By Meg Duffy
Photos by Todd Brooks

When Raymond Salvatore Harmon paints, he likes to get up close and personal with the piece. Shoes are discouraged as he walks the floor, surveys the scene, and paints directly on the ground beneath his feet. His multi-eyed creatures wave their many arms as they crawl towards an all-seeing eye. Layering colorful circles to create complex shapes, Harmon’s work sometimes seems like it’s from another planet. I managed to pin down this nomadic soul for five minutes and asked him about his recent show at New York City’s Secret Project Robot Gallery.

Did you have any formal education? When did you start officially working and exhibiting in galleries?
My education background is in cultural anthropology, but I have been painting since I was young, like 13 or so. I was involved in a kind of experimental arts laboratory classroom in high school in Michigan. In the late 80’s, we had digital computer graphics, VR and animation software. We were beta testing Disney’s first internal animation software, “Disney Paint,” about a year before I graduated. It was a full range art class environment: computer suites, painting studio, design room. All this was happening before almost any university had a digital arts program. As a painter I did my first show sometime in the mid 1990’s. I’d had some ‘private viewing’ shows before then through people I know. I have always spent a lot more time in the exploration of new forms and ideas than I do in building exhibitions.

What spurred your interest in Kabbalah and mysticism?
My interest in the esoteric came at a very early age. Around 11 or so I had a love of mythology and was fascinated by Dante. After reading my way through my library’s books on world myth I stumbled onto a book called 9 Visionary Girls about the Salem witch trials. From there, it grew into D&D and eventually into serious study of the Kabbalah and Thelema by my late teens. It’s just something that has always fascinated me and influenced everything I do. Even before any reading I spent a lot of my childhood thinking about ideas like “god” and the shape of the universe. I guess most kids do, I just never outgrew it.

You mix so many different techniques: graffiti, web-based media, performance, paint, etc. How did you become a jack-of-all-trades? Was the process filled with more education or experimentation?
I have a lot of ideas about things and in order to see them done I have had to learn to use a lot of different tools. Some of them are physical, while others are software-based. Different creative concepts take on specific forms and require a wide range in terms of execution. I give equal value to a soldering iron, a can of spray paint, a brush or some design or photo software. My education came from my friends and the environments we inhabited.

Since we at PE3L love a good graff story, could you tell us a little about your graffiti style ad bombing?
I did a series of pieces where I went onto subways systems in San Francisco and Chicago with stenciled text statements meant to look like hip adverts. They were placed on the bit of the train above people’s heads where ads go. I just slipped them into the slots. Each stencil was a web domain on which I had placed some piece of interactive art. There were three or four sets of 200 made and distributed. One was “doyoueverunderstand.com” another was “Ihavealwayslivedhere.org.” All that was on them was the domain in big letters and some abstract stenciled shapes. One site got about 30,000 hits in a month, which isn’t bad for the early 2000’s.

The other side of the piece was that I used spam software to email specific cultural institutes (like museums, etc). In the email I used software to mask myself as the director of the institute so that all the employees from the institute thought they were getting an email from the boss. Each email’s subject was “Have you seen this?” with just a link and the signature of the director. I used tracking software to document how many of the people I sent the emails to actually looked at the site. You’d be surprised at the accuracy. Usually at least half looked, with 60 of the 70 people I emailed at the Whitney checking it out within two days.

The idea was that graffiti is a lot more than a tag or a stylish picture. It can be a command, a bit of code placed into the urban environment that changes the way those who see it act. What seems like poetry on the subway turns out to be a map to some other, more abstract thing.

Your style tends to lean more towards the abstract. What are the advantages and disadvantages of working in this surrealist realm as opposed to a more realistic approach?
The thing about abstraction is that it’s open to interpretation. Some people see the color/form and that’s it. Others think they see the figurative hidden inside and draw meaning from that. With my paintings I use a great deal of abstract patterns, but they almost always take the shape of some organic being. I am fascinated with organic forms; especially those forms that are alien to us yet hold some semblance of life and movement. Over the past few years my paintwork has become dominated by the trance/visions I have during ecstatic experiences.

