MY STYLE JOURNEY: PART 1

In this first part I want to shed some light on perhaps one of the biggest influences in my career. It’s not one specific person but more a place and the people that live in it. I’m speaking about my Neighbourhood!

It’s amazing to consider how the course of your life can changed so dramatically with a move from small town to the big dirty inner city. In 1984 my Mother and Stepfather packed us up and we made the move from Palmerston North to Auckland. Initially we lived around Levonia Street in Western Springs, spent some time in Grey Lynn but eventually ended up settled at the bottom of a dead end street on the cusp of Morningside and Kingsland.

First Avenue, Kingsland 1987.

These two suburbs (which are almost the same suburb, only divided by a park and a bend in the road) are two old but small inner city suburbs located in the Mt Albert ward in Central Auckland.  When we moved there the area was in a transitional stage, an eclectic mixture of industrial area, run down shops and old villas inhabited by a diverse range of people from many cultures. Our street was mainly Samoan and Cook Island families, a handful of Pakeha families and one Maori family who were part of the Twelve Tribes Of Israel and threw epic parties at the bottom of our street. My school, Mt Albert Primary was even more diverse. My class had every type of pacific people you could think of from Maori, Cook Island, Samoan, Tongan, Niuean, Tokelauan, Fijian, Fijian Indian, Korean, Malaysian… The list goes on. It’s fair to say that 1980’s Auckland city was as stark a contrast to Palmerston North as you could get and one I’m very thankful to have experienced first hand.

In the park next to my house was an old school building owned by the Waipereira Trust and practise room for the legendary Herbs and later on Che Fu and the Crates. Across the park was School Road and parallel to that the infamous Don Croot Street. It’s hard to fathom that these were considered some of the roughest parts of town when compared to today but my first experiences walking down Don Croot left me in shock.

Directly across the road from our house lived the Satele family. It’s still their family home ’til this day and at any time as many as Four generations of family have been in that household at once. The father, Fatau Satele (Perhaps someone from the Satele family can help me the that spelling? The whole Samoan T as K’s thing gets me all the time!) is an icon of First Avenue, the neighbourhood patriarch. As a kid I always remember him being out the front of his house, just chilling on the steps, almost keeping an eye on the street and keeping up to date with his neighbours and everything going on in their lives. Any one that was around the Auckland scene during the 80’s and 90’s will talk about the Satele’s because brothers Marvin (R.I.P), Junior and Andrew were some of the earliest B-Boy’s and DJ’s in my neighbourhood. My awareness of Hip-Hop as a culture that you participate in as opposed to one you merely consume literally came from seeing and hearing these guys hone their respective crafts in their basement bedroom and front carport.

The Megazoids: Junior Satele, Troy O’Dea, Lua Iusitini, David Lynch, Jason Rowe. Lua, David and Jason were also members of Smooth Inc, one of New Zealand’s Pioneering graffiti crews. Photo from Nick D’Angelo

Having never seen much more than the odd bit of political or crudely done gang graffiti in Palmerston North, the standard of the writing around my area was hard not to notice or be impacted by. I used to walk to school Through the School Road Park, past the ‘FLY’ piece on the old school building then on to the Morningside shops, dropping in to Sima’s Superette, then continuing on to the tracks across from the KDV building and down past Morningside Station. There were some pieces painted there by the first Auckland kings of graffiti ‘Smooth Incorporated’ or ‘Smooth Crew’. The ‘Merry Xmas Smooth’ piece with the two characters really stuck in my mind for a long time and particularly the way the characters were depicted, specifically their outfits which shaped my primary school aged perception of what writers must look like. Even after the council buffed the center portion of the wall, the characters on the raw brick remained for another few years.

Image taken from the 1986 book ‘Street Action Aotearoa” by Mark Scott. These photos were taken by Gil Hanly.

Morningside Station. Photos by Jamie McCready

The Book ‘Street Action Aotearoa’ by Mark Scott came out in 1986 although I only discovered it by accident at the Auckland City Library one day in the mid 90′s. The book is very rare given that Mark Scott ended up self-publishing a very limited run after struggling to convince any mainstream publishers of the projects historical and cultural importance. The book mainly focuses on the explosion of Hip-Hop, mainly the B-Boy element throughout New Zealand during the 1980′s. It is a really special book in that it discusses Hip-Hop in the Aotearoa context and why it resonated with Maori and Polynesian youth at that time. The last section of the book is a feature on the Smooth Crew with incredible photos by legendary photographer Gil Hanly. This section shows my neighbourhood the way it was when we moved there and has some quotes from Claude Iusitini, the leader of Smooth that still hold true today.

“Our initial ideas might come from New York but we have to fuse our own identity as well… Eventually our bombing in Aotearoa will become our own style, not an imitation.” -Claude Iusitini/Street Action Aotearoa

A photo of Claude From Street Action Aotearoa, Photo by Gil Hanly

Smooth Crew at work. Later on I sort of took ownership of these walls and painted them into the mid 00′s. It was always felt like it was my duty as one of the only writers from that area painting pieces to represent there. once again, photo by Gil Hanly

“They can say, Shucks, them’s my roots up there… All the kids who don’t know about their culture in the broad spectrum of things, it would help in a really big way to bring all of us together.” -Claude Iusitini/Street Action Aotearoa

Smooth planning a wall. I love this shot, so crazy seeing such young photos of Lua and Jason Rowe. Jay has always been one of those iconic Auckland Hip-Hop people. Photo Gil Hanly

The Pacific Cinema in kingsland, now the Royal Jewelery Studio. Photo by Gil Hanly

