Painting Wildstyle Out in the Streets with Graffiti Writer Strike and Art Curator Rebecca Gomez

[Opening strum of Encounter Culture theme music]

[00:00:00] Rebecca Gomez: Getting to know the artists here in Albuquerque, there was a lot of trust building that had to be done. And then there were instances where there were artists that said, “Thank you, no thank you. This is not for me. I don’t want my name out there, or I don’t want my work shown inside a museum.”

[00:00:17] Strike: Some of these guys have been royally screwed over. I think there is a danger aspect that needs to be explored. I think you need to be on your toes to create, and I think you need to figure out how to navigate the darkness. Those are things that, I feel, that make me a good artist.

[00:00:32] Rebecca: You know you’re never gonna make everybody happy, but it’s about putting yourselves out there no matter what the backlash may be.

[00:00:39] Emily Withnall:¡Bienvenidos! This is Encounter Culture from the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs. I’m your host and editor of El Palacio Magazine, Emily Withnall.

[Theme music fades out. Upbeat, rhythmic music begins]

[00:00:53] Emily: What is art? It’s a question that seems simple enough on the surface, but everyone you ask might have a different answer. Many Pueblo languages, for example, have no word for art as an entity separate from everyday life. For some people, art is what you might find in a museum or gallery. For others, art can be any form of creative expression.

Bring any group into a contemporary art museum and you are bound to hear at least one person ask, “What is that?” Or say, “That looks like a five-year-old made it. I could make that.” This latter response begs the question: Who gets to decide what art is and what it is not?

I’m not an authority on these questions by any means. But I am extremely interested in conversations about the kinds of art we see in museums and the kinds of art we see outside of museums. I am interested in the accessibility of art and the pushing of boundaries. Street art, and its plethora of forms and genres, does both of these things, and to complicate things even further, the convergence and crossroads of street art from the Southwest exhibition at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque brings the work of street artists inside the museum.

In one work of art by Gil Rocha, a weathered lime green board hangs from the wall. A tube of fluorescent light casts its harsh yellow glow on the board, which features a metal heating vent, a weathered shovel with a piece of metal missing at the tip, cables, clamps, a key on the carabiner, a small shelf holding a potted fern, a large gray rock, and a Socios del Ritmo CD. The lower half of the green board is ripped away to reveal the faded replication of a woman in a bikini. In white paint, a phrase appears: “La misma gata pero revolcada,” a Spanish version of, “Same tune, different song.”

This phrase is a fitting one for the exhibition as a whole. The Virgen de Guadalupe is, of course, ever-present, and the stylized letters of graffiti writers cover images and bend, drip, and stretch throughout the gallery. Common brand names and symbols of authority, such as police cars, are juxtaposed with indigenous motifs, political messages, and religious icons.

Although some street art, like officially sanctioned murals, can last for decades, much of the genre is marked by its impermanence. For many street artists, this impermanence is a part of the arts, beauty, and power. By virtue of being in a museum, the art that appears in convergence and crossroads is more permanent and, to some, less accessible.

This tension that arises by placing street artists’ work on museum walls is a part of the exhibition’s appeal. What happens when we continue to interrogate what art is? What spaces count, and who has access?

To better understand all of these questions and the vast, tight-knit global community of street artists, please listen in on my conversation with Albuquerque-based street artist Strike and the curator of the Convergence and Crossroads exhibition, Rebecca Gomez.

[Music fades]

[00:04:31] Strike: I’m Strike from Albuquerque, New Mexico. I’m a graffiti writer slash style writer.

[00:04:36] Rebecca: I’m Rebecca Gomez. I’m the curator for the Convergence and Crossroads exhibit that’s on display at the National Hispanic Cultural Center.

[00:04:43] Emily: I wanna launch right in. Rebecca, this exhibition at the NHCC was your idea and you curated the work there. So, can you talk a little bit about what the inspiration was for the exhibition?

[00:04:57] Rebecca: Absolutely. I worked for the National Hispanic Cultural Center for two years and, while there, they invited me to come up with an idea for an exhibition. And I began speaking with different members of the community, including Strike here, and what we really felt was needed and was missing from their exhibition history was an exhibition dedicated to street art.

I have a background of working with street artists and muralists back home from Texas, and Austin, and so this was just a wonderful opportunity to bring a bunch of different regions and different artists together to create new and large scale works that would be on display in a museum.

[00:05:34] Emily: So, when you say you worked with street artists in Texas before, what were you doing?

[00:05:39] Rebecca: I was the curator of exhibitions and director of programs for the Mexic-Arte Museum in downtown Austin. They have a similar mission to the NHCC and, part of that, they have a big wall facing Fifth Street, which is a very busy street in Austin, and we broke up the wall into different sections and we would have artists rotate every three to four months. And so, I got to know a lot of artists in that capacity.

[00:06:01] Emily: Nice. Strike, how did you meet Rebecca?

[00:06:03] Strike: I work at the National Hispanic Cultural Center as just, like, my survival job. So, I just had met her, like, we had talked about a bunch of stuff and I had told her that I was an artist and she was interested in the street art.

