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September 28, 2005
Moniker Stories: Part VII
ROTGUT:
"When I first started putting art outside I didn't use a name. Starting in middle school I began making ridiculous little stickers with images of aliens disco dancing and Colonel Sanders with devil horns and sunglasses and Lego men carrying guns and the Kool-Aid man committing suicide...all Mad Magazine rip-offs. Everyday after school I'd go to the Kinko's off Thayer Street and make my stickers and put them all around Providence and imagine how impressed the RISD girls would be. I started getting more interested in proper graffiti and I sort of transitioned into writing outside with paint markers and sharpies. Fancying myself as some sort of communist I would write things like CHE LIVES, MOTHER RUSSIA, CCCP, and draw hammer and sickle insignias on mailboxes and dumpsters and carry around a hip flask with Stoli in it. I stuck with the pinko motif even as I started trying my hand (really poorly) at using spray paint and I started signing all my work KGB. I pretty much used KGB all through high school even as I realized romanticizing communists and naming yourself after some brutal secret police force is ludicrous. I was also told KGB was the name of an old Bronx crew who probably started painting before I could walk. So when I moved to NYC I ended up pussying out and throwing an E on the end and used KGBE instead and I picked the name ROTGUT as a crew name for me and my friends. That's about the time that I came to terms with the fact that I'm really mediocre at graffiti and I started focusing on the sign work instead. Of course my friends didn't want to be in a crew called ROTGUT so I've dropped KGBE and
just use the word ROTGUT. ROTGUT is slang for poor quality liquor sometimes homemade. It's probably the most apt name for the work I currently do. I think it takes time to develop a style and name that work for you. All artists go through awkward phases in their art but it helped build my chops up to make those mistakes out in public for people to see and judge instead of just in some sketchbook."
O.TWO:
"As a graffiti writer, I've painted using a range of different titles. I still work under different identities depending on what and where I'm painting. Initially, I felt that a lot of artists would choose tags or monikers, develop them into a 'brand' or product and then go out and work on advertising their aesthetic.?
I wasn't into the idea of restricting myself like this, it all felt kind of ironic - the idea of kids thinking like ad agencies and corporate outfits, so I came up with a title that was empty of any meaning. It wasn't based on a nickname, or a concept and allowed me to explore style and aesthetic, rather than identity and notoriety.?
Since then it's all been downhill... I've forgotten my real name and apparently, O.two is in big trouble with the law."
MR. WEEN:
"
I was already designing and painting under the name "MadSTEEZ" when I was always stuck in Office Space-esque business meetings (having a meeting to schedule a meeting), I kept drawing kock and balls all over my "TPS Reports". Over time my kock and balls developed eyes, a nose and a mouth. A friend and I were out surfing and he
kept screaming, "I cut my Ween, I cut my Ween!" I don't know why but the word Ween sounded so naughty and fresh to me. So at my next "scheduled meeting" as I drew my hybrid kock and balls oh was like, "Oh snap!" that's gotta be his name, WEEN!!!! Long story short, I quit my job and traveled the world (Indonesia and Europe) and when I got back I had nothing to do but paint. Then came Ween VS. Ween, Ween's Krippled Little Brother Latrel, Ween's Trashman, Queen of Ween's, Ween@S!nCity and Ween's Boy Petranilla Danforth. I was engulfed in the wonderful wide world of WEEN. It wasn't until I did a painting of Mr. T wearing a business suite, tie and glasses when the perfect name for the piece came to me, Mr. WEEN. And Mr. WEEN meant bidness. From that point on, when bidness needs to get handled, Mr. WEEN is ready to drop his shit!!!!"
ASBESTOS:
"It's an unfortunate truth that most artists who put work up on the street know full well that half the people who encounter it will a) probably not notice it or b) notice it and not interact with it. Currently our urban corridors are saturated with ads and visuals as we're bombarded on a daily basis with commercial campaigns, posters and guerilla fly postering. Unfortunately a street art poster or painting often goes unnoticed by citizens and tourists amid all of this commercial chaos. However when a 'normal' person is introduced to this other layer of aesthetic on the street it's the beginning of a whole new, world for them, (at least that's what I've observed with several friends of mine that I've introduced to street art over time). When I myself, started to notice street art it was a real eye opener for me, the more I looked the more I saw and the more it excited me. Then I realised that for me, the meaning of street art was like Asbestos. Asbestos is all around us, (in the walls and in the very fabric of many buildings) but it goes unnoticed. When we realise that it's there it really gets our attention and we question it and it gets discussed. When I started out in street art, that's what I wanted my work to do, to become part of the fabric of towns and cities and to make people notice and question and discuss what's really around them and what's this other non commercial artistic message on the streets? The name Asbestos represents my message perfectly."
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