap. Where do you see yourself in 10yrs? I can ask that since we’ve known each other for 10yrs. In 10 years hopefully I will still be pushing as hard as I am now. I would love to do some solo shows in LA, NY, or overseas. I would also love to come out with a line of vinyl figures of my characters. I have a DIY of my I scream cone coming out soon and hope to get more out in the future. I would like to thank you and Surface Area for having me in your magazine. I really love what you are doing for the artists and the art world. Keep it up.
Peace Burn353 More at: www.BURN353.com
STICKERS, PAINTINGS, LOGOS, HIGH FIVES SHIRTS, WINDOW AND MURAL PAINTING
WWW.EVOKERONE.COM
NAMES THAT STUCK...
KA & MTK76 interview by ChrisRWK
If you’ve walked around New York then you’re probably familiar with these two artists. In most neighborhoods you can’t walk a block without seeing stickers by one or both of them. They’re KA and MTK. So you know their handstyle, now it’s time to get to know the people behind em. So some people might not know but you’ve been at this for years. Kids probably only see the stickers. How long are you at this and share some history? MTK76: I guess for myself, I started doing stickers around ‘04. I was walking around and one 10
day, I decided to tag on some stickers and put them up. I’ve always loved walking around aimlessly in the city. I’ve had a few tag names since I was a teenager, but never really stuck. Just used to catch little tags locally. KA: Forever........ well it feels that way. graff since the 1980’s and stickers since early 1990’s...... Where do the names come from? MTK76: It derives from my real name and 76 represents the year I was born. KA: My real name is Kevin Arnold, remem-
ber me from that show? yeah, that’s me, haaaaaaaaaa! KA, your more recent burners are def different from anyone else’s. There’s a direct connection to your handstyle. Which came first? Your older handstyle had a distinct style but really wasn’t evident in your older pieces. KA: I try to keep it different. To do my name like my tag is like a logo, no matter where or how it is it can be reconized as me. I have 3 main handstyles for my name but the circle one is easy on the eye and stands apart from the norm.
KA: MTK76 out does me like 4 stickers to 1, I can’t keep up.... At first we hooked each other up but were together at the same time just getting up double. We def killed it that way. Did teaming up just come natural? After teaming up did you feel a new inspiration? MTK76: It definitely is a common interest. KA: Inspiration definitely... pushed each other, a lot of 12 hour missions until our pockets were empty........
So usually when you see a MTK sticker you see a KA sticker or vice versa. So are they solo or team efforts?
KA, I remember your celebrity stickers made a lot of noise and people thought they were your first sticker venture but that’s not true right? I remember seeing the older rusto bucket ones.
MTK76: Both, I would say. Though there are occasions when we both only put ourselves up.
KA: No clue why I did the celebrity ones, I just did em at a crazy rate.. The rusto bucket ones
went hard for a few but I didn’t keep it going with those.. the RUST-OLEUM ones were my favorites... I’ll think or do a new idea and hate it 24 hours later. Thats why I mainly stick with the tag one........ MTK is it stickers on everything or is there a plan behind the sticker madness? I’m pretty random. No master plan. I see an opportunity and I take it. What are some of the things you’ve seen or learned in the sticker world that most people would over look? MTK76: I’ve noticed that a lot of people who do stickers don’t really have a tag or a hand style. What’s that about? KA: The whole sticker trader online thing is weird! Underground groups who spend hours on one sticker then trade em like baseball cards... I rather a Babe Ruth card over a average Joe card but none of these kids put stickers up, it’s an online thing I guess. If you don’t put up stickers than you don’t do stickers! If I drew on a car does that make me a race car driver? No....... Just gotta ask, how many stickers do you guys make in one night? How many do you put up in one night? MTK76: Believe it or not, I don’t make as many stickers as people think I do. I do a couple of
hundred and I roll with that until I have none. Lasts me a week or two. KA: I’m just doing my name so I can do a few hundred real quick and always try to come home with none left. Depends on the night, we use to do missions now it’s more about opporitunity..... You did an amazing installation outside the Woodward Gallery. One of my favorite pieces I’ve seen in years. Can you explain the idea behind it? KA: The installation was based on one of our stickers. At first look all you see is “Welcome to NEW YORK”, look a little closer you’ll see that the letters are made up of KA and MTK stickers. That reflects on the real deal, look a little closer and you’ll see our stickers everywhere in New York... Nothing to deep..... I had to do the old BLUE TOP USPS sticker at the end of it for all those real sticker-heads that know the deal and the history. The most important question in life. What’s next? MTK76: I haven’t a clue. KA: Coffee, a cigarette and feed the squirrels. Thanks again guys. More at: www.killaka.tumblr.com www.mtk76.tumblr.com