I told her I knew a lot of people, so we came together and we, we’ve thrown a couple of shows together. Like, I asked her to help me with the street art show that I had done at South Broadway Cultural Center. I, I have the relationships, but, like, I don’t know how to navigate the fabric of museums or any of that stuff.

So, it was really a benefit to me to have her, and she helped me organize a lot of things in my life to be able to throw these kind of shows and to get used to hanging art and get used to selecting art for shows and stuff like that. She taught me so much.

[00:06:47] Emily: Can you describe what is a graffiti writer? What does that encompass and what is your work?

[00:06:52] Strike: There’s a whole other history to the culture that I come from as far as, like, being a graffiti writer and stuff. There’s all these influences that really make my art what it is. So, a graffiti writer is an artist that does their artwork in the streets, and the main focus is lettering. So, we’re trying to either [create] shock and awe with the kind of ways we either bend our letters or manipulate our letters, and it’s like along these different kinds of fonts, you know, and then we accent those letter pieces—that’s what we call ‘em, “pieces,” after “masterpieces”—with characters and just different social commentary a lot of times.

[Energetic percussive music plays]

[00:07:30] Emily: Why was it important for you to highlight street art?

[00:07:35] Rebecca: There’s different routes you can take as a curator, and I felt like this one pushed a little more boundaries around what people would be comfortable with. It’s not something that’s always exhibited in museums. I, by nature, working with Chicano and Latinx artists from across the southwest, [music fades] that’s my history and background, I’m more used to it. And so, to bring a show together like this, there have been street art shows, but not one like this before. It was important to highlight street art because it doesn’t always get seen in exhibits as often as it probably should be seen in exhibits. It’s viewed as outsider art.

There are people that say, “Why are you having a street art show inside the museum? Why is it not in the streets?” And yes, you can absolutely have it in the streets. But when you bring something into the museum, in a way it elevates it. It creates opportunities for artists. This show had a different spectrum of artists. There were artists that have exhibited a lot before, [in] museums that I have worked with over the years, and you can see their career trajectory and what happened from before they were able to get into museums and afterwards. And providing these opportunities to these artists is absolutely instrumental in setting a precedent for other museums to begin to start to show this type of work.

[00:08:49] Emily: Well, I’d love to have you both speak to this, but I’m curious about this kind of confluence of street art inside a museum ‘cause I know a lot of people, and especially different populations within New Mexico, might not be super comfortable in museum spaces and might seek out the street art over the museum art. So, can you talk to me about that kind of dynamic?

[00:09:13] Strike: Well, so for me, so me speaking as a street artist and knowing a lot of the artists that participated in the show, I know that it was very difficult for them. It’s difficult for me to even have the two identities mix in some ways because there’s still danger in that, you know?

And our art isn’t seen the same way as other street art. They continue to buff our stuff. They continue to paint over our stuff, but they’ll let other stuff if it’s figural or whatever—even if it’s painted unsanctioned, they’ll let it run. So, there’s kind of like, um, an oxymoron there, I guess. I don’t know. It was very uncomfortable for us. And—but the thing is that Rebecca made it comfortable. She understood those things. She understood that we’re still exploring our identities. I mean, the museum bent over backwards to help with all of that stuff. For real. And, like, if people didn’t wanna present their real identities, they didn’t have to, you know. They could use their pseudonym or their moniker.

[00:10:12] Rebecca: I’ll add to that. Our team at NHCC really bent over backwards to help make this exhibition happen. Going back to your question, while I don’t have the specific data on who’s coming into the museum and who isn’t, I think what I do know is that I—the openings don’t always have a big turnout for whatever reason. I think there’s a number of dynamics that play into that. However, this opening, we had a lot of people out. We were able to do a joint exhibition opening with the La Fonda Café, also had a street art show that evening. We had a party on the plaza and so we really brought together a lot of community, and what was even more amazing was the next day they had this big Barelas historic neighborhood block party and a lot of those people, like, were there, but they don’t come in. On that day, they were actually coming in ‘cause they heard that there was a street art show inside it.

And so, it, in a way it kind of made it more accessible to the community. They were able to identify with the artwork, and so that was really special to see that because the NHCC, being in the heart of that historic neighborhood, there needs to be those connections. And I felt like this exhibit opened the doors, especially working with so many artists here in Albuquerque, that was possible. And that would not have been possible without Strike because coming from Texas, I of course had connections with street art or muralists from across the country, but I did not have those connections here in Albuquerque and New Mexico.

And so, I think we made something really special happen.

[00:11:42] Emily: So, Strike, can you tell me a little bit about your work that’s in the show and maybe a particular piece that’s important to you or that you would wanna highlight?

[00:11:51] Strike: So, um, my street art stuff is my street art stuff. I paint wild style pieces out in the streets and that’s what I do. But for the work that I do that is, like, to share with people and stuff is, um, I do a lot of blacklight stuff and I do wild styles on spray-painted blacklight things, and some of my favorite pieces are—I did a lamp that’s really cool. And then my favorite piece is my techno virgin that I have this incarnation of the, our Lady of Guadalupe that is, um, she’s like from the future and she’s part robotic. She’s kind of a hybrid between human and like a robot. It’s something that like, I’ve been exploring a lot and so I’m really proud that I made like a 3D version of her. I put her in this like diorama box and it came out really cool. It’s kind of like along this theme of these ancient civilizations.

