href="http://www.woostercollective.com/posters/captivating.jpg"> src="http://www.woostercollective.com/posters/captivating.jpg" WIDTH=
"300">

One evening late last week (over a fairly decent bottle of
California Zin), we had some fun answering our own five questions.  The one
question whose answer we had absolutely no disagreement over was—“What other
street artists do you most admire and why?” We all said, practically in unison,
..... “Faile.”  For us, the reason was
clear.  Faile’s work on the street is true “art.” From the images they
incorporate - to the textures and layers they develop - to the paper they print
on, Faile continues to blow us away.  One of the pleasures of living in Soho has
been that every month or so we come across something new by Faile and seem to
love it more than the piece that came before it.  Patrick from the Faile
Collective was kind enough to answer our five q’s.  Here they are:

/>Wooster: How did you get started in creating art for the street?
/>
Patrick/Faile: when I first moved to NY I worked at Pearl Paint
down on Canal Street. I use to see work on the street by BAST, "http://www.wkinteract.com">WK, and "http://www.obeygiant.com">Shepard on my lunch break. I love how raw the
works were and seeing the layers as the work got built up over each other. I
wanted to be part of that and began to do my own stencils. Later the faile
collective formed and we started getting a lot more serious and aggressive with
large projects we wanted to put on the street.

Wooster: What
was the inspiration for some of the Faile iconography— "http://www.woostercollective.com/stickers/Dog.jpg">the dog? the skull?
/>
Patrick/Faile: Well, the first large scale project we did were of
these four nude women. we put up about 200 of them around the city. the idea
came from the original name A LIFE, which was later changed to faile. we wanted
to do a classic art theme (the female nude) and apply it to the street. the
thought at the time was that we were just starting this project called alife and
what better to give it life than a woman. The other thought was that we wanted
to contrast the images of BAST, WK, and SHEPARD, that all seemed to be very
aggressive and sometimes political. Soon after getting started we found out
about alife (the store) and changed the
name to FAILE because we did not want there to be any confusion between us and
them.  the word FAILE was meant to express the thought that if you look past
your failures you will find alife, or put simple, Faile to succeed. as time went
on the name seemed to pull in graphic of a more aggressive theme. the dog was
inspired by shepards andre obey graphic. we wanted to produce a graphic that was
strong enough to bee seen from far away. most of our posters are very detailed
and have to be seen from close up.

Wooster: What other street
artists do you most admire and why?

Patrick/Faile: I like BAST
the best because he is all about the art first. business is not a priority with
him at all. he is just down for the love of art. I admire Shepard because he is
always hitting the impossible spots and I see his shit all over the world.
Seeing his work always motivates me to keep going, don’t stop. I also like href= "http://www.banksy.co.uk">Banksy. he is super smart with his concepts
and political statement. he’s got super big balls. INVADER and "http://www.les-marcheurs.net/~rubrikart/zevs.html"> ZEVS in Paris, and
SOUTH and KAMI in Tokyo.

Wooster: What’s your favorite city,
neighborhood, or block, to post and/or to see street art?

/>Patrick/Faile: my favorite city without a doubt is London. They have a
great variety of international artists. I feel very comfortable there. Its hard
doing street work in NY. this city is mad stressful. too many undercover cops
with nothing to do.  We are moving to Berlin this summer, so I may have a new
favorite city soon.

Wooster: What inspires you now?

/>Patrick/Faile: The Faile collective, the wooster collective, all the
the artist I know from working with on projects, films, and working my ass of to
get shit done and seeing the finished project whether its a book, show, or a
film. David Ellis and his Barn Stormer
crew. My girl AIKO, shes super smart.

Wooster: What are
you currently working on? 

Patrick/Faile: we are currently
working on a new book entitled Lavender. The last book we did, Boredom, is
getting published and will be out in another month or two. we have a shoe we
designed for pro keds out this spring. March 14 FAILE is hooking up in
Minneapolis to work on prints for a show at dazed and confused.  June 5th, we
will have a 16 page piece in the new "http://www.zingmagazine.com/">zing magazine this spring. this summer we are
moving to Berlin to mess up Europe for four months and document it. "http://www.paperdenimandcloth.com/site/main.html">paper denim and cloth
will be releasing some limited edition printed shirts we designed for them late
spring. we are also collaborating with "http://www.stapledesign.com/start2.html">Staple Design on the lower east
side. Our new web site will be launched in April, and that’s it for know. all
the best… Faile