interview by ChrisRWK A few years back while walking around Brooklyn I started noticing these captivating female figures. They were striking to say the least. A few months later I had the pleasure of meeting the person behind these amazing portraits, Cake. The more I got to know her the more the name fit. She’s a sweet person filled with a lot of rich content. Here’s a little bit more about her. There’s a lot of strong imagery in your work. Some have become iconic I.e pills, bones, captivating eyes. Was this on purpose or did they just develop with the work? I paint about what interests me, what I want to purge, or discuss, or dig deeper into. I’m sober now, but I was a super professional pill popper when I was using, so those little suckers came up one day and they were a great visual reference. I have a long love affair with all things anatomy, for too many reasons to list. As for the eyes, the eyes are the key to it all, so they hold great importance to me in the work. The colors in your work swing from muted to strong and bright. Can you explain why? I painted abstract paintings for about ten years, so form and color created the content, rather than starting out with specific content, then using color and form to describe it. This meant that for ten years, my content was color, and I basically had a ten year long color theory lesson. One of my favorite things to do is build a relationship between muted and loud colors, it creates a tension and a harmony simultaneously that I find really pleasurable. There is an honesty about your work. It’s almost more like a diary being open opposed to a sketch book. Do you feel that about your work? Yes, but I’m overly emotional and sometimes I fear its too much, for me, and for people who see the work. But I cant change what is a fundamental element in my paintings, or rather in my personality. I do value transparency, above all else, almost to a fault. But whenever I think, oh jeez, maybe this is going a bit too far, exposing a bit more than necessary, it is then that I push ahead and do it, because the more afraid or uncomfortable you feel about putting something out there, the more important it is for you to do so. 16
Most of your stuff on the street is wheat pasted. Is that your favorite medium for outdoor work? Yes! and No. Yes because installing a wheatpaste allows for me to create the piece in my studio, which means I can have more time and space with it. But I recently painted directly onto a wall in Williamsburg this Summer at the wall GILF! organized, and it was awesome because I didn’t have that time or space. Both scenarios work, and both have enjoyable qualities and outcomes. Anatomy shows up a lot in your work. Are you trying to give a viewer an internal prospective or is it a technical choice? Both. And more. I love to draw ribs, femurs, teeth, jaws, hearts, lungs, fingers, ears, eyes, arms, clavicles, etc. So if I love to draw them, I’m going to be drawing them often. The internal prospective you ask about is also on my mind, and the metaphors connected with the use of anatomy is an ongoing discussion I have with myself. I’ve noticed that in some pieces the pills become a pattern and even in some a starry night scape. Is something like that as important as the focal character or does it become just a pattern? Every mark has purpose, every mark has meaning, every mark needs relation. We had collaborated awhile ago and I remember it was almost effortless. I did my thing and you came in and did yours and it worked perfectly. Do you find that happens a lot with collaborating with other artists? Ah yes- Governers Island, and it was effortless. Every collaboration is different, and if some are not as effortless, it doesn’t mean its bad, you just sweat a bit more during the making. If you could own any piece of art, what would it be? I’m drooling right now. Just one!? No way. Here’s five that come to mind: “Vampire” Edvard Munch “Portrait of a Young Woman” Botticelli “Teete” Tomma Abts “Woman with a Dead Child” Kathe Kollwitz “Sunflowers” Joan Mitchell Cake / Jennifer Caviola More at: www.jennifercaviola.com
One Take One Shot Mayor Greg Andrews with The
interview by Dave Combs
Greg Andrews is an Indianapolis-based photographer and local celebrity known for knowing just about everyone - hence the nickname, “The Mayor”. He’s definitley one of the coolest guys you could ever meet, and Surface Area had the opportunity to ask him a few questions about his work... How and when did you get started with photography? I guess it’s always something I’ve been fascinated with since I was a little kid – images. But I didn’t get my first camera until I was fourteen. So I shot through school, but I didn’t get massively serious until I started throwing raves and hardcore shows, when I started shooting my own events. So that would have been about ’94 or ’95, throughout that era. Back then film was expensive, so I didn’t get to shoot as much as I would have liked to. Or I might have shot it and never printed it. I have a whole refrigerator full of undeveloped film. You have diverse subject matter in your body of work. Can you tell us what you like to shoot most? 22