I’ve been really into all of that, and so, I’ve been using it in my art, but, like, modernizing it, you know what I mean? Like kind of bringing it to some kind of retro wave future or something. And so that’s where my art’s been going as far as my paintings and stuff. And I’ve been trading so much art and collecting art—it’s been really, really cool.

And then I’ve been selling pieces. I get to do what I love doing. I just like making letters and they’re called wild styles and it’s just one of the things that I love doing [moody rhythmic music begins] and that was the most beautiful part of the show is that everybody got to do just what they do. You know what I mean?

And it was like totally free and, and it’s so beautiful. You need to go see it. It is so beautiful.

[Moody rhythmic music gets louder, then fades]

[00:13:22] Strike: The kind of work that I do is called style writing, and it kind of started from like a New York graffiti structure, but I, I’ve incorporated a lot of New Mexican elements to it. But basically it’s just like making your letters as wild as they can be so they make sense and they’re readable, but they’re actually really cool to look at. You know what I mean? So, like, it’s just one of the things that I fell in love with as a kid. ‘Cause I fell in love with graffiti up in my neighborhood, which is Westgate. I’m from Westgate in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and the first guys I seen were, like, Rock and, and Trick and Panic.

And I seen those names everywhere. And like, I, I just wanted to emulate the style of writing that they did. But for me, I fell in love with all graffiti. Like, I love looking at the skater stuff. I looked, I loved looking at all the stoner stuff, the rocker stuff, the gang stuff. I would just walk down the ditch and I would just be, like, just deciphering all these things.

And it was so eye-opening for me that I had to be a part of it, you know? And I, I love it. Like me personally, I’d rather see a wild style piece than some cheesy mural sometimes. I think that art is subjective always, and taste is subjective and my tastes lean in that direction. I wanna see that kind of stuff.

[00:14:44] Emily: So, you said you’ve been doing this thirty-five years. How has your style evolved over time?

[00:14:49] Strike: So, my style’s more complex. I can do anybody’s name, any letters, any time. I can paint any time. Gimme a can today and I will make something happen. With practice, it gets more, more nuanced, I guess, you know?

[00:15:02] Emily: Do you carry ideas in your head? Like, are you always thinking about the next thing?

[00:15:06] Strike: Yeah, from my last one to my next one, I’m trying to think of what I’m trying to achieve. If I’m trying to achieve some minimalism or some kind of almost photorealistic thing, or there’s all these different aspects of graffiti that you can explore in, just within the letters, and then you can go into the drawing characters and then doing photorealistic stuff and all that. But like for me, I love doing letters. I just love it. It’s one of my favorite things. I love messing with them. I, I try all kinds of different fonts. It’s what I’ve been getting love for, for a long time.

[00:15:36] Emily: Nice, nice. Rebecca, you said there are a lot of people at the opening and maybe people who hadn’t been in the museum before. What do you hope visitors will take away specifically from this exhibition?

[00:15:48] Rebecca: My hope is that when they come to see the exhibit, they will gain a deeper appreciation for street art. This show encompasses many different forms of street art, so we have the style writing, tagging, muralism, stickers, wheat paste. We have it all, in various different forms from tiny little miniature trains all the way to large-scale murals that are painted directly on our walls at the museum.

My hope is that when people come through and they see all these pieces—‘cause there’s over 125 in the exhibit—that when they go on the street, they can begin to see and identify, “Oh, that’s, you know, that’s style writing over there and that’s a mural, and that’s wheat paste.” And they’ll have a deeper appreciation for seeing art.

I think the National Hispanic Cultural Center is a very special place, and my hope is that when people come in to see not only this exhibit, but other exhibits from our community, that they’ll continue to come back and know that that’s a safe place that they can go and start to build community with and identify with things from our culture.

[00:16:57] Emily: Can you say more about wheat paste and stickers?

[00:16:59] Rebecca: Absolutely, and I think Strike can say a little bit more about stickers, but wheat paste is these drawings and then you just, like, you make the, the glue, right? You make ‘em, you put glue on ‘em, and then you can stick ‘em wherever. And what is kind of funny is that Votan Ik, he’s originally from L.A., and he was telling us that he used to do the wheat pasting on the L.A. freeway, that people would go up and do ‘em, and then they would also do the style writing, and the city would come by and they would paint over all the graffiti-style writing, but they’d leave up the wheat paste images. So, I thought that was kinda interesting.

[00:17:33] Emily: Interesting. So why wheat paste a pre-drawn picture instead of putting it directly on the concrete or whatever?

[00:17:40] Strike: For speed. For speed to get it, to get it in an ideal place too. And that, and they make that wheat paste. They make it out of, like, flour or just different stuff and, and it’s real cheap. You can print things in sections like at Kinko’s or something, like real large. You can print it, and so you could just put your image, you can edit it in a photo editing suite and then just get it printed, large scale, and then you can put it somewhere really prolific really fast, and, and then it stays up.

