A Mosaicist's Polemic

He is called the Mosaic Man, and he has been installing mosaics on the bottom of street lamps in New York City's East Village for the past 28 years. Walking with my sister who was just talking about him last Sunday, we suddenly saw a small crowd surrounding a long-haired elderly man with a cane entirely covered in pieces of tile and glass, his dog, relaxing on the cool sidewalk, a cart, with a wheel covered in mosaics, an assistant, a student named Jessie accepting tile donations, and a folded sign, worn and yellow, urgent text scrawled across.


"That's him!" Sam exclaimed.

I approached cautiously: I have done a lot of interviews but I am still painfully shy and an introvert, and I prefer to observe interactions than to ask half-assed questions when I am unfamiliar with an artist's work. The Mosaic Man was dialoging with a woman with that special fuschia-red box color, she recording him on a small camera.


"I've put in 28 years of good life!" He exclaimed, "And it will take $128,000 for us to refinish and complete two miles of mosaics on every lamp post. [I] Could have done ten miles, if I had the money!" Pointing to the glue that his assistant applied liberally to pieces of tile he noted that the city has put up netting and glue on some of the lamps, but that glue is of inferior quality. "We want something that can last 100 years." Shaking his head he continued "Its very likely we won't be able to finish. We get a dime here, a nickel there...[now] I'm like a fundraiser...it's bullshit! I should just be doing art." He paused, "I had to take some time off last year to make money, but, [I wanted] to feel legitimate, I need to do work in the street. Not like jerks like Picasso, or Keith Haring, those guys are jerks!"


He winked at a passer by "This is my rant. I do that."


The Mosaic Man's polemic is a common form of address in New York. His wink revealed a sanguine awareness of the ways in which a rant is often delivered and received in public-- the rant often comes from a socially marginalized character, so although it is loud in form, it is quiet or nonexistent in its impact. However, in this short moment, he had an audience, and rant had an impact (although small) registered in the donations, dog pets, gathered crowd, and puzzled onlookers.


What enabled his rant to achieve some traction? Was it the dog? His art? The fact that in the East Village because historically it has been (though hardly anymore) an avant garde neighborhood, there is still an affective landscape that admits and even valorizes such forms of address?

Jessie explained to me that the city gives them permission to do their work but not funding, so it is not truly a commissioned process, so they hope to raise enough funding on their own so that they can complete the two mile walk.

The Mosaic Man's project is an important one because it is one of those modest forms of cultivating texture and a sense of durability in an urban scene where so much is smooth and fungible. The rough and uneven tiles index places and past scenes, literal fragments of diverse stories. The Mosaic Man's mission is not just a means for refurbishing tiles, but recuperating spaces for encounter in one of New York's historic neighborhoods, small monuments to the surrounding community.


To help them out go to: http://mosaicmannyc.com/

An Interview with Rahmaan Statik: Aerosol Supremacy

Statik Interview: Aerosol Supremacy, April 19, 2013, Howard Street Art Gallery

Statik's new show, Aerosol Supremacy opened April 19th at Howard Street Art Gallery. Statik was gracious enough to let me do an on the scene interview about his show, his artistic philosophy, and his hopes for the future.

C: Can you first tell me a little about how this show came about, and what you were thinking on as you put it together?

S: What I was thinking on? The title of the show is called “Aerosol Supremacy.” The reason why it is called “Aerosol Supremacy” is that I have done many a show in the city of Chicago which actually mixed in my spray painting pieces with my oil painting pieces. And the perception that I would get from people was that my spray painting pieces were not authentic art, or were not art enough, were just graffiti, so I wanted to pay homage to doing a show of just all spray paint and graffiti influenced pieces because within the city of Chicago audience it kind of gets downplayed. But everywhere else, on an international art circuit, it has more recognition as an actual art form which Chicago’s perception of it is very conservative perception of art. So I wanted to do something that paid homage to graffiti art being an alternative art, and to the actual Chicago gallery scene. So therefore Howard Street Gallery, they are selling spray paint out here, for one, with the theme of it being a spraypaint related show and solely sticking with  that. Each piece in here focuses on a lot of different aspects of our philosophy on life and reality. Some pieces pay homage to indigenous culture, religion, some pieces are pop art and pop culture, other pieces are just for pure practice of aerosol art and can control.

C: Which pieces demonstrate just pure practice? Pure aerosol art?