This time around, what direction are you trying to go in? Is there anything new you’re experimenting with/trying this time around?
My current street work grew out of the drawing diaries I have kept for years of psychedelic inspirations. Bits and pieces of trance states that come out as sea creatures and abstract patterns. My first street work started when I lived in NYC in the mid 1990’s. I did a lot of text-based poetry/writing on the glass of bus stop terminals. I used a kind of paint that has a catalyst/hardener in it so you can’t just scrape it off the glass as it binds to the glass surface. (This kind of paint was used on old cola bottles). All of these were just one liner texts like Japanese Zen koans. I also did some mural gang work - big pieces done by a crew - but it was never my design.

When I moved to Chicago I realized the stuff I had been putting down in my sketchbooks would make great street pieces. Over time the process has become more focused. I almost always paint on the ground as I walk around the piece. Since moving to the UK I have started using field line marker (the kind they use to draw lines on sidewalks and football fields.) Its perfect for doing flat work as it sprays down, plus it comes in 700ml cans and you can use it in the rain to paint on grass as well as concrete.

The pieces I am doing now are all freehand. No preparation. I love stencil work but personally it feels so confining. I want to be able to paint, not just print an image on a surface. I like the dance of the process through developing the lines and seeing a piece come into reality. I never pre-plan how a piece will look before I show up to a site. I just take some cans and see what happens. The pieces become very site specific that way. I don’t think my work has a ‘message’, but it comes from a very personal place. The abstract forms develop out of my experiences in transcendentalism. I see the work as a representation of my inner thoughts. The development of the imagery comes as a flowing experiential process.

I read that you moved around a lot in the USA, living in New York, Georgia, Kentucky, and Oregon. Why the constant motion? Do you finally feel settled in London?
When I was young I spent a lot of time exploring what was happening in the US. From age 18 on to 23 I didn’t stay in any city longer than a year, often moving after only a couple of months. I moved in wider and wider circles away from Michigan: first all over Michigan, then randomly around the states. NYC was a big stop (about a year) but then I finally hit Chicago, where I lived for about 11 years.

Eventually, though, I started to feel confined in Chicago. It’s a great city but I came to realize it’s easy to live there and get by. In the end, it wasn’t challenging me enough. So I gave up the huge studio I built and moved to London. The one upside of all the moving is that I have seen an amazing amount of live music performances, many legendary, due to the constant movement. A couple of times, the timing of my moving was calculated just so that I could see a band perform.

London is just another temporary space. I fantasize about settling someplace warm, Portugal or Spain. I figure London will last a few more years, but I would like to try getting out of the urban for a while. Someplace with trees and no winter.

Why did you relocate to London? What’s special about the art scene there?
I came to the EU on tour with the Exploding Star Orchestra doing live improvised video in the winter of 2007. I spent a month on the road and decided that I had to move to the EU. While I was here I came to the UK to work on a book and decided London was the place to be. Lots going on, a huge unknown expanse of street to paint on, plus the CCTV challenge. I got out of the US just before the financial crash, though it happened here as well.

The biggest difference between the EU/UK and the US is the level of art appreciation. People, normal everyday people, are into art. There is still the typical elitist art world, but the level of art appreciation here runs deep. The Banksy show in Bristol had block long lines all day the whole month it was open. In the States, Banksy wouldn’t get a museum retrospective; he would get arrested for destruction of property.

What prompted the show at Secret Project Robot? How did Brooklyn’s creative community differ from your London home base? What kind of feedback did you receive from the show?
Todd ‘Pendu’ Brooks is the guy who puts on the New York Eye and Ear Festival. He curated the show at Secret Project Robot during the last No Fun Festival. It was good timing because I got to see an amazing weekend of shows while I was in town. I am always up for a visit to Gotham. When I lived in NYC I hated it: too much pressure, not enough having a good time. This was around 1995. I did some nice things, got involved with a graffiti mural gang, and did the solo pieces on the glass bus stations. But I was constantly broke and never really into being there.