And then they leave them up a lot more than they will like something that’s spray-painted, you know? A lot of times, there’s been times where they’ve painted over murals that were sanctioned, but they didn’t realize that they were sanctioned, and so they—

[00:18:17] Emily: Oh, wow.

[00:18:19] Strike: Yeah. And they painted over something, and I understand that some people perceive it, like, different, but I don’t anymore. And I don’t think it should be. I don’t think all these different aspects of art—I think if they’re public, they should be allowed to proliferate.

[00:18:31] Emily: And what are stickers?

[00:18:32] Strike: One of the, the newer aspects of graffiti art within the culture is stickers. So, a lot of artists, they either get stickers printed. There’s an aspect of obtaining the postal two eights and putting them together and making large-scale stickers. It’s a lot faster to get a sticker down than a tag, so, like, you can just put stickers up all over the place.

And a lot of times they’re a lot more socially acceptable too than a tag is. You know, a lot of people kind of feel iffy about tags, but if they see a sticker up, they’re like, “Oh, well, whatever. It’s just a sticker.” You know? You can peel it all the time.

One of my friends Runk has this sticker show that he’s been taking around all over New Mexico, Southern Colorado, Texas, and he has like 96 panels with stickers from graffiti writers from all over the world. He’s been trading with people, you know—we’ll get together here and there and he’ll show it and we’ll paint together and it’s another jam. And we have another show to put together, and it’s all aspects. Some of them are hand-drawn, some of them are printed. I mean, it, it’s everything. It’s, and it’s cool. It’s a really cool aspect of it.

For me, my rules are: I just do public stuff. If something that I did that paid taxes went into it, then yeah, I’m gonna, I’m gonna paint it if I want to paint it. And it’s not like some arrogant thing. I’m doing it to spread a culture. Like I see ‘em as, like, little blessings, like prayers out there, ‘cause I paint ‘em in some scuzzy-ass places. I mean, I paint ‘em in some rough places and I feel like it’s a blessing. Every time I interact with the people that are homeless out there, they love everything we’re doing. They love that we decorate the places that are scary and that are kind of creepy and stuff like that. And, I don’t know, there’s a whole underworld in Albuquerque that is wholly painted.

There’s so much stuff painted in Albuquerque. It’s really cool, and it’s a whole underworld society. Like, there’s all these places that are frequented all the time and, and it’s really cool to see ‘em change and see the growth in different writers—‘cause that’s what we call ourselves, writers. And so, you see it in different writers. You’ll see them in the beginning and you’ll see how, how they evolve. And that’s a blessing too. And I hope that, like, seeing my stuff out there helps them evolve.

[00:20:41] Emily: So, have you gotten direct feedback from people living on the streets?

[00:20:50] Strike: Oh, all the time. Yeah.

[00:20:52] Emily: And what do they say?

[00:21:54] Strike: They love everything that we do. Yeah. They’re, they’re thankful all the time. Like I said, I’ve painted murals on some of those problematic gas stations slash food places, like in the War Zone. We paint those a lot. It is so amazing to see everybody in the neighborhood. I mean, there’s a lot of drug addicts, prostitutes, but there’s regular families that live inside of that. And they all, everybody though comes out and gives love. They are so supportive, and we’ve never had nothing bad happen to us or anything like that. It’s awesome to see, and I’m blessed that I get to be a part of it.

[Upbeat music plays]

I’m blessed that I have this life that I live. It’s a beautiful life. Like all, all my friends, all the adventures we do, all the stuff that we accomplish—it’s a beautiful life.

[Upbeat music continues as promo begins]

[00:21:30] Emily: Walking through the doors of the National Hispanic Cultural Center feels a little like walking into a New Mexican corrido with the arts and deeds of unsung heroes, vibrant cultural traditions, and rich multifaceted histories. Since 2000, NHCC has been dedicated to preserving, promoting, and advancing Hispanic arts, culture, and humanities.

At the Center’s twenty-acre campus in Albuquerque, visitors can tour one of North America’s largest frescoes; attend plays, concerts, festivals, and films spanning three theaters; view a wide range of artwork at the center’s art museum; trace their cultural heritage at an on-campus research library; and so much more. Plan your visit today at nhccnm.org.

Did you know the New Mexico CulturePass is now available to purchase online? Culture Pass gives you access to each of the fifteen state museums and historic sites we feature on Encounter Culture. Reserve your CulturePass today at culture.org/visit/culturepass.

[Promo ends and upbeat music fades]

[00:23:05] Emily: What are some of the common misconceptions from people outside of the street art community about street art?

[00:23:12] Strike: For me, I think they think that a lot of us are like miscreants or some kind of like gangsters and stuff, and some of it is true. You know what I mean? The, the work I do truly comes from the streets, and I’m truly a guy that—I’m from a neighborhood that was really tough to grow up in, you know, and so, like, my art comes from that.

I live in Barelas right now, in that neighborhood that the Hispanic Cultural Center’s in. I absolutely love living there. It is the best inspiration for me. I love being next to the people. I don’t see the people as different anymore at all. I see all those people that are out in the streets, they just had one more bad thing happen to them than me. You know what I mean?