S: I’m going to say that long piece in the middle, the portraits are more aerosol art, even the pop art pieces are celebrating pure aerosol art, meaning, how small can you actually paint, and how technical can you actually [be with using] a spray can. I’m kind of a can control zealot if you will. I am a fan of doing pieces that are all done with spray paint and actually showing that more of it actually being its own art medium and art form and that should actually be recognized. It is recognized everywhere else in the world. And Chicago being  world class city it is kind of downplayed here. So as an artist I want to take the personal initiative to kind of set that record straight. Yeah.

C: Did you see a lot of gallery folks coming here, or is it more on the radar of folks who are already involved in the graff scene?

S: Yeah, underground. Its underground, and I knew that was going to be the case as the artist that I am. I sell pieces to me peers and people that follow graffiti art, and follow street art, I am a part of that movement, and I didn’t make my start in any galleries, I made my start on the street and doing art on the street, so I would kind of like to go back to that. That and my next show is going to be the opposite of this, its going to be all oil paintings, I’m kind of testing the waters to see what happens and what response I get back from doing separate venues and exhibitions and separating the mediums and bodies of work. What we see now is that this is the underground show, and the oil paint show may be the more popular, mainstream show where I actually have to wear a suit and shave up for it, right. This one, kind of not the case. And art work here is priced totally different[ly]. The whole angle is that I respect people who acknowledge the work that I do on the street because that is where I got my start, and this is me kind of bringing that street art flavor into the gallery.

C: I’m going to ask you a couple of questions about style. So I’ve been watching your style for 7 years; its super photo realism, it seems like it is playing off of a lot of the Italian masters, but you’ve also been traveling a lot in the last decade or so. In what ways do you think your work is influenced by travel? And have you had any other influences over the last 10 years?

S: My work has been tremendously influenced by my travels. Because I specifically travel to meet other artists that I follow and that I look up to. And the point of going to these different places I’ve seen a new standard, or a standard that is not as prevalent in the city of Chicago. I met artists that made me step my game up, if you will, made me be a bit more ambitious about improving my work and making better work. And that happened when I went to San Diego, New York City, Atlanta, Georgia. And in every city that I’ve been in, city for city, I’ve met different cliques of artists. I’ve seen and met and worked with some of their top artists and seen the difference in individuals’ work ethics and seen the parallels that the results of a good work ethic will get you as an artist.  And it all comes down to hard work and a good work ethic to produce good pieces, and there is no half stepping with that. Lets just say that the artists that I met in san Diego and California introduced me to painting small. To doing spray paint pieces small and the actual artistry of aerosol art. I’ve seen that a lot in California and in the artists that I painted with in California, and I totally respect them for that. In New York it was almost the same team but more aggressive graffiti art, given that that is where graffiti started at-

C: So a bombing style?

S: Yeah, bombing, and the technical part of that. So I feed off of both perspectives mixed in with a high art standard of painting. I understand the graffiti standard, and I understand the overall standard of art, and at this point I am working out the overall standard of art meaning that I respect what a lot of other graffiti artists do, and I am quite influenced by that, but I understand the thing that makes their art good is that they are influenced by other art [that is] not [only] graffiti. Which is the difference. And most people call that ‘biting,’ but I call it influence, the art world’s influence, and the art world it is more of influence is the term, rather than bitin’, I am influenced by a little bit of everyone’s work right there, good and bad, but the bottom line is that  that traveling, I’m planning on doing more traveling, way more.

C: Where do you want to go?

S: Europe. I’ve traveled in California, everywhere but Los Angeles…between Europe and LA. I’ve done a lot of work on the East Coast, in the Bronx

C: Yeah you were just about to go to the Bronx last time I talked to you

S: Yeah, I was just about to make that mission out there. But those missions changed [me] and gave [me] a lot of perspective about how and why I am actually producing this type of work and the realistic standards to produce it off of. At least for my peers I would like to influence them with what I’ve seen, which is a higher standard of painting with a spray can. The actual Chicago traditional standard. There is a global standard that people paint with. And the more I travel the more I see how deep that global standard goes, and I learn more new stuff about the actual art form. I’m not going to sit up here and say I am a master- well, I am a master of can control- but I am not going to say I am the best. There are a lot of good artists out there that I look up to, and its actually good to have other people to look up to. It shows that the game is that big.  Your genre is that big, especially if the genre doesn’t stop at me. If it did stop at me its really small. As far as other outside influences, yeah, I want to try to get to Europe though, within a year, and try and get some painting done.