“Every group here has its own culture, its own art and we can bring it together for everyone with our art… Take the designs you get in Tapa… Or like Maori has a flowing style, Rarotongan has a natural style wit flowers, hibiscus – You could use Hibiscus instead of clouds and the Samoans have a formal style, straight organised style… All these styles we could use. Do Koru instead of arrows.” -Claude Iusitini/Street Action Aotearoa

Smooth Crew ‘Monster Sale’ wall on Queen St, 1984. Photo by Gil Hanly

Another really influential piece from my area during that era (1985). I will discuss this more but note the Copyright signs on the tags. Photo by Nick D’Angelo

Of course for good measure here is a really classic joint and maybe one of the better known works by Smooth as it was printed in Spray Can Arts Auckland section. Photo by Nick D’Angelo

I will continue this soon with more great old stuff and tributes to NZ’s kings of old. Thanks again to Nick D’Angelo for use of the photos and thanks to all the influences mentioned in this post. If you ever get your little mitts upon a copy of Mark Scott’s book, know you are holding treasure!

MY STYLE JOURNEY: AN ATTEMPT AT DEFINING A TIMELINE

This is the start of the next chapter of my blog. I’ve always wanted to do this, not just for the sake of discussing with you, my story, my initial influences and personal journey as an artist but also to further clarify my own understanding of how I arrived here for myself. Consider yourself warned: This won’t be light reading but for what it’s worth, I will do my best to recall everything I can with as much accuracy as I possible.

Images from L to R: “Hip-Hop ’86″ by Lost Art, “AaronB” on the old Astor Hotel, Auckland 1996, “Merk” during the Wall Of Fame Project, 1995*, “Mean PFB” Auckland 1999, “Tank” Auckland 1998, “Loomit” Auckland 2000, “Mr Quink” Auckland 1997, “Acre” Auckland 1999. All Photos by Jamie ‘Deap’ McCready except * by DLT.

I feel it’s important to speak about my current thinking and motivations behind this block of writing. It’s a fairly daunting task to lay everything bare and typically I think writers tend to shy away from putting them selves out there in this manner of exposed situation but personally, I find it intriguing. In most forms of art, debate and discussion of influences is not only commonplace but considered an essential part of defining streams of work by giving it a reference point. In ‘Writing’ it’s often spoken about in very narrow terms, usually limited to tedious debate about ‘Influence vs. Biting’ and ‘Style vs. Technique’. I can’t even begin to explain how much these clichés pain me. Generally writers masquerade these clichés as some form of intelligent debate but don’t consider for a second how redundant they are in the bigger picture. At this present juncture I find these two debates as mundane as when mainstream media discuss ‘Art vs. Vandalism’ when introducing a news story or printing a newspaper article. I’m glossing over the issue a bit here and I will address it in more depth soon, I promise.

Before we enter into another huge discussion on the theme of ‘Biting’, it needs to be understood that what I said above is in no way intended to be a justification of such an act. It’s obviously a hot topic for me right now in the wake of recent events… Those that follow the blogs and love the scandal know what I’m talking about! It’s no secret that I became a major point of contention in the eyes of a few people and that has been put out there pretty publicly lately. I believe positives can always be made from negative situations and bringing these conversations to the forefront can become the catalyst for constructive debate. I really hope that it’s never come off like I’d downplay or forget those that have impacted me deeply. For this very reason I also feel that its time to shed light on all of my influences across the board. There are a lot of people dotted through out my journey that shared insights big and small that ultimately shaped me into the person I am today. I would like to attempt to pay homage to all of them as best as I can in some type of chronological time-line. The people range from Writers to illustrators, graphic designers and even just some interesting thinkers. Mostly they are from New Zealand, Australia, Europe and the United States and are people that I encountered locally or on my overseas travels. Just off the cuff I’d really like to acknowledge Smooth Crew, The Satele family, Fly, USP, Oli Green, Danny Haimona, AaronB and Merk and DAF Crew, Tank, Mystery, Kwink, Ikon, Webs, Kens, Duck, Mean PFB, Fury, Phat1, Addict, Dyle52, Exist, Acre, P-Money, Mike Weston, Otis Frizzell, Martin Emond (R.I.P), Daim, Loomit, DJ Sir-Vere, Can2, Atom, Wow123, Smash137, Revok, Ewok, Rime, Wane, Dash, Skinz, Doze Green, Futura, Chris Graham, Vans, Deus and Berst. Those are just the few more names of people that have shared their knowledge or opinions (whether knowing it or not) that have shaped or influenced my practices as an artist and person right until this day. There are many more I will remember along the way but I just needed to put those people out there from the get go, I owe them all that at least.

I am going to do my best to tell my whole story, share as many photos from the archive as possible and recount events as I remember them. This stream will take a while to unfold and may be interrupted with other tangents but ultimately I hope it will enable me to reflect on where I’ve come from to better understand where I am going from here.

URBAN DEVELOPMENT PROJECT

I want to take some time out to show you another side project I’m working on right now. This diverts away a bit from the current format of this site but I’m really excited about this. I’ve also extended my skills into the shooting and editing of the videos, hence why I’ve been a little slow on the blog lately.

Urban Development is an outdoor art project, the objective is to provide the platform for collaboration between artists across a wide range of mediums and stages in career. The project centres around street influenced mural work but will also draw in a variety of creative’s, both emerging and established. The concept is to think outside the conventional confines of graffiti, fine art, sculptural work, performance and beyond, blurring the lines and creating a dynamic and interesting project worthy of international attention.

This Episode introduces the project through brief interviews with the founding collective, Berst, Askew, Snek and Tim Webber. Stay tuned for regular updates including profiles on collaborators and the murals progress.

http://www.vimeo.com/9364496