And then they’re out there and so, like, I think it’s really important that those people have a voice, and a lot of us are those people. My street writer friends, I have friends that are living out in the streets, you know, literally, and they scrape together whatever they can, and they make stuff happen and they paint stuff, and I think that’s beautiful. Regardless of where they’re at or what they’re doing, you know, they’re still trying to create. I think that’s a beautiful thing, and I’m blessed to be a part of that and blessed to know about that, you know?

[00:24:11] Rebecca: To add to what Strike said, it is important, what they’re doing. And even in the exhibit we have included unhoused artists. And as far as misconceptions, there are many misconceptions around street art. One of ‘em is the broken window theory, kind of coming up from real estate where if there’s a bunch of graffiti in the neighborhood, then, you know, the neighborhood is trash. And really that’s just to help promote gentrification within a neighborhood and to act as a cover for very aggressive racist policies and criminalization, especially around the unhoused.

And I think that graffiti in some instances, it’s kind of a precursor to a neighborhood kind of actually gentrifying and becoming better and becoming hipster in a way. And in some instances that fear is that the Barelas neighborhood may be gentrifying and becoming in that way. So, you know, graffiti art—I’m hoping that by people coming to see this show, that they kind of start to change those notions around seeing it and become more enlightened.

And the other misconception I think that happens is that just because somebody is spray painting, not all graffiti is just tagging or just scribble on the wall. There’s actually a lot of art that goes into it, and time, personal money. I know Strike can speak to this a little bit more about what goes into creating these works.

[00:25:45] Strike: Yeah, no. For the style of work that I do, like the tag is the first thing, and that’s like your identity and you want it to be as beautiful as you can.

You’re doing all this cool stuff and a lot of times when you begin, you do it too complicated and it looks crazy and makes a mess. But when you start studying that, like, these things are thought out, these things are practiced. Like, I practice all the time—I’m, like, always writing on something. I’m always drawing. I’m always working on my next piece.

It takes a lot, I mean, the money. Imagine the cans are $6 a piece, you know, and there’s all kinds of ways that people access paint, and there’s all kinds of ways that people do it now. In my day, when I first started out, you could only use spray paint. That was, like, the only thing—you could not use tape, you could not use any kind of stencil, or any kind of stuff like that.

So, you really had to practice your hand control with the can, and you had to know the tips that would work well. I want things to look as clean as if it was taped off, but we don’t use no tape. We use a cap that sprays a square line, and so that square line, you can just go over anything. Enamel goes over enamel, so you can make things look real sharp, real clean.

It’s a source of pride, and then it’s truly a craft that I’ve worked on for my entire life, you know?

[00:27:01] Emily: When you say you couldn’t use stencils or anything, is that because, like, in the street art community, like there were standards?

[00:27:03] Strike: Yeah. Well, well, for sure, like within the style writers or graffiti writers, those were rules early on. You know what I mean? And now, a lot of those rules are getting thrown out the door too, because, like, I’ve been using house paint, you know, for my fill-ins, and I’ve been trying all kinds of different things. Of course, it’s writing the same name over and over again, but you’re trying to do it in different ways all the time.

You’re trying to explore different aspects of reality, I guess, within those confines of letter structure. You know, and so, it’s always something new to learn. You’re always trying to push your boundaries and it costs a lot. It costs a lot. I mean, one piece was probably like about a hundred bucks. And simpler stuff, you know, it could be a little cheaper, and so it’s heartbreaking when I go and paint something and then it’s gone like in two or three days. Like, it, it’s heartbreaking. But for me it’s about that moment too. You know what I mean? It’s like those sand paintings that the Native Americans would paint that, I think it’s the Nde—they would paint those and they blow away. You know? It’s that impermanence of art.

So, that was one of the things I had a lot of challenges with working in the museum too, because our stuff isn’t respected yet, the way it is by Rebecca. Do you know what I mean? Like in the general world, it’s not the same. I was having these difficulties ‘cause you have to really respect the work and you really respect how you handle it and all that stuff. And I’m like used to, oh, it’s spray paint, who cares? You know, like, it’s gonna be fine. I really learned and appreciate for taking care of my art, everybody else’s art. Whenever I’m throwing a show, I am super careful. I have all my packing stuff. It’s another cool aspect that I get to explore that I’m, like, learning all this new stuff.

[00:28:47] Emily: Do you work alone or do street artists in general work alone or do they work together?

[00:28:52] Strike: It goes all kinds of different ways. There’s some guys that totally like to be alone. And like, there’s been times where I’ve been that guy too, where I liked to just paint by myself and that was like my, my peace.

And, and then now, like, I, I really do enjoy painting with my friends and, and painting with people that I’ve never painted with. And there was a time that I, I agreed to myself that if anybody asked me to go, I would make every effort to go with them and go paint with them. And so, I’ve been living by that for a long time. And so I’ve gotten to paint with a lot of young, young guys, a lot of old, old guy, all kinds of, just different in the middle. And then people that come into Albuquerque, it’s a thing to come and paint here and we’ll paint together. It’s really cool ‘cause we all have like the same goals of just making stuff look really pretty, honestly.

[00:29:37] Emily: Mm-hmm. Nice. Nice.

