(© Ivan Put)
It has been nearly fifteen years since New York-based artist Stephen Powers stopped writing graffiti under the name ESPO, but he’s still delivering Exterior Surface Painting Outreach. His vocabulary has become richer, however: “I don’t need to see my name ever again.”
“The scene in Philadelphia in the mid-1980s was about 900 black guys, 900 Spanish guys, and 20 white guys writing graffiti, the most established ones being 18 to 20 years old with ten years of painting walls behind them. I started writing as a 16-year-old who didn’t know shit about the way the city and politics worked. And I nearly got my ass kicked a bunch of times, but I learned really quickly. Most of the people I grew up with in our little middle-class enclave in Philadelphia had an almost instinctual non-curiosity about the world. That was the first thing I had to overcome: I was curious about the world, about the neighbourhoods and Philadelphia, so I went out and discovered it. I think making that fundamental jump to leave the neighbourhood and go meet other people changed everything.”
Powers to the people!
And how! In 1994, then 26-year-old ESPO ended up in New York, where three years later he would start painting the heavily vandalised grates of dingy shops in Lower Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the South Bronx, in broad daylight, his only defence against overly curious passers-by being his official-sounding membership of Exterior Surface Painting Outreach. Those times when he was just “cleaning up this gate” aren’t actually so far removed from where the tall New Yorker with his dark shades under a curly, top-heavy hairdo is now, almost fifteen years after he stopped writing graffiti. Agreed, he’s moving up: with prestigious solo shows and a collaborative piece with Barry McGee and Todd James, Street Market, displayed at the 2001 Venice Biennial, full-time artist Stephen Powers has climbed pretty far up the ladder of the art world. But his uncompromising, direct, and transparent artistic practice, and the projects he develops parallel to his personal work are testimonies to a vision that transcends personal artistry.
(Love Letter to Brooklyn)
In 2007, Stephen Powers won a Fulbright scholarship and travelled to Dublin and Belfast to paint enormous murals with local teenagers; he founded Icy Signs, a crew/sign shop that does public art projects and helps out shops in dire need of signs for free in return for artistic freedom; and with the support of the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, he collaborated with twenty other artists to create the impressive A Love Letter for You, a fascinating, loving redrawing of the urban landscape, spread across 50 walls in West Philadelphia (with sequels in Syracuse and Brooklyn). His love for words and his passion for the communicating skills of signs have stayed the same: “Graffiti was one word, now it’s many words. But I think the essential spirit is the same...hopefully.”
Local anchoring is very important to your work.
Stephen Powers: That developed so naturally. You know, if you ask people who the greatest graffiti writer of all time was, Stay High 149 is always in the top three. He wrote “Stay High 149”, but he also wrote, as his own side thing, “Voice of the Ghetto”. At that time in New York, all of the city was ghetto. I loved that idea: this could be and should be the voice of a community. I’ve seen my name often enough. I don’t ever need to see it again. But if we paint what’s alive in the community, it gets a lot more interesting. Because then people take ownership of it. And if that happens, it could belong to the world.
In 2007, Stephen Powers won a Fulbright scholarship and travelled to Dublin and Belfast to paint enormous murals with local teenagers; he founded Icy Signs, a crew/sign shop that does public art projects and helps out shops in dire need of signs for free in return for artistic freedom; and with the support of the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, he collaborated with twenty other artists to create the impressive A Love Letter for You, a fascinating, loving redrawing of the urban landscape, spread across 50 walls in West Philadelphia (with sequels in Syracuse and Brooklyn). His love for words and his passion for the communicating skills of signs have stayed the same: “Graffiti was one word, now it’s many words. But I think the essential spirit is the same...hopefully.”
Local anchoring is very important to your work.
Stephen Powers: That developed so naturally. You know, if you ask people who the greatest graffiti writer of all time was, Stay High 149 is always in the top three. He wrote “Stay High 149”, but he also wrote, as his own side thing, “Voice of the Ghetto”. At that time in New York, all of the city was ghetto. I loved that idea: this could be and should be the voice of a community. I’ve seen my name often enough. I don’t ever need to see it again. But if we paint what’s alive in the community, it gets a lot more interesting. Because then people take ownership of it. And if that happens, it could belong to the world.
(A Love Letter for You)
The Love Letter projects are a great example of that.
