ENDLESS CANVAS: What was your favorite cartoon growing up and why? Has it changed now that you are older?

ELAB: Ren & Stimpy, the Simpsons, Batman the animated series, Hanna-Barbera reruns, loony toons reruns, muppet babies, teenage mutant ninja turtles, Bevis and Butthead. The list goes on and on. I couldn’t pick just one. I watched way too much television as a kid. Once I was a little older (12-13), I got really into anime. My friends and I would go to the mall and rack anime vhs tapes. Akira, ghost in the shell, ninja scroll, all the classics. Then we started grabbing stuff just based on the box art. I ended up with a lot of henti.

It’s changed now that I’m older in that I don’t watch nearly as many cartoons. I still love them, but when the tv is on it’s usually horror movies. I’ve always loved horror movies, I was a little mall goth as a kid. 

EC: Do you have any video editing education? I really dig you reel vids on the gram btw

ELAB: Thanks! No, I don’t have any real video editing experience. A while ago a buddy of mine suggested that I make reels instead of IG stories. I like how frantic I can make them. It’s a fun time waster.

EC: Why yellow and black?

ELAB: Caution, warning, danger, keep out, poison. I don’t know. I’ve always been fond of that color combination. When I made my first round of vinyl stickers years and years ago, nobody in my hometown was doing anything with plain text. The few people having stickers printed all made them with just their regular tag on them. I wanted mine to be ugly and official looking, sterile. Like the city was responsible for them. I was hoping to blend in with the boring information that you’re usually bombarded with. I thought if my stickers looked industrial they would sneak past the buff. 

EC: How many stickers do you put up or make in a year? 

ELAB: Depends on the year. I’ve put up more that 10,000 in one year, and couple years later didn’t put up any. The past few years my numbers have been way down, the low thousands.

EC: How often do you go out slap, tag bomb whatever you call it? And what do you call it getting up or bombing? Just wondering.

ELAB: I never really go out specifically to put up stickers, it’s just something that I do whenever I’m out of the house. Stickers and cutty tags during the day, night time is for spraying. I don’t really call it anything. 

I spend less and less time walking around doing graffiti. The crushing weight of nine to five drudgery is taking its toll. 

EC: Characters over letters right?  just kidding don’t answer this…lol

ELAB: Nah, characters AND letters. I’m not very good at either. Sometime in like, 2019, I made a decision to start painting more characters. I hadn’t done one in a while and wanted to challenge myself a bit. When it’s a chill spot why not push myself a little? I’ve been making letter based graffiti for the majority of my life, if a piece has a little character and a nice little background it makes for a more well rounded finished product, in my humble opinion. None of that is really necessary, though. I like ugly graffiti.

EC: Do you like to work collaboratively and if so with who?

ELAB: I paint alone quite often, but I like to work with other people too. I don’t know if hanging out with friends painting graffiti together can really be considered collaborative, everyone’s just painting their own piece on the same wall, but if so than I guess you could say that I collaborate fairly often. Not surprisingly, my most frequent collaborators are my friends and crew mates. Usually these days I’m painting with Blief, Freska, Osker, or Melske, but I’m down to spray with anyone as long as they’re chill.

EC: Do you draw in a black book?

ELAB: I always have a sketch book going, I’m always drawing, but I haven’t drawn a fully actualized, like, complete piece in a book in a long time. I usually just get the rough outline down and then go paint it. I miss black book sessions with the homies, though.

EC: What artists influence you right now and why?

ELAB: I try not to be too influenced by other (graffiti) artists, but it’s pretty much impossible. I’m often stuck in the graffiti ego headspace, where there’s no biting allowed, but that shits ridiculous. If you’re doing traditional letter based graffiti you’re already biting out the gate. What I do is far from reinventing the wheel, but I’d like to think that I’m putting my little spin on it. At some point I started going back to my first artistic influences, old cartoons, comics, album art, advertisements, random bootleg shit you see just walking around.

My friends and crew mates definitely influence me too. We’re not copying each other’s style, but if we’re actually friends than we’re gonna be critiquing each other, usually just ball busting, but seriously too. Most of the people I paint with are better than me, we’ve all been in it for long time, and my friends are a great resource that I for sure take advantage of. I’m not afraid to ask my homie if my shit looks off, like, “does this arrow make sense? Is this bar too wonky?” I might not take the advice, but at the very least it’s great to have someone to bounce ideas off of. 

Then there’s influence outside of style. Their approach or attitude. It’s gotta be fun, you should try different things, and don’t take yourself seriously. 

EC: Does music influence your art work? And how? Who?

ELAB: I’d like to think music influences my art, but I’m honestly not sure. If music does influence my art I’m not sure it’s evident in the final product. Like, what I’m listening to may effect my mood while I’m painting or drawing, but I don’t think it changes the actual piece. I listen to all types of music (except new mainstream country), but rap and metal are definitely my go-to genres. That said, I try to make friendly art, happy colors and whatnot, but the music that I listen to while making it can be pretty aggressive. I’ve painted walls at a preschool while listening to All Pigs Must Die. I recently painted a nursery and was bumping Benny the Butcher the whole time. They still turned out playful and cute. 

EC: Blow up the bay or save it? lol

ELAB: Don’t blow it up, but it doesn’t need saving. The bay is doing just fine. The rent is ridiculous, but the weather is perfect. There’s fun stuff going on here that isn’t happening anywhere else. I’m a transplant, so obviously I’m biased since I choose to live here. Where I’m from is awesome, but also rapidly changing and dealing with many of the same issues as the bay i.e. gentrification, so I understand the frustration. I just try my best to be zen about it, except that change is inevitable, and find my own fun. 

EC: What’s your favorite Kinks song? 😛

ELAB: Less Kinks, more Wicked Lady.

EC: Are you a video editor? I really dig your short videos on the gram have thought about doing a 10 minute short or work with other artists? 

ELAB: I’m glad you like them! I’m not a video editor. I have a lot of fun on my phone, but making something more substantial would be awesome. I’ve always been interested in making videos, and editing in particular. My friends and I used to make skate videos as a kid, but I’ve never owned a camera, or even a real computer. I’d love to make a short film, or a music video. I just bought my first computer (an iPad whatever), but I haven’t used it yet to edit anything. I’m always really far behind on technology.