[00:29:39] Rebecca: Just the other day they had a, was it—the war zone street art jam war.

[00:29:38] Strike: Oh, War Paint. War Street, Art Jam. Yeah. It was over there. And it was in the war zone though, yeah.

[00:29:44] Rebecca: It was. We went over to visit it and there were all these artists painting the sides of these buildings—some were on ladders, some were below. They had vendors and everything, and it was actually a really cool event because I think people think that graffiti only happens in the dark of night. And this was like a really wonderful opportunity to bring people together to see what was happening, especially for those of us that aren’t out in the streets style writing, tagging, graffiti writing.

[00:30:18] Strike: Yeah. It was an awesome show. It was called War Paint, and it was at the New Mexico Weedery. He’s gonna be throwing them like quarterly, I believe. They’ll change the wall like every little quarter, and it’s an open call and whoever gets in gets in, you get a slot and you get a slot, you know?

And I’m kind of lucky that one of my best friends is throwing it, so I kinda get my slot pretty good, you know? But it’s fun. There’s another jam, Illegal, that’s thrown by Saba in Las Cruces, and that one is really cool. Then there’s Borderland Jam in El Paso. We need to start thinking of an idea to start having our own here in Albuquerque ‘cause there’s a lot of those events. There’s even Paint Louis that’s coming up in St. Louis, Missouri.

This whole network is a, it’s a huge network. Like it’s a worldwide network too. It started with the youth and then it moved all across the world, like the whole world. There’s graffiti writers all over the world doing the same kind of style writing that I do. It’s cool because they get in contact with you. I have a guy from Switzerland that I’m in contact with. I have a guy from South Korea that I’m in contact with, and, like, a guy in Geneva, like, there’s just people all over doing it, and they, they share that same respect for what we’re doing, you know? Because it’s recognized. I really want to share that history with the world, especially the, the history that exists here in Albuquerque because we’ve had a lot of guys that have left Albuquerque and become prolific and then we’ve had a lot of guys that are here.

I have friends in Farmington that are excellent. I have friends in Taos that are excellent. I have friends in Las Cruces that are excellent and, and that’s a blessing. I get to go and paint with them in their areas. You know, it’s cool ‘cause some of it’s like in the middle of nowhere, you know, and you’re next to a river and it’s like, what the hell? This, this weird wall that exists and had all kinds of trash over it—we get to paint it and make it dope.

[Relaxed rock music plays, then fades]

[00:32:15] Emily: There’s two things I wanna know. One is, who are your current street artist inspirations? And also, are there younger street artists now who are looking to you, and are you ever in a mentorship kind of position with them?

[00:32:23] Strike: Right now? Dickie. Uh, Bricks. Homish. Gatz and, um, Jeeks. Smirk. Those are guys that I look up to because they’re alongside me all the time. We go paint things all the time together and we’re like a family.

[00:32:45] Rebecca: You’re also a mentor to your nephew!

[00:32:41] Strike: Oh, yeah. And that’s a, that’s another spot I believe “in each one, teach one.” And so, like, I do teach the kids, like some guys, I’ll give them an outline, which is like just a sketch, you know what I mean? And that’s something that they can work from so they can see and understand what it is to make these things.

And my nephew Tower, he really got into it and he started doing it on his own. I didn’t even know he was doing it as much as he was. And then I started seeing it all over the place and then I was like, “Let’s go paint together.”

And so, he’s one of my driving influences right now ‘cause he wants to paint all the time. He’s in that place of where he’s always wanting to learn and so he’s hungry. And so, it’s like every other night we’re going and, and then he has a friend called Plague and he goes with us. And I have a bunch of other guys that look up to me, like a lot of those guys that I even mentioned, they look up to me and I look up to them.

It goes both ways. I believe in a circular leadership. I don’t think because I’m the oldest in the room, I’m the most wisest. You know what I mean? I can always learn from anybody. That’s how I’ve learned how to use buff paint to stretch my paint cans, and that’s how I’ve learned how to use some of these new tips and some of this new stuff that I wouldn’t even ever considered using, but it’s part of the evolution.

[00:33:56] Emily: I’m so intrigued by the names that I keep hearing. You’re saying, “Bricks” and “Tower” and you’re “Strike.” Can you talk to me about the significance of your name as an artist?

[00:34:07] Strike: My name is like a self-portrait. I think, like, for me, whenever I painted out there, it represents me no matter what, and anybody in the know will be like, “God, he was having an off day that day” or something when it comes out [laughs].

Like, you know what I mean? When I don’t feel like I wasn’t doing that great or whatever. So, in the beginning, to me, the names were like aggressive or kind of cool or something like that. But nowadays, every name has been used. And to be original, you have to have your own name. And I mean, there’s guys that use the name “Strike” in other places too, but I already made my name with that name, so that’s what I’m gonna go with for the rest of my life.

But we try not to use the same name too. You know, we try not to. Since the whole writing community has become global, that got really hard.

[00:34:50] Rebecca: The names also help protect their identities as well.

[00:34:54] Strike: Yeah, and honestly, a lot of people that I paint with, they wouldn’t even know my real name.