I tried to convince the graffiti group I was working with to do a live raid/bomb on the elevator of the Whitney Museum. We would do these pieces that were 6 3×3 ft sections of a grid. Each of us did the fill of our square then Julio (the leader) would seam it all together at the end. We could do a 6ft by 9 ft piece in about 2 minutes. We always did Julio’s work/designs though, which I wasn’t into.

So I planned and proposed this piece where we would go into the museum separately and all get in the elevator together and do the inside before we got to the top floor. Its a huge elevator and slow. I figured even if we got caught we could say it was ‘art’ and get out of it. But the guys didn’t go for it; some of them were on probation so they wouldn’t risk it. After that I kind of lost interest. Eventually, I went out west for about 4 months to San Fran and then Eugene, Oregon.

But when I lived in NYC Williamsburg was divided between the Latin Kings and the Hasidic. There was no art community at all. Things have changed. It’s a fun place with a lot of things happening, and it’s way more open and low key than NYC in the 90’s. The only shame about the visit was that I spent so much time in the gallery; I didn’t get a chance to go out and do some street work.

In addition to your visual work, you also produce music and collaborate with artists like Andrew Bird and Magik Markers. Compared to producing visual art, are the processes similar? Do you get a different kind of satisfaction with an audio project?
I have somehow managed to always be around music. It’s more of an accident than anything else. I became a record producer because I collect 16mm film and met Bob Koester (who also collects film), owner of the Jazz/Blues label Delmark.

Through Delmark, I produced records by Rob Mazurek, Josh Abrams, and Chicago Underground Trio. My first two records were by Kevin O’Donnell’s Quality Six, which featured Andrew Bird on vocals and violin. It’s a shame he gave up jazz; he is one hell of a jazz singer.

Before I made it to Chicago, I had somehow made friends with a bunch of people on the Michigan scene: John Olson from Wolf Eyes, Pete Nolan from the Magik Markers. The Michigan scene was just insane in the late 80’s/early 90’s. There were all kinds of music and shows with so many crazy bands.

I guess music is what kept me sane over the years. It’s the one constant. I can go anywhere in the world and the records remain the same. Mingus is still Mingus in Berlin, London, NYC, Tokyo, or Detroit.

This past June, you spearheaded the Equinox Festival, a self-proclaimed ‘festival of scientific illuminism.’ What was the experience like? Would you do it again?
It was a lot of work but in the end, it was worth all the pain and suffering. I wanted to create something that took esoteric ideas out to a broader audience. We had 15 lecturers, 12 films and 15 bands over three days, with everything relating to the ideas of transcendental discovery and mystical tradition. The highlight for me was lying on the floor the opening night as John Zorn, Z’EV and the guys from HATI performed in the centre of the crowd. Total immersion, that’s what it was supposed to be.

I am still uncertain if it will happen again next year. It may just be a singular occurrence. I am not sure how I can do it better and if I can’t make it better the next time around, it’s not worth doing. Time will tell.

What are you working on now? Where will you go next?
I always have too many things going on at once. I have a video performance coming up at the Foundry here in London on November 1st called “Visions of the Al Azif.” It’s based on the hallucinations/visions of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred from HP Lovecraft’s Necronomicon. There is rumor of an exhibition before the end of the year here in London. In the meantime, I am making films and wandering the streets at night looking for a nice patch of ground to paint on.

More at: raymondharmon.com

BrooklynStreetArt.com curates the Espeis Outside gallery space with Brooklyn street art favorites Veng and Chris from the collective Robots Will Kill (RWK).

Veng and Chris worked two days this week to complete the brand new piece in which they pay tribute to the children’s book Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak, published in 1963. It’s a concept they have wanted to paint for a while and their selected scene is a composite of both their painting styles and a few of the scenes in the book. Together they bring the viewer in touch with the power of imagination.