Stephen Powers: And all those walls are still there! I thought it would take a few months before it got covered, but four years on they’re still there. It’s carried by the community, and that’s great.
A friend of mine once tried to do an art project with prisoners. They couldn’t be bothered. But when he showed them the Love Letter books he brought along, they immediately turned around completely. It just meant so much to them. My heart just broke when I heard that. It’s an honour and a privilege!
You are also going to do a project in Charleroi next year?
Powers: Oh, I hope so. We’re going to take a look this week. They say it’s a very desperate town. That’s where we like to work, places where they’re running out of hope, running out of time. We do very well in those places.
Even when you were writing graffiti, you had the feeling you were making places better. Could you say that your current public art projects are a continuation of that?
Powers: Absolutely, there’s no change at all. As I was leaving graffiti and getting into straight art making, there was a lot of suspicion that I was going to change and that it was going to be different somehow. Even I thought I might have to change, I didn’t think I could really bring the crowd with me and continue to do exactly what I was doing. But it turned out to be as simple as crossing the street. It was working inside instead of outside. And once you’re inside, a lot of people said: “Oh, well thanks for asking, of course you can do that. It was when you didn’t ask that I got so pissed off. Now that you ask, yes please, paint the whole wall.” Once they were involved in the decision making process, people were just wonderful.
The Love Letter projects are a great example of that.
Stephen Powers: And all those walls are still there! I thought it would take a few months before it got covered, but four years on they’re still there. It’s carried by the community, and that’s great.
A friend of mine once tried to do an art project with prisoners. They couldn’t be bothered. But when he showed them the Love Letter books he brought along, they immediately turned around completely. It just meant so much to them. My heart just broke when I heard that. It’s an honour and a privilege!
You are also going to do a project in Charleroi next year?
Powers: Oh, I hope so. We’re going to take a look this week. They say it’s a very desperate town. That’s where we like to work, places where they’re running out of hope, running out of time. We do very well in those places.
Even when you were writing graffiti, you had the feeling you were making places better. Could you say that your current public art projects are a continuation of that?
Powers: Absolutely, there’s no change at all. As I was leaving graffiti and getting into straight art making, there was a lot of suspicion that I was going to change and that it was going to be different somehow. Even I thought I might have to change, I didn’t think I could really bring the crowd with me and continue to do exactly what I was doing. But it turned out to be as simple as crossing the street. It was working inside instead of outside. And once you’re inside, a lot of people said: “Oh, well thanks for asking, of course you can do that. It was when you didn’t ask that I got so pissed off. Now that you ask, yes please, paint the whole wall.” Once they were involved in the decision making process, people were just wonderful.
(Pour Trait of the Artist © Stephen Powers)
What attracted you in painting walls in the first place?
Powers: The freedom! I could go and do what I thought was interesting and what was important to me. I took an art class in high school, and the art they made me do was to draw still lives of apples and fruit. I hated it. I thought that if that was what my life was going to be like as an artist, I’d rather die. And then graffiti appeared, the perfect alternative, something I could do that has line, and colour, and adventure, and no rules except the ones you make up yourself.
What made you turn away from it in the end?
Powers: I was just done with it. I had done a really good fifteen years in graffiti, and I just ran out of material. I felt like I was repeating myself, and it wasn’t necessarily getting better. I left the party at a high point. I had written and published a book about the subject [The Art of Getting Over – KS], and that was perfect closure. I had a legitimate excuse to leave and go be an artist. And six months after I quit writing graffiti, the cops came. Perfect timing! [Laughs]
Do you sometimes miss the thrill of illegal graffiti writing?
Powers: Yeah, I miss the problem solving, the working with other writers to figure out how to paint a location, how to do it with some élan. And get home safely. A lot of the graffiti stresses you out while you’re painting it, it stresses people out to look at it, but everything we did, we did lovingly, with a lot of pleasure. And people enjoyed it.
What attracted you in painting walls in the first place?
Powers: The freedom! I could go and do what I thought was interesting and what was important to me. I took an art class in high school, and the art they made me do was to draw still lives of apples and fruit. I hated it. I thought that if that was what my life was going to be like as an artist, I’d rather die. And then graffiti appeared, the perfect alternative, something I could do that has line, and colour, and adventure, and no rules except the ones you make up yourself.
What made you turn away from it in the end?