C: So what’s your favorite piece in the show?

S: Probably the spray paint cap piece or the Graffro piece, yeah.

C: What about them do you like?

S: Well the spray cap piece there is a lot of history behind that it’s the past 15 years of caps I’ve been collecting from walls that I have been doing. And that piece sat for almost a year with just the women on it but I didn’t know what to do with the background. And I thought it would be a funny juxtaposition to pair up the used caps with the image of the pile of women. So its more about the juxtaposition than more of anything.

C: What about the graffro piece?

S: Its been an ongoing series

C: Yeah ther is one at the silver room

S: Yeah, at the silver room, I’ve been painting that concept for the last three or four years I was influenced by the Film Noir posters and the movie Hair and the afro and the text in it- so the concept came from that I though it would be funny to mix in actual graffiti letters up in the piece. To kind of do a modern day spinoff on that concept.

C: What role for you do the women play in your pieces? You often have these beautiful, usually black women with really awesome hair.

S: Like a muse. I am married, have a mom, sister, it has a lot to do with the ongoing relationship I have with the women in my life, which is all positive for the most part. That’s why you don’t see me doing any thing degrading towards women, if any thing its more empowerment if you will. And its more of a softer edge to my work, besides me coming through with pieces criticizing the government, anarchy and so forth.

C: How many anarchy/government criticism pieces would you identify here?

S: That one [pointing at oscar the grouch/v for vendetta piece], the one above it,  what else do we have…that one with the mushrooms is actually about drugs called A Mushroom Cult,

C:Whats the story?

S: I’ve been reading studies about how people actually experience that, and it changes their personality for the rest of their life but for the better. It makes indivudals do more objective thinking in their life, and plus, I like how ancient shamans would actually use mushrooms to fortell the future and give insight to a lot of things. So its more of a side trip I was going off on that one. The two pieces down there are called Life Styles of the Poor and Dangerous, Part 1 and 2 right there. Its more about—the bottom one is the characters within a graffiti writer /anarchist lifestyle: you have the anonymous mask the von bode character, its like the graffiti character, oscar the grouch is actually the weed man, its actually a pot reference, belive it or not, and the pig is actually a cop.

The one above it, almost the same thing but we have the fighter Kent Kimball Trice [spelling?], McGruff the crime dog, Megatron, Petey o Beron [spelling?] and Marilyn Monroe: so its like internet culture, good guy versus bad guy aesthetic but stuff that is very popular right now but underground popular.

C: Its interesting that you talked about shamanism because I read this article about the Underbelly project that took place in new york, you know, took over the tunnels, and some guy described graffiti writers as being the shamaans of the underworld.

S: Essentially it is. Especially if you see art with an open mind, you can see it as a persn’s name, or you could feel it as the expression of colors and forms. Most common people respect the color and form, and lets just say that the city needs that considering that most public space is privatized and bombarded with privately ownded images meant to promote and sell bad products. Whereas graffiti is more like grass roots marketing, marketing done by one person with no budget. But you have a brand and you are your brand. As opposed to pepsi. Its mostly an international corporation and you have tens of thousands of people under the one brand. Between a multinational corporation versus one guy, in his bedroom, with a bunch of markers. That is a big difference right there.

C: Is that how you resolve the tension between having to make a living and brand yourself to survive, with the idealistic?

S: Correct. That’s how I came to terms with even still painting. I just had to understand that I don’t have a marketing crew or a street team so I’ve gotta do it myself. I gotta come through and paint my way out it, paint to prove my point.

C: Is there anything else you want to say about the show that you want people to know?