I like to shoot interactions between people and what’s happening with people. I like to document my general surroundings and what’s going on. Because I think people just don’t document enough of what’s happening. I think of all the stuff that was missed when I was a kid. I think of buildings that are gone now, and stuff like that. I love telling stories from memories, but it’s neater to be able to show an image to go with the story to help relate it to people who weren’t there. For example, recently I loved how I was able to capture Cataracts Fest. Just showing the whole day of people hanging together, all the bands playing, DIY stuff, the front and back yards. And also I’m doing a series about the people of Fountain Square, showing how they don’t really care and they just go through life. I don’t have that one done yet. Can we talk about the lighter side of your photography? You mean like when I come up with my goofy ideas? The artist in me always likes to create scenes, so the lighter side of me always enjoys trying to create a universe. I don’t like to use
Photoshop and Lightroom. I understand they’re tools, but I just don’t feel that that’s the photographer in me. Whatever’s going on in my head I like to see if I can create all the props and the fun of the things, like painting with lights, just doing it one take, one shot. Just having fun. How do your travels influence your photography? They influence it a lot because I get to see the diversity of people in each area and the different infrastructures. I get ideas especially from areas that are older and haven’t been all torn down and rebuilt. I have ideas that I want to shoot in all those areas, but a lot of times I don’t get it done because I don’t have a model with me. But it’ll happen at some point. What are some of your specific challenges and struggles? The biggest thing is living in Indiana and getting paid the way that I should because I do have a full time job. The fact that I have to do that in order to do my passion is difficult. With digital photography it’s getting harder to make it as a
photographer, since it’s so accessible there are people who will do it for free. So it’s getting harder to make a living. Being in Indiana I’m not in a prime spot for media, so it makes it hard. When I go to the East or West Coast, I get mass praise and I get hooked up with people. I believe word of mouth helps a lot, because you can be amazing, but if nobody’s there helping push you, it’s harder to succeed. What keeps you in Indiana? I love the general friendship of people. I’m centrally located so it’s easy for me to get anywhere I want in the United States. I travel a lot, shooting Lebowski Fest and stuff like that. So I do travel enough that I get to go everywhere. The expense of living here is cheaper, and also I don’t have to compete as hard here with other photographers. Which is not a big deal to compete. It’s just not as daunting of a task. That’s mostly it - people, friends. I like the Midwest. There are other places I love too – Portland, Louisville Kentucky, San Francisco. But to live there is pricey. Not to say it never will happen, but for right now, most of my life I’ve been here.
Who would you love to shoot? I would love to shoot my influences who are like, Glenn Barr, who documented almost all of skateboarding, to punk rock, to hiphop when it all started. I’d love to shoot a lot of hardcore people that influenced me like Ian MacKaye, Henry Rollins, those people that influenced me when I was a kid. Those images, and the music influenced me a lot, so it’d be fun to shoot them now. So here’s the big question – are you ever going to run for mayor? (Laughing) No. I’m never going to run for mayor, because I don’t want to deal with the politics of life. No matter what any politician says, you can’t really do what you want to do because there’s too many people underneath you. There’s fifteen people at my job and they bicker back and forth, so how can you control a whole city? You can’t. So, no, even though everybody wants me to do it. Everyone thinks it’d be funny to write me in and see if I’d win, but it’d be a nightmare. Anything else, any shout-outs or anything? I want to thank Gary who worked at Greenwood Karma who got me into music. My friend, Dirty Matt, he goes by Matthew Aaron now. He’s a photographer who highly influenced me. Mpozi, he was a photographer here who shot for the Star, and I would always see him at shows. They pushed me. Tom, he used to shoot 3D photography and he influenced me and he’s still one of my good friends. All of my friends. Jacob
Ryan who allowed me to have my photography on skateboards. RISE Skate Shop. Skateboarding, Punk Rock, music in general for making me who I am. Thanks too, Chris, Dave and Holly for believing in me and featuring me in the zine. More at: Flickr.com/photos/gregthemayor
interview by ChrisRWK
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We met years ago at a painting event, well not really an event. More like a painting hangout. First I knew he had to be a good guy and good artist to be invited. Once I saw what he was painting I was impressed. We started talking and found we had a few other things in common. One thing was being straight edge. I sent him a few questions, here’s what he had to say We met awhile back at a ELC painting session(2004?) Was that around the time you started in the Street Art scene?
