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Graffiti Park Radio! 🎨🎧 Where creativity knows no bounds.
Listen to Graffiti Park Radio were we’ll tap in with artists, our proud partners, and community stakeholders who believe in empowering the next generation of art visionaries and the valuable teaching moments that come from living, breathing art.
Unknown Speaker 0:00
This is a Kun V studios original program. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education. Let's get scratching. Ladies and
Unknown Speaker 0:18
gentlemen, welcome to the vibrant world of graffiti Park radio, where creativity knows no bound, we'll tap in with artists, educators, our proud partners and community stakeholders who believe in empowering the next generation of visionaries beyond the hidden alleyways, abandoned warehouses and local city transits, where artists are known to leave their mark, graffiti Park Foundation has redefined and reimagined the persona street Museum.
Unknown Speaker 0:44
Good morning listeners, or afternoon, evening, whenever you might find yourself tuning into graffiti Park radio, we got the dans here and Anika in Stowe Well, hello. And today, we have a very special guest for you all. Mr. Tiki Jay, glad to have you.
Unknown Speaker 1:00
Thank you very much. I'm happy to be here.
Unknown Speaker 1:02
How was your day going so far? Mr. Tiki,
Unknown Speaker 1:04
oh, my day's going well, just got finished doing some sweet murals for graffiti Park, and now I'm here doing a sweet podcast with you guys. All
Unknown Speaker 1:13
right, all right. So I was fortunate enough to rummage through your resume and your unbelievable portfolio, I was incredibly impressed. And of course, you're very professional. You've done a lot of work around town and elsewhere. Tell me a little bit about yourself. And of course, your beginning times as an artist to now as a professional.
Unknown Speaker 1:35
Well, my name's Tiki j1 I'm a urban artist, a graffiti writer. I'm from the Writers and Illustrators crew and the can do crew. I've been writing graffiti for over 20 years. I've been making girls for about the same time. Nice. Thank you very much. You know, I'm happy to announce that, like that, I'm still doing a lot of work and that living the life. Wait, did you ask me about being a beginner?
Unknown Speaker 2:05
Listen, I've asked you about it all. You tell me at all, a few in there, but being being a beginner and just a little bit about yourself now, you know how you started off and just what your experience as an artist has
Unknown Speaker 2:17
been? Well, you know, I started off by drawing as a little kid, just like every kid would you know, instead of putting me in front of the TV, my mom put me in front of some paper and markers, and I sort of took to it. After a while, I was able to go ahead and start copying anything I could see. From there, I sort of got into breakdancing, which led me into graffiti art. Okay, when you when you say, like,
Unknown Speaker 2:41
copying anything you see, like this water bottle on the table, like drawing something like that. Or what do you mean, like, characters, yes.
Unknown Speaker 2:48
So for instance, I was really into Garfield and peanuts, and so I would just look at those, and I would be able to draw just like I saw it. And you know, my mom encouraged me to keep doing it. Okay, yeah. So after that, though, I tried to make a living, it was really important to me to make a crossover from my day job into becoming an artist full time. And I was able to find a job with Tower Records, being an artist for them. Yes, it's, it's, it was really great for the time, especially since I was inexperienced and I had to lie about my experience to get in the door. Well, you know, I'm a quick study, so I figured it out. I managed to stay there for about seven years. That was really cool. But when Tower Records decided to close down, I needed to find a new way to be an artist, and I had no training and I had no education, and so I decided to go to college. Otis, College of Art and Design was where I got my bachelor's degree in product design, and from there, my life changed and afforded me opportunities I don't think I would have had without going to school.
Unknown Speaker 3:55
That's incredible. I saw your work with education has been incredible 15 plus years it said that you have been teaching and tutoring now right after your master's program, or right after you were at, what was it you said Otis College, did you immediately go into teaching and tutoring, or you went straight into your artist perfection? Well,
Unknown Speaker 4:14
you know what was really great about Otis is that the day I graduated, I was already hired to work for guests. That's amazing. Oh, wow. So it was my job to do 3d models and design stores. You know, Marciano is a really involved with this company. I would see them almost every day at the work office. Wow. And it was my job to just go ahead and create the designs that I was giving in a 3d model so that they could see what the store would look like before they the they've constructed it.
Unknown Speaker 4:43
What kind of things were you designing or like? Well,
Unknown Speaker 4:47
I had to learn how to design all the fixtures. I had to learn how to design the store. All I had to design a whole store with inside a ly model, and I still had to make it to spec. Everything had to be one to one like, for instance, there had to be 40. Inches between the racks. The racks had to be the right size in the model, and everything still needed to be rendered out, which, if you're a 3d artist, then you know, a render could take hours, sure, you know. And then you go, Oh, wait, I have to do one more thing. You have to wait for more hours.