S: This show is meant to set the standard for aerosol art in Chicago. And let the world know that the city of Chicago has a standard for can control. I am Rahmaan Statik, and I am actually the artist that is trying to pioneer that and bring the Chicago standard of can control to the forefront and let the world know that there are good artists in the city. That and I would like to influence other artists, other graffiti writers, painters, to do more art and paint. Less talking, more art. Less criticizing, more art. I would hope to influence people to do more art whether they would like to compete against me, just to do something to liberate their minds. Either way, that’s good to me. I would rather see people doing art than buying cheap products from shopping malls and stuff like that. Doing art for yourself, it’ll save your life, keep you out of trouble, and help you make better, more objective decisions, thinking of the world around you. It helps you observe the world around you with a much freer mind from an artistic point of view. You view the world  trying to find the beauty in it first, rather than everything that is wrong with it. Through an artistic objective standpoint. [For example], you as a journalist, you can’t come through and make arguments you are doing interviews from an objective standpoint, and then maybe you add your point of view onto it. My whole thing is, yeah, I’m influenced by seeing people make art, and long term I hope to make renaissance in Chicago, in the city, in the Midwest, and abroad. At this point the world needs a renaissance of art to compete with the consumerism. We need a renaissance in art that combats the oversaturation of consumerism. That brings people back into buying original, hand made products versus buying stuff made off of the assembly line. That is the difference. So it goes deeper than something being made in America. It goes back to something being made in your kitchen, or made in your own back yard. Or your own bedroom. That’s the bigger difference. So the [goal] of the show is to set the standard for can control and let the city of Chicago know that spray can art is real art and its to be taken serious[ly].

Sandia y Melón: An Interview

The following is the transcript of an interview with Sandia Roja and Melón before their show opening at Howard Street Gallery. The show will be up for a month so check it out as soon as you can, it is really fantastic. Thanks to the artists for being so generous with their time, and candid with their commentary.

Melón y Sandia March 16, 2013

M: She is Sandia and we have known each other  and been good friends for a while and we thought it was kind of funny, you know, Sandia and Melon, Melon and Watermelon, you know? So at first when we met she was “are you melón? They call me Sandia” and I was like, “that’s weird.” So, that is how we met. Her artist name is Sandia Roja, so we decided to do a show together eventually and now, three or four years or something, now we are doing a show.

CB: How did you get access to this space?

M: Through Tony…I know him from the graffiti scene. Howard Street Gallery does a lot of graffiti venues and me being a graffiti artist he contacted me and said “Hey we want to do a show with you.” It was just going to be me, but I just did a show recently with Fonzo and Amuse, the one before was at Galerie F and the one after that was at Modest Skate shop in Forest Park, and I felt like it was too much, so I asked if there was another artist…and then I said “I think I might have someone…and she said ‘yeah.’” So here we are.

CB: {to sandia} So I am doing an interview for Sixty Inches from Center, are you familiar with them at all? They cover alternative art, street art, graffiti…so somehow I became facebook friends with Melon, and I like his work, and so I wanted to cover this opening. And so we are talking a little bit about how the show came together, I’d really like it if you could talk a bit about the piece you are most excited about…how it came into being.

S: Whew! The piece that I am most excited about…it is not here! {laughs} I forgot it at home. I am a teacher so we were doing visualization as a reading strategy at school. So I had to do a assignment of a guy, a little guy, closing his eyes with a bubble, a thinking bubble. And we were drunk, at night, and I started drawing it, and I was like, “This doesn’t look like anything kid like!” and it turned out to be a huge, long, colorful merman, and it said “Melón y Sandia” on the tail, really colorful, really cool.

M: Yeah, we collaborated on that.

CB: Have someone bring it at the last minute…like do a big excited drum roll.

S: Haha yeah, “And its here!” A drunken collaboration.

CB: Tell me a little about your style: where it came from, what influences you.

M: My style, hm. I think I have a graffiti, Chicago style. And my style pretty much evolved from that. And I think that me living out in Hawaii for about six years, I developed not only a style from taking the style I had from here to Chicago, and taking it to Hawaii and developing it into my own style and technique. I had a few friends that I was inspired by in Hawaii. We should show each other things, and it evolved to [the style I have] now. A lot of people say they don’t know, that they can’t tell where I am from from [looking at] my style. If you go to Hawaii, I would do a lot of triple auras and really thick outlines, and people were like. “Hey, why are you doing so many outlines?” …and I think working in the gallery, developing a [fine art] style really pushed my style to new heights…working between different worlds…

CB: How would you define graffiti versus gallery work?

M: Its tough. You have people that hate graffiti, but they like the styles…for me I like doing gallery work [too]…but with my graffiti…its almost like being selfish with my graffiti, I like to do my graffiti for me, and that’s pretty much it..that’s why my gallery work is different…but you can sell the style…

CB: We are talking about style, development of style. How would you describe yours?