Powers: I was just done with it. I had done a really good fifteen years in graffiti, and I just ran out of material. I felt like I was repeating myself, and it wasn’t necessarily getting better. I left the party at a high point. I had written and published a book about the subject [The Art of Getting Over – KS], and that was perfect closure. I had a legitimate excuse to leave and go be an artist. And six months after I quit writing graffiti, the cops came. Perfect timing! [Laughs]
Do you sometimes miss the thrill of illegal graffiti writing?
Powers: Yeah, I miss the problem solving, the working with other writers to figure out how to paint a location, how to do it with some élan. And get home safely. A lot of the graffiti stresses you out while you’re painting it, it stresses people out to look at it, but everything we did, we did lovingly, with a lot of pleasure. And people enjoyed it.
You said in an interview recently that art in Philadelphia cuts through the bullshit: “There’s a necessary, fundamental simplicity that has to exist for work to survive here and for people to take ownership of it.” Is that something you held on to as you went from graffiti writing to art?
Powers: You know, I grew up looking at contemporary art of the 1980s, paying attention to what all of those 1980s New York artists were doing and how they were speaking about their work. Just twenty years later, when I was in New York, presenting my work, and thinking about it, I realised I didn’t have a speech. I didn’t have some way of speaking about my work that uses the art world speak. My mother-in-law was getting me a subscription to Artforum magazine and it was just impenetrable to me. I rejected all of that because it was just too pretentious to make any sense. I think the art world rejected me a little bit in return. [Laughs]
When I was painting graffiti, even if people hated it, there was an immediate connection with people in the community. The emotions it pulls out of people are amazing. Art doesn’t do that. Nobody gets mad at art. Or maybe once in a while when it touches on religion or sexuality. Art was sort of walled off in some gallery on a nice block where you couldn’t see it. Those things kind of bothered me. So I try to make work that’s plain and direct, even when it’s a little confusing.
With respect to directness, music must be a great source of inspiration?
Powers: Music, completely! It’s pacing, and story-telling, and timing, and melody. So it’s four balls you have got to juggle. I’m very inspired by music! And I’m really jealous of it, because it can reach into people’s lives, wherever they are. I can make paintings and get them to people, but they’re still looking at a screen, trying to see what I’m doing. That’s why I try to make paintings that resonate like music does. Hence the name of the exhibition at Alice Gallery: “Visual Blues”. I try to make something that speaks to life, speaks truth to power, speaks about the things that affect me and hopefully affect others.
Powers: You know, I grew up looking at contemporary art of the 1980s, paying attention to what all of those 1980s New York artists were doing and how they were speaking about their work. Just twenty years later, when I was in New York, presenting my work, and thinking about it, I realised I didn’t have a speech. I didn’t have some way of speaking about my work that uses the art world speak. My mother-in-law was getting me a subscription to Artforum magazine and it was just impenetrable to me. I rejected all of that because it was just too pretentious to make any sense. I think the art world rejected me a little bit in return. [Laughs]
When I was painting graffiti, even if people hated it, there was an immediate connection with people in the community. The emotions it pulls out of people are amazing. Art doesn’t do that. Nobody gets mad at art. Or maybe once in a while when it touches on religion or sexuality. Art was sort of walled off in some gallery on a nice block where you couldn’t see it. Those things kind of bothered me. So I try to make work that’s plain and direct, even when it’s a little confusing.
With respect to directness, music must be a great source of inspiration?
Powers: Music, completely! It’s pacing, and story-telling, and timing, and melody. So it’s four balls you have got to juggle. I’m very inspired by music! And I’m really jealous of it, because it can reach into people’s lives, wherever they are. I can make paintings and get them to people, but they’re still looking at a screen, trying to see what I’m doing. That’s why I try to make paintings that resonate like music does. Hence the name of the exhibition at Alice Gallery: “Visual Blues”. I try to make something that speaks to life, speaks truth to power, speaks about the things that affect me and hopefully affect others.
On 26 May, fellow Philadelphian Kurt Vile will be playing at the Ancienne Belgique. You did an enormous mural for the cover of his album Wakin On A Pretty Daze. What was that experience like?