Unknown Speaker 5:17
So are they then taking this and then sending this off to like contractors or builders to then make it happen, or actually,
Unknown Speaker 5:23
we're in the construction department. So the design, the designs go to Paul Marciano, the owner, and he looks at them, and he goes, okay, yes, I like this. Let's approve. And that's how the process went back then nice,
Unknown Speaker 5:35
can I ask? Is when you were getting out of college, was that something that was, was pretty popular, is that everybody had a job assignment coming out of that, or were some of them in this limbo period, if you will, of being an artist and not knowing which avenue to go down,
Unknown Speaker 5:51
yeah, you know, it's, it's a really, you got to take care of yourself, yeah, you know. And some people didn't make the cut. I mean, I was not taking no for an answer. I had interviewed with several different people, and I managed to get this interview at the last moment, and the actually the last day of school, where we're presenting all of our work before our teachers. I got a call from them, and they were like, do you want to work for us? Of course. What was even better was like, when I was at Otis, I did my internship for Disney, for Disney Stores, okay, because I was a product designer. I was, I was interning there to design products. And, you know, I get there and I'm sitting in the room, and before I, before I went to the interview, I was worn by all of my teachers at school just bring more than your portfolio, you know, like, because most people will just bring their portfolio and that's it. But they were like, bring your sketchbooks. Make sure that you bring more than that. And I'll tell you, I brought five sketchbooks with me with my portfolio, which I spent countless hours on this portfolio, you know. And I get there, I'm waiting in the room, and Mike walks in, and he sits down, and he's just like, Hello. It's nice to meet you. And I'm waiting for questions. All he says is, what did you What do you have? And so I hand them my portfolio, and he actually takes it from me, sets it down and goes, Did you bring anything else? He didn't even want to see that. Wow. Because most of the time these designers, they want to see how you think. They want to see if you can draw. They want to see if you have that visual communication platform that allows you to show what's in your mind, you know, and that's what this guy was looking for. And he sent, like, 15 minutes looking through my sketchbooks. Didn't ask me one question. I was just
Unknown Speaker 7:40
sitting there going. And
Unknown Speaker 7:41
so he says, he closes them up. He goes, this is great work. Thank you for coming in. And I'm like, All right. And so the HR lady's walking me out the door, and she's trying to soften the blow. She's like, you know, if you're not chosen, it's not because we're just looking for the right fit. And we got about 10 feet from the door, and Mike's assistant runs up and goes, Hey, Mike wants to know if you want to work for him. You know what? Let me think about, yes. And so that's how I got my job working.
Unknown Speaker 8:13
How long did you do that for?
Unknown Speaker 8:15
I think we do a 100 hour and sort of something. But, you know, it was paid, and we got to work on our own project as interns, and it was just working in the environment and learning how to deal in a professional matter made all the difference later on.
Unknown Speaker 8:36
Sure, was this early on in your college experience or closer towards the end? No,
Unknown Speaker 8:41
this would be early, early on, I actually got my master's degree a little bit later, about eight hours, eight years later than I after I graduated from my bachelor's. But it's because they told me that I needed to have a master's in order to teach which our institute ended up closing down. But you know, I always tell people, you don't go to school just for the education. You go there for the network. You go there for the experience. You go there for the lifelong friends. You go there to learn how to be a professional in your field. And what's more, you learn there to be able to live your life and be able to work on your passion and your work at the same time. That's what college teaches you to do while you're there, like you. It teaches you how to be able to still be creative and work in your field, but also tend to your personal life. You know, when I worked at gas, they made sure to tell me not to bring any work home. They wanted to make sure that you had your off time because they didn't want you burnt out. And that's what you know you learn to do after a while, you learn how to do both so that you don't burn out and you can keep moving on.
Unknown Speaker 9:50
Yeah, you can absolutely give your best to your craft as well.
Unknown Speaker 9:52
Can I ask is, what was that process like of looking for a master's program in art, and what was the deficit? The defining trying to think of the words here factor, yeah, what were the defining factors in you choosing your master's program, or you choosing a specific college to pursue your art career?