Yeah! That was a blast. I had met Infinity like a week earlier at the Wooster Collective Walking Tour, and he invited me to Celso’s for that ELC jam. I don’t really think my name carries any weight in the street art arena. No doubt I post goofy stickers, and paint dumb characters, and I’ll rock a mural without hesitation. But at the end of the day, I probably gravitated to that stuff from a shared philosophy of making things accessible, and doing it yourself. When we met, I had been going to school in Boston, and was
posting hands popping out of cracks to give you a high five. Was that the origin of The Upper Hand Art? I remember thinking that I was a genius for adopting a hand as a mascot. Like, I had loaded it with all this meaning. Hands, can convey emotion, so if I was having an awesome day, I could throw up the thumbs-up hand. The word hand was an acronym for have a nice day. I’m not sure why I made the hand so chubby, I’m a really slim dude. It was probably influenced by The Simpsons. Also, I really admired that iconic Youth of Today fist. I think that being straight edge gave me a feeling of leverage, and thus an Upper Hand. Then has being straight edge informed your work in other ways? I still feel that leverage. Like, I don’t need any substances as a crutch to get through the day. I’ll skip coffee, and wake up with a bike ride. Drawing probably occupies that vice void. I’ll get anxiety if I miss a day or two of doodling. Which is good. I think that keeps me proactive. I love the concert drawings. I’ve been going to shows for over 20yrs and your drawings capture exactly what you would experience at one. Better then a photograph if u ask me. How do you capture so much so quickly? And the energy of the show? Haha, thanks! Ironically, concerts have probably subjected me to more second-hand smoke than anything. But I love them. I have a running list of hundreds of shows that I’ve gone to. It hadn’t occurred to me to draw at them until my second time seeing Gwar. Everything was incredibly
picturesque, people head-banging covered in fake blood, intergalactic mutants disembodying celebrities onstage. The drawing practically drew itself. I pulled down a poster, drew on the back with a ballpoint pen, and bum-rushed the pit to cover the art in blood. I guess what captures the energy of the show is my participation. If it’s a high-energy show, I’ll get on the floor with the pit. The speed of the drawing comes from necessity, it’s not a still life. You’ve designed a lot of merch for bands and companies. Can you name a few and What’s been your favorite to work on? Who would be the dream client? I got into designing merch early, trading drawings for fireworks in high school. I had connections to some Boston bands, and tried to gain exposure from making them anything from shirts, to flyers, to skateboard graphics. I had
some luck with Big D and the Kids Table, as well as the Dropkick Murphys. Building my portfolio with them granted me the opportunity to throw some designs at Jay-Z and Wu-Tang. Which totally worked! It’s insane to say I made stuff for any of those bands. Music has been such a huge part of my life, I’m happy to be able to be able to contribute back. I have too many bands to list whom I’d love to work with. I have Trash Talk and Death Grips albums are playing on repeat right now. Larry and His Flask has been a pleasure to work with. I did some light album design for an Irish band called Wounds recently. But ideally I would love to put my stamp on a scene the way Pushead did. Or the way Jacob Bannon and Horsebites dominate the look and feel of their scenes in Salem and Gainesville. Your work has a great twisted Americana feel. For example the Ice Cream People, Mini Golf Course set ups. Can you explain how that came about? I have some romantic ideas about traveling, and themes of regional traditions are strung throughout my work. I love American roadside culture and folk art. I think it stems from spending a lot of time on the touristy backroads of rt.28 in Cape Cod, an area that is littered with mini golf courses and ice cream shoppes. In 2007, I set out on a quest to document every miniature golf course in Massachusetts. I was in search of those cheesy hand-made fiberglass statues, and I knew I could find them on mini golf courses. Along the way I found rad nostalgic tin-box-diners, driveins, off-beat indian trading posts, bowling alleys, and motels with charming atomic-era signage. But what really stole my attention were the giant Ice Cream People statues.
What are ice cream people? It turns out Ice Cream People have been living among us for generations. Like the Bigfoot, it evades the spotlight. But for those who have caught a glimpse of the frozen wonder, it is something that stays with them forever. The Ice Cream Person can be found throughout fine art and popular culture, so I started a blog to catalog these appearances as proof of it’s existence. Additionally, I made a postcard-sized template for anyone to customize and contribute to the project. I believe that every completed postcard brings the Ice Cream Person closer to the legend-dairy status it deserves. There is a cone provided with this zine. The blog is at IceCreamPeople.org What’s next? I always have my hands in a bunch of different projects. Anything I can do, to not be bored. I have some friends coming to Miami for Art Basel soon, so I’m looking forward to painting with them. There’s a wishlist of projects, and every time I check something off, it ends up back on the list but BIGGER. Ice Cream People has it’s own life, that is way bigger than me. I’ll keep pushing into new territory. More at: theupperhandart.com icecreampeople.org upperhandart.tumblr.com
Zilla
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WEY
RAW Crew Australia
Exser x Ando
FOLSM
Simple
He Dreamt Mars
Miss Kitty
Be Someone
NORM, SKID, GYPSY photo by Disco Bryso
Mathew Curran