Powers: It was really interesting seeing Kurt Vile, watching him work, and talking to him. What I love about him is that he’s a very verbal, very visual writer of music. That made me seek him out, and it resulted in this great collaboration. He gave me a low res copy of his music, and I had a couple of days to listen to the lyrics and grab the phrases. The first song already had about twenty phrases for me to work with, so I just had too much material. I think most of the icons on the wall are from the first half of the record. In the end I just ran out of room. [Laughs]
Do you like those collaborations? With musicians, for the Love Letter project, or with the Icy Signs crew...
Powers: It’s a wonderful thing to get other people involved. A large part of being an artist is a very lonely experience. You have to be alone, that’s the job. So getting out and working with other people is a relief. It’s so much better than being alone. Being alone sucks! [Laughs]
Powers: It was really interesting seeing Kurt Vile, watching him work, and talking to him. What I love about him is that he’s a very verbal, very visual writer of music. That made me seek him out, and it resulted in this great collaboration. He gave me a low res copy of his music, and I had a couple of days to listen to the lyrics and grab the phrases. The first song already had about twenty phrases for me to work with, so I just had too much material. I think most of the icons on the wall are from the first half of the record. In the end I just ran out of room. [Laughs]
Do you like those collaborations? With musicians, for the Love Letter project, or with the Icy Signs crew...
Powers: It’s a wonderful thing to get other people involved. A large part of being an artist is a very lonely experience. You have to be alone, that’s the job. So getting out and working with other people is a relief. It’s so much better than being alone. Being alone sucks! [Laughs]
At Alice Gallery you’ll be showing some of your larger, personal work and a selection of your Daily Metaltations, colourful, enamel paintings on eight-by-ten-inch aluminium panels. Are they all based on drawings you make during your commute in the morning?
Powers: Yeah, it’s all drawings. Drawing is like tilting my head on the side and spilling it out. Fast and without a filter. With paintings, there’s a little more meditation and thought involved.
But I love drawing. I think I have a pretty good hand-eye coordination at this point. I say that with a little bit of trepidation, because you have to do it every day. That’s the only way you’ll get better at it. Take a guy like Robert Crumb for instance: he has been drawing every day for 60 years or so.
Is that why you "metaltate" on a daily basis?
Powers: The more you do, the more you learn, the more ideas you have. It’s really just keeping the pump going. If you get on it, and keep on it, you get more!
One of your Daily Metaltations zooms in on the crossroads of innocence and experience. Does wonder still thrive you?
Powers: Yeah, I’m still just a little, wild kid at heart. The things that excited me when I was young, still excite me. The passions that I had back then, are still my passions today. I try to keep that alive. Once that’s gone, once that fire is out, then it may be all out.
Another one of your Daily Metaltations shows a list: food, clothes, shelter, and then art...maybe.
Powers: Right: maybe! In the real hierarchy, art is pretty low on the list. Which makes putting my paintings online a cool thing. It might hurt the gallery, but I think people accessing art, printing it out, and putting it on their cubicle is really important. Allowing people to share like that. And it’s a reminder of the fact that if you want to get above clothing, and shelter, and food, you have got to deliver!
Powers: Yeah, it’s all drawings. Drawing is like tilting my head on the side and spilling it out. Fast and without a filter. With paintings, there’s a little more meditation and thought involved.
But I love drawing. I think I have a pretty good hand-eye coordination at this point. I say that with a little bit of trepidation, because you have to do it every day. That’s the only way you’ll get better at it. Take a guy like Robert Crumb for instance: he has been drawing every day for 60 years or so.
Is that why you "metaltate" on a daily basis?
Powers: The more you do, the more you learn, the more ideas you have. It’s really just keeping the pump going. If you get on it, and keep on it, you get more!
One of your Daily Metaltations zooms in on the crossroads of innocence and experience. Does wonder still thrive you?
Powers: Yeah, I’m still just a little, wild kid at heart. The things that excited me when I was young, still excite me. The passions that I had back then, are still my passions today. I try to keep that alive. Once that’s gone, once that fire is out, then it may be all out.
Another one of your Daily Metaltations shows a list: food, clothes, shelter, and then art...maybe.
Powers: Right: maybe! In the real hierarchy, art is pretty low on the list. Which makes putting my paintings online a cool thing. It might hurt the gallery, but I think people accessing art, printing it out, and putting it on their cubicle is really important. Allowing people to share like that. And it’s a reminder of the fact that if you want to get above clothing, and shelter, and food, you have got to deliver!
Some of your larger work reminds me of stuff Chris Ware has done in the past.