Unknown Speaker 10:11
So there was, there were certain factors that were involved. I still needed to work full time while I was going to college, and I couldn't put myself in college physically, well, the college I wanted to go to, I've always wanted to go to the Academy of Art in San Francisco, like I've loved that college from day one. They're like Otis. They've been around since the early 1900s and they're just way accredited and very they're great educators. So I had to do something new. I had to do my whole master's degree online, and that's what I had to do. So I was teaching 40 hours a week at the Art Institute, and then I would go home and go back to school. It's amazing. Wow. You know that's those are the kinds of things that that make you a professional at what you're doing. It definitely takes the line from hobby and profession and splits it in a place where you have to decide whether you're going to do one or the other. You're
Unknown Speaker 11:04
absolutely right. I love your dedication to education and bringing the art factor into it. It's changing what people's perception is of taking that creativity and making it a true profession. I wanted to ask you from that, I mean, from Tower Records. You said guests, you said Disney. I'm sure there's so much more we haven't gotten to yet. After having great jobs like that right out of college, how did that form your artistic style?
Unknown Speaker 11:28
Well, it helped build my network, especially teaching helped really build my network. In fact, I don't think I would have met the dance had it not been for me teaching at the Art Institute. In fact, after teaching my first few years at the Art Institute, I was actually teaching interior designers there. And while they were golf going on to their field, whenever they needed a mural artist, I was the one that they would call and then they started working at casinos. And that's how I started getting my work. And it was I was actually building my network as I was working on helping them with their education. So I'm kind of how that was happening. Did I lose my train of thought?
Unknown Speaker 12:08
I think not at all. No, you didn't. Is it part of the creative process? Is it not so nothing we can get into so like, what are the biggest challenges you would say during your creative process, from start to finish? Is there something that's internal that you maybe struggle with regularly, or something generally that artists maybe deal with during that creative process?
Unknown Speaker 12:29
You know, if I'm struggling with something, I'll just stop doing it.
Unknown Speaker 12:36
There's no need to suffer through to try to create. You know, your art there really isn't like it does. It does two things. It makes you not want to come back, and it makes you unmotivated, and then you're disappointed. And so if I'm ever feeling that way, I'll just stop. But I always there's a formula I learned in my creative process that I use, and I just sort of stick to my formula, and I trust the process, and in the end, it seems to work out for me. You know, art's one of those things that you can't just manhandle. You can't just go ahead and and boss it around like it will push back. No, you know? So it's like, even when I don't want to take a break and keep moving, I need to have the discipline enough to take a break, or else I can mess up what it is I'm working on, and that's what art does, you know? And so you have to learn that balance in between and make sure it's tempered, or else you could find that your creativity is lost and you don't want to do anything. I mean, I've seen so many people that wanted to be artists, DJs, anything in this creative field, and, you know, I hate, I hate to say it, but they didn't follow their dream. They didn't do what they want. And, I mean, I'm sure they're happy, you know, but, like, I'm also happy too, yeah, and, but it takes a certain measure of courage to follow this field. Like, if someone asked me if they should be an artist, I would, I would ask them what kind of artists they want, like, if you're doing this at a hobby, go for it all day long. Yeah, but if you're trying to be a professional man, there's, there's some days, there's some days, like, like I was saying earlier, to make the gap between day job and full time artist was a big thing for me, like that was one of the biggest. What would you say that's called, that's called,
Unknown Speaker 14:28
like, a breakthrough, or
Unknown Speaker 14:29
breakthrough? Yes, that would be my first major breakthrough was being recognized by people as an artist and not the guy that's working at Kinkos. I see, you know, I went from being the guy working at Kinko's to, Hey, are you the guy in the war video? Are you the one doing the concrete Tiki heads? You know, so making that kind of leap was very important to me, and made all the difference in the breakthrough of becoming a professional artist. Yeah. But with that being said, you know, it's either feast or famine. Sometimes, absolutely,
Unknown Speaker 14:58
I love that. I. Right?
Unknown Speaker 15:00
So you got to be ready for it's like living in the wild. Yeah, it's almost like I'm living off the lands in a certain way, right? Like, because I don't know if I'm going to eat that week or or maybe I'm going to eat big I'm buying food for everyone this week.
Unknown Speaker 15:15
So how do you talking about art being a part of your life early on and then making that decision to want to equip yourself with the skills to do it professionally. What? How do you draw your stylistic influences? Where you know, what do you say is your style and that kind of thing? I
Unknown Speaker 15:33
know certainly thumbing through your resume, there's probably several different answers you could give us all the different work you've done.