In the original story, the main protagonist, Max, is banished to his room by his mom for acting out around the house and basically being a little punk. While hanging out in his room he begins to imagine a slew of monsters and a jungle and eventually he escapes into a place where he has power over everything and everyone and becomes the King of All Wild Things. Veng and Chris have depicted many characters of their own on the street in the last few years and decided to create some new ones to play the roles here. Vengs photo-realistic boy looks at peace afloat in this parti-colored boat as he sails toward a cluster of Chris’s big comic-book bright monsters. Inspired by the whimsical nature of escapism playtime for kids and the untamed imagination that they have, RWK let their own imagination run wild.

robotswillkill.com
brooklynstreetart.com

Interview by Meg Duffy
Images courtesy of Soft Skull Press

USPS labels are the perfect pocket canvas. With their blank fronts and sticky backs, you can collage, doodle, and paint to your heart’s content. When you’re finished, they’ll stay wherever you slap them. Plus, it’s rumored that online you can get 3,000 of them delivered to you just for the asking. Hmmm…free canvas anyone?
Camden Noir knows a good label when he sees one. He’s compiled the best of the best into one volume of pure street art goodness. Label 228 drops in September, so getting a copy should be your number one priority. Last week, Camden and I sat down to chat about the process.

What inspired you to create the book?

I got some stickers from Mecro. He’s all over the place and they were pretty awesome. Everywhere I went, I saw the labels. I also read a lot, so I’ve read all the graffiti books out there. I noticed that there wasn’t a book specifically featuring the labels. I did some research and found that there weren’t even any books coming out that dealt with the medium. So I thought, “I want to try it!” I started a MySpace page and e-mailed everybody. Through word of mouth, it spread.

How many people ended up sending you stuff? Did you have to cut it down? Did everybody that sent stickers get in?

I started out with just the artists I preferred. Then it was word of mouth: they told artists they liked, etc. The MySpace kicked it off, too. I want to say I got labels from over 600 plus artists. Pretty much every person that contributed got in. Unfortunately, the art director overlooked a few. Sket1 was one of the main ones. I’m a huge fan of his and his stuff never should’ve been left out. This guy Jamus sent in ten of them that were all awesome. Penloon got in under a different alias. They’re amazing artists and shouldn’t have been overlooked. But for the most part, everyone who sent in labels got in.

Did you have any hometown favorites or stickers that really stood out?

My stickers weren’t even supposed to be in the book. I didn’t want to be in the book as an artist. I wanted to be the compiler or author. As far as local people, that was why I started it. I live in Wilmington, N.C., right now. It’s an art town but everybody’s kind of lazy. The book was a reason for them to get off the couch and stop watching reruns of “Flava Flav.” My main intention was to get artists inspired again. There are a couple people from Wilmington who did it. I’m from New York originally, so it was also cool to see a lot of New York artists get in.

Are there many street artists in Wilmington or did gallery artists contribute stickers to the book?

I wish there was more street art here. I put up two pieces and they were taken down immediately. Graffiti doesn’t last long in this town, so I think that keeps people from trying. There are some small stencils but they’re not very adventurous. Kids try, but it’s not very Banksy-esque.

Lots of local folks contributed stuff. I had an art show where I had 3,000 labels just laying on a table. There wasn’t a sign saying what they were for. A couple people came up, asked what they were for, and made a couple labels. Some kid played tic tac toe and I think that sticker made it into the book.

Since I’ve never put a book together, could you explain what the process is like? How do you translate 600 labels into a book format? Did you get software? Did you work with the publisher?

Initially, I had to go through a lot of rejection. I sent the book out to Mark Batty, Ginko, and a bunch of other publishers. There were about six or seven where I just got rejected. I didn’t want to self-publish, but I was getting ready to do so. I started working on the book myself and put some pages together, but I’m not as technologically advanced as other people. It took me about twelve days to do six pages. Finally, I found Soft Skull on MySpace, so I sent them a message explaining my project. They wanted to know more, so I sent them the proposal. David Janik, the guy who’s doing the book now, put it together really quickly and it looks beautiful. Once Soft Skull accepted it, everything moved really fast. The book is bound right now; we’re just waiting for the finishing touches.