Powers: Oh cool. Chris Ware has made stuff that really knocked me out. He is really somewhere else. And he’s a perfectionist. I don’t mean to be, but it’s the only way to find out if I’m really doing the best I can. A whole other thing is sign painting: in order to do that right, you have to do it fast. You just do it, you can’t fix it. Which is freeing for me. Before, I would fix everything, make it perfect, hide all the mistakes. It wasn’t done until you couldn’t see how it was made. Sign painting took me away from that. And it helped to know that Chris Ware agonised over his work. I couldn’t do that. He can. He does. He’s obviously dying for our sins, dying for all the sloppy draughtsmen of the world.
You have experimented with the comics medium as well.
Powers: I drew a lot of comics as a kid, but I got away from it with graffiti, completely: I got rid of all my comics. I went back to the form ten, twelve years ago. I thought about sequential panels and combining sign paintings with comic book work. It was a fun experiment, though I’m not sure if it was completely successful. In any case, it made me understand the craft a lot better. Thinking visually, telling a story visually, pacing, that’s hard. It’s beautiful when it’s done correctly, but...I think I’ll leave it to the pros. [Laughs]
Powers: Oh cool. Chris Ware has made stuff that really knocked me out. He is really somewhere else. And he’s a perfectionist. I don’t mean to be, but it’s the only way to find out if I’m really doing the best I can. A whole other thing is sign painting: in order to do that right, you have to do it fast. You just do it, you can’t fix it. Which is freeing for me. Before, I would fix everything, make it perfect, hide all the mistakes. It wasn’t done until you couldn’t see how it was made. Sign painting took me away from that. And it helped to know that Chris Ware agonised over his work. I couldn’t do that. He can. He does. He’s obviously dying for our sins, dying for all the sloppy draughtsmen of the world.
You have experimented with the comics medium as well.
Powers: I drew a lot of comics as a kid, but I got away from it with graffiti, completely: I got rid of all my comics. I went back to the form ten, twelve years ago. I thought about sequential panels and combining sign paintings with comic book work. It was a fun experiment, though I’m not sure if it was completely successful. In any case, it made me understand the craft a lot better. Thinking visually, telling a story visually, pacing, that’s hard. It’s beautiful when it’s done correctly, but...I think I’ll leave it to the pros. [Laughs]
(© Ivan Put)
Chris Ware draws from life. So do you. Some of your Daily Metaltations are quite intimate. To put yourself at risk?
Powers: It’s the stuff that hits home. The stuff that makes you laugh and cry at the same time, that’s the sweet spot. I mean, it’s part of the true thing. If it hurts a little, then you know you’re in the right place. [Laughs]
I think the greatest crime in a lot of recent street art is that it’s not saying anything about life. That’s such a squandered opportunity. I don’t care how you do it, just tell me something, anything. Even a good lie, you know, like Picasso said: “The lie that tells the truth.” Awesome. To me a lot of street art is just cute bullshit. If it’s about the community, damn straight, it communicates. But it’s not up to me. You have the power!
Stephen Powers: Visual Blues 16/5 > 22/6, wo/me/We > za/sa/Sa 14 > 18.00, Alice Gallery, Land van Luikstraat 4 rue du Pays de Liège, Brussel/Bruxelles, 02-513.33.07, alicebxl.com, www.firstandfifteenth.net
Chris Ware draws from life. So do you. Some of your Daily Metaltations are quite intimate. To put yourself at risk?
Powers: It’s the stuff that hits home. The stuff that makes you laugh and cry at the same time, that’s the sweet spot. I mean, it’s part of the true thing. If it hurts a little, then you know you’re in the right place. [Laughs]
I think the greatest crime in a lot of recent street art is that it’s not saying anything about life. That’s such a squandered opportunity. I don’t care how you do it, just tell me something, anything. Even a good lie, you know, like Picasso said: “The lie that tells the truth.” Awesome. To me a lot of street art is just cute bullshit. If it’s about the community, damn straight, it communicates. But it’s not up to me. You have the power!
Stephen Powers: Visual Blues 16/5 > 22/6, wo/me/We > za/sa/Sa 14 > 18.00, Alice Gallery, Land van Luikstraat 4 rue du Pays de Liège, Brussel/Bruxelles, 02-513.33.07, alicebxl.com, www.firstandfifteenth.net
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