Unknown Speaker 15:39
I think I narrowed this down. Let's see if this one works. The art I make is designed to thrive within the fabric of the urban landscape. My work reflects an array of styles inspired by popular culture as well as art history. This allows me the flexibility to work on a diverse range of solutions. Each piece of my work speaks to a unique momentary circumstance, whether professional or encountered in the streets, and the final goal is to create original art landmarks throughout the city, achieving love and acceptance from the general public. I've also coined the title urban landscape specialist, meaning that I'm fluent and have mastered the four major media of the urban streets, which are stickers, hand cut stencils, DIY wheat paste, posters and free hand drawn graffiti. And my special contribution that I feel that I'm bringing as a fifth element is creating new surfaces in the urban landscape with 3d sculpture, ie my concrete cheeky heads, yeah,
Unknown Speaker 16:40
and they're amazing. So for anybody just listening, and maybe we'll get a picture thrown up in the video here is that they have, they're beautiful. They're like, six by six inch. They're heavy concrete Tiki heads. And so would you mind telling us a little bit about how you founded those, when you started those, and a little bit of the attention that you got as a result of,
Unknown Speaker 16:59
yes, you know, again, it's all going right back to school. At school, they taught me how to cast concrete. And as soon as I learned how to cast concrete, was the time when I was working on my Tiki heads. I just started bringing them out. In fact, in the very beginning, when I started doing Tiki heads, no one was really doing a symbol. They weren't doing an icon. It was a strict graffiti name graffiti, letters or characters, and that's what it was. And at this time I was making my Tiki heads. They taught me how to make a cube out of concrete, and I went light bulb, and that's what got me to making my other Tiki heads. In fact, if you guys see this one here. This one was 300 pounds, and it was at the top of the Conan Venice. And so I make the small ones, but I'm also making the big ones. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 17:49
that's incredible. And Venice, you said, yeah,
Unknown Speaker 17:51
oh my goodness, it was up there for a long time because it was concreted to the top, yeah. And in fact, the only reason why it's down is because when they made the skate park. They had a crane, they had the means, yeah, technology, but those are the kinds of projects I really love doing. Of course, I try to separate my professional art from my personal Tiki art, like I don't mind doing custom art for because to me, in my head, that work is for the client, that work is for people. But when I do work on my own in the street, I sort of, I don't really compromise too much. It's You either like it you don't like it, but this is going to be my freedom of speech, you know, like there's, there's many arguments that you can take on what freedom of speech is, especially in the fabric of the urban landscape. But like, as far as I'm concerned, it's all about intent. My intent is not to destroy my intent is to make the city look pretty. So that's where I'm coming from.
Unknown Speaker 18:58
That's beautiful. Your art has certainly been a voice here in this community. So we appreciate that. What is a particular project or a memorable moment that you want to share? I know there were some projects that you had shown us earlier that I was blown away by. If you wanted to share some of those, by all means, let us know what you got here.
Unknown Speaker 19:14
So you know, I'm I'm an urban artist. I'm not necessarily an angel, but we need cheered. Sensation, you know, like, but the work I do is illegal, and there was this one time it was, it was really kind of cool. Let's see what happened. Can we come back to it? Absolutely, I can rethink it. I wouldn't think it out. I wasn't really ready for that one, absolutely. Well, you know what? Okay, so let me talk to you about when I it took three tries to put that concrete seeking head up onto the cone in Venice. That cones about 20 feet above the ground, and the concrete Siki head was about 300 pounds. The first time, we were pretty ill prepared. I thought that Bruce. Ranked would would get it up there with some ropes, and it really didn't. So we managed to come back on a second time. And the second time, we brought these ladders, and there was a homeless guy that lived underneath the cones, and he offered to help. And so he took the ropes and everything that we had, and he he was, he made like a hoist out of the ladders to try to get this. He ended up standing on the very top of the concrete cone, and he ended up pulling up this thing by hand until the incredible until the rope broke. Oh my gosh, dude. He twisted around up on the top, and he tried to come back around and catch his hand on the top of the cone, but he was twisting so much that his wrist snapped. Oh, my goodness. Oh, and he fell 20 feet to the ground, right on his ribs. Oh, man, there was these walls that were coming out from the cone. He could have fell on those, but he just went, boom. Oh, it was, it was insane. My team was like Black Hawk Down though. They grabbed all the equipment, my concrete cheeky heads, all of our ladders. They had that all out there, because inside of five minutes, the cops were there, the lifeguards were there, the fire department was there, like anything with lights on top of the car was on the beach. And so we all managed to get away pretty scot free. And the only person that really got in trouble was the person that went back to see if we forgot anything
Unknown Speaker 21:21
sold on you sold on. The blood, sweat and tears all for art, yes, and of course.
Unknown Speaker 21:27
So then the third time was the success. The third
Unknown Speaker 21:29
time was the success. We built what we built, what I call this the Millennial Falcon, Millennium Falcon. And it's a device that we use to get that up there. And the only people that know about it are the people that were there. Love it good. I love it me and the Egyptians.