How long of a wait did you have between finishing the book and looking for publishers to actually getting accepted?

I’ve moved three times in the time it took to get the book published. It probably took a little over two years to get to where I am now.

Did you receive any kind of feedback as to why publishers weren’t accepting it or did you just get a form letter?

A couple of them did. They said things like, “We appreciate what you’re doing, but we can’t accept any books right now. Ginko said they loved the project but that they were doing Martha Cooper’s book, Going Postal. There were a couple of companies who told me the project was awesome even though they couldn’t take me. Some companies steered me in the right direction and gave me the names of people to speak to. But once I called Soft Skull, it was smooth sailing from there. Those guys are awesome.

Why did you fight so hard to get this book published? What are you trying to accomplish through it? Why are you so committed to it?

I just want artists to be inspired again. I’m an artist myself, so I need some inspiration and something to motivate me. Initially, my goal was to get unknown artists published. That way, they could say, “Hey, I’m at Barnes and Noble. I’m on Amazon.com. You can buy a book that I’m published in.” Then the bigger artists could put the book on their resumés. But it was always for the artists; it was never for me. If I gave up on the project, I would be giving up on them, not myself. They contributed their work and their time.

What’s the next step? Will you be throwing any release parties once the book comes out?

I’d love to. I talked to Adam over at Soft Skull and we’re trying to put together an East Coast book-signing trip. I have friends in Raleigh, DC, Philly, NYC, and Syracuse. I figure I could just fly up to Syracuse and work my way down. School is going to be a complication since it starts on August 28. That might get in the way of things, but I’m willing to give up November or Christmas break to go on a trip.

Wait, do you teach or are you still in school?

I’m still in school training to teach.

Wow, that’s a pretty serious commitment! You’re doing all that school stuff and the book stuff on top of it? I salute you!

Ha ha, thank you! It’s difficult to juggle it all, but it’s not as difficult as you think. I love what I’m doing.

What are you doing now that the project is over?

I was going to do a Hello, My Name Is Book. Huck Gee did some demos of the “Hello, My Name Is” stickers and I thought, “Same thing, different concept.” But once word got out on MySpace, three books popped up. But I have some ideas that I pitched to Adam about Priority Mail boxes. You could do a two-page layout where the box is in 3D form and another with the flat box. It would test people to do a 3D object and see what they could come up with on all sides. Or, the USPS came out with new January 2008 labels. They’re a little bit smaller but it’s still the same format. Plus, I could get new artists, new labels, new everything. I just don’t want it to be redundant. But if you think about it, Post Secret sold so well and all those books are the same concept. It’s about what in the book, not the idea.

To pre-order a copy of the book, visit Camden’s MySpace and throw your name on the list. While waiting is great, a signed copy is fine and dandy. For more info on Soft Skull Press, check out their site as well.

This is going to be a great show, and the exhibition is going to include walls of stickers. If you would like to send stickers for their installations, you can send them to the address below:

Ish Muhammad
7342 Magoun Ave.
Hammond, In 46324

www.swope.org

Our friends at Bomit.com and StickyRick’s have put together a contest to find the scariest sticker design. The winner will get 1,000 vinyl stickers of their design printed by Sticky Rick and some other cool prizes from Bomit, Robots Will Kill, GORILLAmART.com, and MCA/Evil Design who did the killer logo above. In addition the winner will be featured on PE3L.com.
Check it out and get scary: ScariestSticker.com.

Interview by Dave Combs
Photos courtesy of Abe Lincoln Jr.