S: I think Melón inspired me. I grew up with paint. My family, they are all painters, people going about their regular lives and also doing art. But it was a hobby. Then during University..I had a piece up called “Beautiful moment/woman (?)” and then I had an exhibition at Rainbow, and I was like, “You know what, I could…I could do this…” and then Melón came along and he inspired me with his cartoonish comics and that’s it. My style…I don’t know if I have a style. I like really up front solid lines. I love black and white. He inspired me to get away from doing black and white to doing color. And I went back to doing wood cuts, and I hadn’t done a wood cut in a while. I am excited about that piece! A skeleton in turquoise above Melón…

CB: The style to me, reminds me a lot of the engravings in Mexico, the pre-revolutionary stuff…

S: Yeah, that inspired me a lot. In my hometown, in Mexico, there is a really famous printer, Jose Guadelupe Posada, and that’s where the style of the skeletons came from. Maybe that’s my style!

M: Yeah, could be.

CB: So are you [to melon] from Chicago?

M: Grew up here, born and raise. And when I was 21, 22, I went into the service that’s how I ended up in Hawaii…

CB: Where did the name, “Melón” come from?

M: Oh, Melón is a name from a long time ago. I am Puerto Rican and Guatemalan and when I was a kid I couldn’t really say “Guatemalan” [instead] I would say “Watermelon” So some people thought that it was funny. So when my brother started doing graffiti, back in the late 80s, as soon as he started doing it, I fell in love with it.

CB: How old were you?

M: Oh man, I must have been 11 or 12 when I started. When I was 13 that’s when I got my name Melón. I had so many different names, and I kept bouncing around and was like “I don’t like it, I don’t like it.” Finally my brother was like, “Just write Melón!” Back then it was Melon. And I was like, oh yeah, Melon, exactly. It’s the shit! It just stayed with me.

CB: Where did “Sandia” come from?

S: When I was little they would make fun of me, saying, “Sandy, Sandia, Sandy.” Sandia is “watermelon” in Spanish and I would say “I’m not sandia! I’m not sandia!” and I just learned to embrace it, and I am Sandia. I guess. Its pretty cool that we are doing a show together because you know of the London Bridge song?

CB: London Bridge is Falling Down?

S: Yeah. There is a kinesthetic thing to it-movement- you hold hands…

M: And they have the same thing in Mexico!

CB: Can I take a picture of you guys doing that? {making the bridge with hands} Is that alright?

S: So the people, they go around in a like a chacha line, holding the shoulders instead of the waist and sing a song, “Melón y sandia…” and at the end it falls down, and whoever is in the middle has to choose a side, is it melon or is it sandia…

M: So the bridge is like, she is Sandia and I am Melón, and its like “Será Melón sera Sandia…”

CB: So like the same but different?

M: Yeah.

S: We had an idea of making it kind of political, are you Mexican or American, which side are you gonna pick? Because there is always that culture clash, am I Mexican? The [sense that] I am too American for the Mexicans and too Mexican for the Americans, but, we didn’t have time, so we just decided to have fun with it.

M: I think what it was is that with our work schedules, we both work full time jobs and trying to put that together…it was a lot of sleepless nights. Literally, just sleeping an hour or two and then going straight to work. 

CB: How long does it take to make one of your wood carvings?

S: I did the skeleton in one night. I ended up with cuts all over my hands. The next day my kids [at school] were like “You have boo-boos!” Yes I have lots of bo boos. But it was worth it. If I focus I am fast.

M: Yeah she is. I am slow.

S: He is very detail oriented, and sometimes I am like “Melón, move! Move! Move it!”

CB: There is something interesting in that yours [melon’s pieces] are so exacting and yours [sandia’s] have a sort of kinesthetic energy in the wood carving…

M: I think there is something really interesting to see how we were gonna make this look good. But I think we did a good job. I think one of my favorite pieces is one where we collaborated, we call it “City Bird” and it is a bird with a city inside of it and smoke coming out.

S: It was just a piece of wood, and I just found it on the street. I had taken a picture of a bird one day, and I thought, “Oh, this is a nice bird!” and I just drew the silhouette and it stayed on top of a dresser for a year or two. Then Melón came over one day and said “Oh we should do something with it,” and I said, “you can do whatever you want with it.” And he started painting it and I thought then we came together and I would say, “We could do this! Pshewwm Pshewwm Pshewwm!” And that we painted together. And that is a very cool piece.

M: Her words were “Let me interfere here,”

S: “Can I, Sandia-ize this?”