[00:35:01] Emily: Rebecca, you know, you said this exhibition really helped to bring more people into the museum. What are some other ways that museums can break down those barriers to make sure that people who haven’t historically maybe felt comfortable in museum spaces can feel more comfortable?

[00:35:18] Rebecca: Continuing to have exhibitions that challenge the status quo. Doing exhibits that are hard. Doing exhibits that people have preconceived stereotypes about, that are viewed as “outsider.” Having these different types of exhibitions will help to break down those barriers for community to start to feel comfortable because the museum and museum culture is supposed to help reflect the community and the culture that it represents.

The NHCC is in a unique spot because it’s in Albuquerque and it’s supposed to represent New Mexico, but it’s also national in scope as well, and so it has a big challenge for itself to try and capture all those things, and I think they do it really well.

I believe that they try to be very representative, and they do these different shows like Qué Chola and Into the Hourglass Paño Arte. These different exhibits have helped to create a space where people come in and they can identify with what they see. I’ve had a number of times where people reach out to myself and they’re like, “I identify with this and it’s so special,” and that’s why we do it, you know?

[00:36:29] Emily: Yeah. That’s great. Has there been any tension between the street art community about the idea of exhibiting their work in a museum?

[00:36:37] Rebecca: That’s a really great question, and as I had mentioned earlier, this exhibit would not have been possible without Strike. Getting to know the artists here in Albuquerque, there was a lot of trust building that had to be done. There was a lot of back and forth, you know, contacting these people out of nowhere: “Hi, I’m Rebecca. I’m a curator [laughs]. Do you wanna exhibit here?” And this went on for months, back and and forth—Instagram, emails, phone calls, finally being able to meet people, convincing them that, “It’s gonna be okay that you loan me your art. We’re gonna give you a stipend for it. You’re gonna be in the show. Oh, you don’t want your name in? No problem. We’ll keep that all anonymous.”

And then there were instances where there were artists that said, “Thank you, no thank you. This is not for me. I don’t want my name out there,” or “I don’t want my work shown inside a museum. I thought this is gonna be an outdoor exhibit.”

And then I’ve even noticed on a few of the Instagram posts that the center posted that there were artists that even pushed back—I guess the artists that were in the show, calling them “conformist.” And, you know, you’re never gonna make everybody happy, but it’s about putting yourselves out there no matter what the backlash may be.

[00:37:55] Strike: Yeah, I totally agree with that. I think that she really did put us out there and she really did work hard. We both did, because there is a, a trust issue. Some of these guys have been royally screwed over by the system and so they have no trust in any kind of system. Even, even when I’m speaking it and I’m like, “Come on. I swear I’m—I will take the heat.”

And we will. We did. And there’s disagreements and some people feel that it should just exist in the street. If, if they know me though and they know what I do, then they know that I truly believe that too. And I truly adhere to that, and I fully support that as well. I think there is a danger aspect that needs to be explored.

I think you need to be on your toes to create, and I think you need to figure out how to navigate the darkness. Those are things that I feel that make me a good artist, and those are things that are not a prerequisite for most artists most times. You know what I mean? And so, like, I can run, I’m in good shape, like, I can climb stuff. Like, there is a danger to it. There’s a danger in where we paint, you know—sometimes it could be gang danger, it could be police danger, it could be homeless people danger. It can be animal danger. There’s been times where the coyotes were feeling me out and getting really, really close, and then there was a lot of ‘em.

So, there’s all these aspects that I still explore. So, like, me navigating the museum and stuff, that was easy in some ways. But it took a lot of trust and the fact that I trusted Rebecca was the only way that I would do it.

[Upbeat music begins]

I’ve existed in that space for seven years previous, and I never wanted to share the fact that I was a street artist with anybody. But—I shared the fact, but I don’t share my artwork the way I did, and I contributed a lot and I made new stuff for it that—I really pushed my boundaries. It’s really cool that I got that opportunity, and I thank Rebecca for that. I wouldn’t have shared that much either, and she pushed me to do things that were outside of my box as well.

[Upbeat music plays]

[00:39:59] Emily: Can you share an early memory of creating street art that feels significant?

[00:40:05] Strike: I have two. Um, well, I don’t know—there was always a significant jump in some ways, but one of the cool things I did, like in the nineties, I did this big Virgin Mary in Barelas. I painted it with Mike 360, but like the majority of the work, the Virgin work and the corn and stuff, I, it was my work and I was really dedicated to it, and it got picked up by the Associated Press—and this is probably like ’98 or something like that. And, and then it went all around the world and stuff. That was another time I got interviewed by The Source magazine, which [is] a hip hop magazine, and I got interviewed by that, and that was kind of a big thing. All the times that I was featured in any graffiti mags, that was an honor too.

Like, there was all kinds of different ones that existed in the nineties. That’s how we kind of figured out who was who in the world scene and stuff. It was really when I felt like I could, I could really paint and I wasn’t embarrassed about it, you know, because there’s a whole aspect of that when you’re a kid too.

I grew up around a bunch of graffiti legends from Albuquerque, and a lot of my regrets were not painting with those guys in the early years because I was afraid. I was afraid that I wasn’t good enough or whatever, or they’d laugh at me or something like that. But I started when I was 14 and some of the guys that were already established in it were already in their twenties, you know, and that’s like first generation Albuquerque graffiti, but it was like I was still young and it—I was just trying to get my name out there and stuff for them to recognize it.