Unknown Speaker 21:47
That's amazing. So can I ask is that was obviously a little bit ago. It's probably when you're a little bit more rambunctious and now getting towards sculpting the later half of the career. That's a bad way of saying it. I don't agree with that. But as we've gotten older, and as you get to specialize in certain art forms, that you'd rather what are some of the projects that coming coming up that excite you, and what are you working on next? Like, what is the next evolution of Tiki? J Well,
Unknown Speaker 22:17
you know, I've really become addicted to a band, to painting abandoned places, okay, like, there's just something about the abandoned places first, and then also it allows a canvas for us to go paint, especially if it's been forgotten. And one thing that I like to do with my work is I like to make places that will landmark things that will be here years, 10s and years, 20 years, maybe from now, and and those places give that opportunity. I'm planning on doing some road trips and going to places across the country like I plan on painting the the Cadillacs at the Cadillac graveyard. I plan on going to the nude bowl in California and painting the nude bowl. And also, I have some new projects that I don't want to tell anyone about, but they do involve concrete tikis, so be on the lookout. And if you see any of them in the wild, don't take them. Or you can try to take them. You can come buy them for me anytime do that thing if you are
Unknown Speaker 23:25
interested in concrete one theme that I that keeps coming up is this really awesome balance that you seem to mastered between your hobby art and things that fill your cup, from a passion perspective, while also balancing your career as a professional artist. And one thing you manage is your you know you like to make clients happy and put work out that they're proud of, that I'm sure you're proud of. How would you say, or what advice do you have for up and coming artists? How would you say you've come to find that balance. Do you have any tips?
Unknown Speaker 24:05
Well, you know, I tried to do the same thing whenever I work with any client or I work on any project, and the two key factors that I like to use are design with intent and site specific narrative. So the design with intent means that, like, you know. So, for instance, we could use Banksy for an example, because he does design with intent constantly, like, if you see, like, one of his pieces was like a waterfall with into like a bowl or something. And so what he did was a stencil as some guy in scuba gear with a with a plug, you know? So that, to me, is design with intent. It was designed to be in that particular space. Someone didn't they didn't just show up and say, Hey, we feel like doing this today. So design with tent with intent is, what are the strong factors that I use when I'm designing and using a narrative for the site is also what's important. To me, especially when you're doing mural work, because artwork doesn't mean anything unless it means something to the people viewing it. So if I want my work to stay then maybe it should reflect some of the values of the people that are going to look at it every day. And that's what I try to do. You know, I'm really inspired by popular culture and arts history, and I try to use those narratives in my work as much as possible. Mostly, I have to tend towards my personal work, because when you're making a custom piece, you kind of got to be flexible Absolutely.
Unknown Speaker 25:36
Yeah, well, what a beautiful discussion with you today. I mean, I really feel like you brought to life everything that you are creating out there in the world. And there's plenty of things you're doing out there in regards to art in all forms, and we really appreciate everything that you do. Is there any last thoughts, anything that you would like the audience to hear or know about your current work?
Unknown Speaker 25:55
Yes. So this is an artist statement from me, and this is what I would want to say, and I think it reflects my work. It's by not limiting oneself to any single medium, one is left with an open mind and room for growth. Being an artist means taking risks. This manifests itself in the process by which urban landscaping is conducted. The urban landscape landscapist risks life, limb and freedom when on duty. Most believe there is an art war in the urban streets, but I disagree. The city is an urban gallery for creating and displaying art without the need for the traditional Western European standard. The final intent is site specific work and touched by the buff due to the artist's efforts. TKI, one urban landscape specialist. Wai, crew can do crew.
Unknown Speaker 26:47
And if we could drop these mics, we would, but they are attached to the table. We are big fans of kunv, so we're not gonna mess with the attached mics. Mr. TkJ, it's been a pleasure. If anyone listening is interested in finding your work or looking to see more. Where can they find you?
Unknown Speaker 27:08
I have social media pages on Instagram, Tiki, j1, spelled out, T, i, k, i, j, y, O, N, E, and I'm also on that old Facebook. And I also have a LinkedIn. So there's also a website, T, i, k, i, j, A, y1, Tiki J, one.com,
Unknown Speaker 27:26
so if you are interested, you can find Tiki J there. And if you are interested in learning more about graffiti park or graffiti Park radio, you can find us on Instagram, at graffiti Park underscore, LV, and that's that's the dans and Anika and Mr. Tiki J i hope you have a wonderful Sunday or whatever day you happen to be listening. Stay creative.
Unknown Speaker 27:51
Sunday fun. You
Transcribed by https://otter.ai