CB: What is your favorite piece form the show? [to Melon]

M: I think the one that I just put together, which is…

S: The Matador.

M: No, the Virgin Mary, or I don’t even know if it is the Virgin Mary or Guadelupe. I was looking at it, and it has the style of Guadelupe, but its got the sacred heart of Mary. And I was like “Wait, that doesn’t go together? Or should it?”

S: She is a virgin, period.

M: Yeah, she is a virgin, but I am fascinated with the Virgin Mary for some reason. I just think she is an interesting woman.

CB: In what way?

M: Well, one, she is a virgin. But also she is a powerful woman. People, she is an icon, and a lot of people look up to her. I don’t know anything about her, and I don’t know if I will ever be super religious but something about her is captivating…

CB: So I was just looking at the one, the woman in blue with the tiger, with no face…so what is the deal with [your pieces] not having faces?

M: Well, wow, at first it started with me trying to figure out how draw when you are a kid. You know how they teach you to do the face.

CB: Yeah, to do the proportions…

M: Yeah, the proportions. I felt like I was drawing and putting a face, and my ex wife asked me “Oh, who is that?” and I was like “no one in general.” And it dawned on me that if you put a face on a character automatically

S: It becomes somebody.

M: It becomes somebody. You are automatically categorizing somebody, that individual. I felt in that sense like not putting a face so that it could be anybody. And you also figure out…society bases a lot of beauty on a woman based on her looks, and I think that my fearless use of colors kind of adds to that beauty and I don’t need a to show that this woman is beautiful. Just look around her, and everything around her is beautiful. Some might call it soft, I call it being in touch with my feminine side I guess. But yeah. So and then after  a while it became my signature, and a lot of people recognize my work just based on that face.

S: I went to a street festival once, and a bunch of art stands, and I am just walking around, and was like “Wait a second, is that Melón?” because there was a painting with a character without a face and a cross and everything, and I called him immediately: “Hey, do you have a piece here?” and he said “No. I’ll be there in five!” Because it is trademarked right?

M: I did trademark a few of those drawings with the same exact face, now I am trying to get it more patented…

S: It wasn’t him, but the lady actually told him that she knew him and his work.

M: Yeah she said she knew and liked my work.

CB: That’s really interesting.

M: Yeah, I think it is always cool when you see somebody that does something similar to what you do. Similar but to me…some people might [have] the graffiti mentality and be like “that’s biter shit!” but you know, to me it is like, everything has been done or used in some way shape or form. So I think it is just influencing.  I think there is a saying that goes something like “Some great artists copy and better artists steal…” I don’t have it word for word but I think it is true. There are things that I say that I realized I can do it in my style and it develops…and every time you do a piece you see how it develops in the process and how is it going to turn out, and ask yourself how you will develop it. And you learn. So every time I do a piece I want it to be so that I learn from it.  I don’t want it just so that I paint it right away. I think learning from your pieces is always big, and my pieces are based on more emotion than any time of political…I think I use a lot of emotion, not only from myself but what I see that other people go through…that’s why I use a lot of hearts…

S: I think I am influenced a lot by immigration. I came to this country when I was 14. So I came here and I came with a visa but overstayed and was illegal, now I am legal…I thought “this is so unfair!“ So my pieces started showing that. [Also] domestic violence, Mexican American immigration, the celebration of death…in this country [death] is creepy, but it’s not. So I wanted to turn it around and show people that death is not sad, it should be celebrated….maybe that is just how I was raised. I had a kid, on Thursday, when we came to the carpet on Thursday to read a book, and he just started crying. Everyone is waiting for the book. And I ask “why are you crying” because he responded that--- it just dawned on him, they are six years old--- that “ I am really sad because I just foud out that we are all going to die. I am going to grow old , and , take pills and then die” and so that had an impact on me and I thought “I am glad I am doing this.” Even if he is not going to be here. It is the …showing people, “don’t be afraid…its ok…live a good life…and this is what you are going to look like.”

CB: Anything else that you all want to talk about?

S: The medium. I like that he uses a lot of acrylic and the coating the transparent coating. I like trying all kinds; I have drawings, I have wood cuts, I have acrylics, I have an oil painting….charcoal with markers and pencil…I like trying out different stuff…sculpture, there is a little tiny sculpture.

CB: How long does the show run?

M: A month or so.

CB: Cool, I will try to get this out before. Thank you.