Founding member of Endless Love Crew, Abe Lincoln Jr, perhaps best known in the world of street art as purveyor of pooping poultry is dropping new ish on the streets once again after declaring retirement a few years ago. In addition to his aforementioned character Char, Abe also brought to life Taqueria Pendejo (loosely translated, Dumbass Taco Shop), a fictional restaurant-cum-artshow with menu items such as Pollo La Puta, and Quesadilla Mierda (and don’t forget to try the Pico de Culo.) and delightfully disgusting selections from the cantina like “Damn, I Slept with My Fat Coworker”, “My Other Car is Impounded”, as well as their trademark “Chargaritas”. Abe has remained active co-hosting art events with other members of ELC as well as showing his own art in both group and solo gallery shows. Now that he’s back on the streets it seemed a good time to catch up with Abe and ask him how he’s enjoying un-retirement.

So, how long has it been since you “retired” from the street work, and what made you decide to hit the streets again?
Well, I kinda got bored doing street art around 2005, the scene had changed and a lot of erstwhile banksys decided to try their hand at street art. Street Art gossip started showing up on regular blogs. The whole Splasher story seemed like it was something that regular blogs made a big deal about so they could seem like they had cutting edge coverage of the Street Art scene. I mean it was news to people who did street art, sure, but to the average joe I cant imagine anything more tepid to read.
So I had to take a break. I never officially retired but out of respect for people who are crushing it I’d mention that I stopped doing street art in interviews so some dude in brussels wasnt thinking I was the king of ny or anything.
Anyways, ffwd to now. I’d started noticing some artists that were new to me crushing the streets in NYC. Overconsume, Cabashasm, and Kosbe were really killing it with their stickers on newspaper boxes all over NYC. These 3 guys kind of made me remember that stickers were still a potent medium for art and you could do a lot of sick work on them.

Even though until recently you hadn’t been getting up for a while, I know you’ve been paying attention to the scene and have remained active in the street art community. What are a couple of the most evident changes or developments you’ve noticed since your retirement?
Well hopefully the Street Art as Gold Rush era is over. So many people flocked to doing street art once it became fairly well known that you might be able to make some dough with it that NYC (and the rest of the world it seems) got saturated with a lot of crap work, I think this is why there is so much acrimony between Graff heads and Street Art peoples now. A lot of noobs went out and went over writers without even thinking about it because they didn’t know the rules or didn’t care.

Stickers totally rule. Your new stickers I’ve seen are hand-drawn with mostly solid colors and fun characters. What made you decide to go hand-drawn as opposed to getting commercially printed stickers or mass-producing in some other way?
I started out as a sticker guy it seemed logical just to start doing postal stickers again. I also decided to go with hand drawn sticks because 1) Postals are free 2) I have markers laying around gathering dust and 3) Im not so interested in going big or making a “come back”. I just want to do them for fun and have a good time with them. When I get bored I’ll stop again.

What’s the inspiration for those characters?
Well I’ve been a big fan of mid century illustration for a long time and these started out as a combination of my style fused with a mid century simplicity and then they’re all basically the same shape with different heads so theres an element of toy design in there too.

Are you hinting at maybe having some of these characters appear in 3D as toys at some point in the future?
maybe… hehehe

Are you doing other street stuff besides stickers?
Just stickers. I did my thing staying up a while back and I don’t really feel the need to reprove myself or anything. I’m just having fun.

Despite what some of the kids might think, getting paid to do your art can be kickass. You recently did an event with Converse that involved
a lot of painting, tell us about that.
I just did an in store thing where I drew on Chuck Taylors for Converse. I had a great time and drew for a marathon 9 hours straight. Due to the timing of the event it was mostly back to school kids so I was executing a lot of designs that they had planned well in advance. Kids have such great ideas and art and to help them realize those designs made me super stoked. They were all really excited that I was able to take their ideas and rock them.

What’s new and coming soon from Endless Love Crew?
The ELC is always into something. Theres a constant stream of opportunities coming in and out so its hard to say whats happening at any given moment. But there’s ALWAYS something going down.

What can we expect to see in the future from you in “un-retirement”?
As far as non street stuff Ive been busy as I’ve ever been and hadnt retired from gallery stuff and design. As far as street art I dunno I guess it depends on what I’m feelin at the moment. I post everything to my site or my flickr so you can check those out… girlsbike.com or flickr.com/photos/abejr