"Like Shaolin Kung-Fu has many styles, I want to learn the style of a chameleon. I want to take styles and flip it," Slick explains as he breaks open a copy of Big Time magazine that is filled with photographs of his bombs. Like a chameleon that adjusts to any background, Slick does the same with his art. In the pages of the mag, he shows me his 21st-century versions of 1970 graffiti concepts, which he "flips" to make old concepts new and new concepts oldÐkeeping him ahead of the kids who try to bite at his fumes. As graf art progresses with more detail and sharper lines, Slick goes backwards and turns things soft and blurry. "Nobody fucked with Style Wars. That's the Bible." But Slick does just that by messing with quotes from the film in the article.
BACK IN THE DAY
Slick made a name for himself in Hawaii when he was in the Bomb Squad in 1984. "My only priorities was to wake up, get paint, and turn out the best shit I could." There, he was influenced by Japanese TV kid's shows like Ultraman, Kamen Rider, and Kikaider. Today, they are the images that he uses for his art, a by-product of being raised halfway to Asia. After moving to Los Angeles in 1987 to go to art school with his family's blessing, he vowed to study art and quit graffiti. But with Otis Parson's Art School across the street from a graffiti-filled park, the temptation of seeing new pieces up every day was too strong, so he took to the cans and joined the ranks of the locals. "Every moment I wasn't studying, I was out fucking bombing." Mixing up his skills from his T-shirt and Nissan-car-club airbrushing days in Hawaii with new techniques from art school, Slick began to make a name for himself and became part of another crew, Kill to Sexceed (K2S) Ð Second to None.
In the early days of graffiti's slow rise into the mainstream (in the late '80s), Slick was in a televised painting battle I remember watching. "I was set up from the get-go. The camera crew followed the other guy to his house and stuff. They made me look like a poor sport. For years after that, people would walk up and say, 'Aren't you that guy who lost on TV?' It haunts me to this day." Although I fell into the same bad trend since I brought it up again, I remembered something that everyone has forgotten. Slick talked about his Chinese heritage and said that his dream was to paint on the Great Wall of China. Today he proclaims, "That's the ultimate wall. I will get there, mark my words."
TODAY SHAOLIN LIVES
Unlike a lot of people who would consider making clothing a job, Slick looks at it from a different angle. It's a part of his art. A couple years ago, he and pro skater Jeff Hartzell decided to make a new clothing line revolving around a Chinese theme, Shaolin was born. The Shaolin Temple in China has a thousand-year-old history and will undoubtedly continue for a thousand more, so Slick didn't want to just bust in and use the name without having the blessing of a Shaolin Monk. So on the Chinese New Year of 1997, Slick and Hartzell launched the clothing line at the Shaolin Temple. "We were invited to spend Chinese New Year with them. We didn't know if we were going to get jumped or what. On the day of the festivities, there were two large vases of water on an altar, one shattered right when we walked in. The whole temple was covered with water and the Sifu said, 'Good sign.' We knew we were on the right foot and we sat in the middle of the studio after we helped mop up and showed him what we were about." The Sifu was into the designs in the portfolio, but didn't like the Kwai Chang Caine image since he knew that David Carradine's character was a by product of Hollywood. So Sifu offered himself as a model for graphics! Today, with a new line of clothing about to hit the stores, Shaolin is donating a portion of its profits to the temple. But Slick has bigger plans. "I would like to be in a financial situation to be able to tell him to build your temple."
There are fly-by-night clothing companies left and right these days. It seems that everyone is out there making shirts and marketing to people's wallets. But Slick actually has experience. Remember the Fuct clothing line? Slick created the entire line of clothing that was "robbed" from him. Today, he is going to try to bring Shaolin up to the same level. "It's more than just silk-screening a shirt. You have to have a concept. You need more than a witty word. You need to have money and some luck and timing. I figure in three years, it should run strong, and I should be able to move away and send graphics on-line."
Meanwhile, the can of Banner Red starts to make some strange sounds. It's sputtering along while he's painting Bijinder's ears. He makes do and paints with what he has, improvising. He tells me that if he had a well-designed sketch, the amount of paint time would be shortened considerably. But it doesn't matter, it's fun to watch layer over layer being painted until the perfect image arrives from what seems to be a mess of colors and lines.
DIGITAL
There is a new genre of art coined by N8, called Digital Bombing. Slick is one of the pioneers who has "painted" words and images on trains, buildings, and even on the Great Wall of China by using a computer. Some call it "fake," but it's a new genre that takes as much painting skill as it does programming, with a mouse instead of a can. "The digital thing is a whole new toolbox opened to me. A whole new world. I use the shit, but I don't abuse it."
HIS CONTRIBUTION
At a time when graffiti was mostly names of the artists glorified, Slick started introducing cartoon characters.That brought on a lot of headaches. "I contributed to the ignorance of the characters [letter forms] and backgrounds because of my airbrush background. A lot of writers wanted me to do a character next to their piece (so it made their shit better). But I never got recognized for my letter forms which I neglected, too. So I'm working with Mare 139. He's inspirational to take me back where I came from." But after bringing the idea of characters to the front, he took characters further. "I was busting shit I learned in art school. I kind of brought in the airbrush, realistic shit. No one ever heard of reflected light and shit. Some started doing it and I picked up where they left off. Shading was my shit."
ON GALLERY WALLS
Today, Slick gets invited to participate in art shows, but has a take on it. "To try to pass it [spray on canvas] off as graffiti is wrong. Unless you are dissing on other people's canvas or something, that whole element is lost since it's a legal piece. Taking graffiti from the street into a gallery has to be done the right way, and the best thing Slick does is build a fake wall out of fake brick panel! "I haven't sold many paintings and I never said I would do graf for money. If I make money that's dopeÐit'll help me take care of my baby."
ON DA VINCI
"I feel like I was born in the wrong era, there were masters in Florence. They didn't have photography then, they did photo realistic paintings. People must have been blown away."
END
Slick has me paint a section of fill-in just to get the feel of the spray paint. I think he wants me to get a feeling of what painting with a can is like. Although I've spray-painted a door, a bike, and a wall, it was different painting on a wall with a pro watching. After a minute, my finger was killing me. But like a starfish that opens the shell of a clam by switching legs to tire out the mussel, a graf artist switches fingers. I can boast that I've painted on a master painter's canvas. It's a wall that will someday get painted over by some fool, but that won't stop Slick. "I'll keep painting until my finger falls off, or until they run out of spray paint."
The last question I asked and the last one that needed to be answered was, "What's the most important tool? A good tip?" Slick's answer: "It's your mind. No matter how good your tips are, whatever. You can gloss it up with fancy colors, but if you don't have the dope ideas then all you have is a pretty painting."
Here's a few places you can see some of Slick's pieces in LA. You better hurry, they may get buffed.
Cinergi, Santa Monica DADA Gallery, Downtown La Brea and 6th, Mid-Wilshire
District
"The Pharcyde album cover art was my work; this is fun." Slick explains while sniffing the tip of the Krylon Banner Red can that he just opened, "This is my love." From the late '80s when Slick approached Krylon for a sponsorship and got laughed at, to now having his work revered by snotty art masses, Slick is painting on our office wall at this very moment. Showing up with four boxes of cans, a bag of can tips, Kikaider toys, and his special graffiti cover-alls that have his name embroidered on an patch, Slick's vision is that our wall will be adorned with Japanese superheroes Kikaider, Bijinder, and Hakaider. But we have to supply the blue-bottled Arizona Ice Tea with Ginseng Extract.