And I did! When one of my friends, Agree from Brooklyn, he threw me down with his crew called ATK and that was an absolute honor. When I got thrown down with UKS from Rock, that was an absolute honor. TNB from T Kid two ZC from Dickie Bricks and Stack, when I got thrown down with those crews, those are absolute honors.

You know, it was like a point where, yes, I’m accepted by this aspect of Albuquerque. I’m respected by this aspect of Albuquerque and then nationwide with the Nasty Boys from the Bronx. That’s one of the crews I’m down with. And that, like, put my name international. There’s guys from all over the world that are down with that.

[00:42:03] Emily: Do you remember what you painted at 14?

[00:42:06] Strike: [Laughs] A lot of the first, first stuff I did was tags, of course, ‘cause that’s where it starts. For graffiti writers, it’s all tags and stuff. But the early things I liked to paint were characters. I used to paint this vampire b-boy that, I don’t know, I used to paint it around Westgate.

I just used to paint those b-boy characters. I guess they’re influenced by Bronx, New York graffiti, but it had my own version and that was one of the first things that, like, I really liked going around painting. And I remember people saying, like, “Oh, do you know who does that?” Because at first I was totally anonymous, I was afraid.

It’s a tricky thing, especially in those days. It was to navigate gang culture as well as the graffiti culture as well as, like, street culture and stuff like that. It’s three different things and so, you have to navigate it and you have to be careful ‘cause you could get killed for real. I had a hard time in my neighborhood too ‘cause I was a graffiti writer and from my neighborhood—and that made other challenges for me too because as a graffiti writer, I wanted to be cool with everybody and I wanted to explore their styles with them or whatever.

But, as, like, from a neighborhood, you kind of have to be exclusive to that. So, that was like the dichotomy I had to navigate. So, it was kind of complicated, but I got through it. I got through it, and I earned a lot of respect for it in the end. You know what I mean? In the end, it gained me a lot of respect and my name is flawless in the streets. Say, like, for real. Like, no coward stuff. No bullshit. That’s nice.

[Energetic rhythmic music plays]

[00:43:38] Emily: Rebecca and Strike, is there any last thing that you wanna share with our listeners?

[00:43:42] Rebecca: I feel that this exhibit was a special one. There were over thirty artists that were invited to participate from Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. And it was wonderful seeing all these artists come together into one space.

And my hope is that these types of shows continue to happen. And not only that, but that maybe there will be more collaborations in the future. I imagine, you know, maybe one day there can be a show where we have different artists from different states going and doing live paintings in museums around the country, ’cause that would just be an amazing dream that I have. If it could come together, that would be special.

[00:44:20] Strike: I agree. I would love to do that. I’d love to go all across the United States and paint with every single writer that I look up to and respect. I wanted to make an impact in Albuquerque for myself and then build out to New Mexico, and then the Convergence Crossroads brought me together with this whole, like, Southwest street art thing, and it was awesome.

Like, I made all these connections and the respect was there between all of us. It was so cool, and we all had such a good time. It truly brought the Barelas community down. It brought a lot of Albuquerque. The whole street art community was there. Everybody was, like—it was crazy. Like, the names that were there! I was just, I was honored. It’s an honor, a privilege, a pleasure. I’m like, “Let’s do more of it!” Let’s do more of it.

[Energetic rhythmic music returns]

[00:45:11] Emily: The Convergence and Crossroads: Street Art from the Southwest exhibition will be on view at the National Hispanic Cultural Center until February 23rd, 2025. And if you want to learn more about the vast world of street art, check out the links in our show notes.

And if you are eagerly awaiting the fourth episode of season seven, please note that we’ll be taking a brief break for the rest of November and December. We’ll be back in January.

[Music fades into theme music and closing credits]

[00:45:32] Emily: Encounter Culture is a production of the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs.

Our producer is Andrea Klunder at The Creative Impostor Studios.

This season is produced and edited by Andrea Klunder and Alex Riegler with additional editing by Monica Braine.

Our recording engineers are Collin Ungerleider and Kabby at Kabby Sound Studios in Santa Fe.

Technical direction and post-production audio: by Edwin R. Ruiz.

Our executive producer is Daniel Zillmann.

Thank you to New Mexico artist “El Brujo” D’Santi Nava for our theme music.

For a full transcript and show notes, visit podcast.nmculture.org or click the link in the episode description in your listening app.

I’m your host, Emily Withnall.

The New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs is your guide to the state’s entire family of museums, historic sites, and cultural institutions. From Native treasures to space exploration, world-class folk art to ancient dinosaurs, our favorite way to fully explore is with the New Mexico CulturePass. To see everywhere CulturePass is accepted and reserve yours today, visit nmculture.org/visit/culturepass.

And if you love New Mexico, you’ll love El Palacio magazine. Subscribe at elpalacio.org.

Thank you for listening, and if you learned something new, send this episode to a friend or share it on social media. We love celebrating the cultures of New Mexico together.

[Theme music fades out]