Here is what is left of the dead astro throw up. It looked good spinning in the wind (alive, dead, alive, dead, ect.) but now the only thing left is the spraycan.

I originally made the stencil on the spraycan to spray on a pair of shoes!

Check them out:

Not too shabby, eh? It was for a contest and show, and if I had won, these shoes would of been made into a limted edition run and I would of surely became rich, famous, popular, and maybe a sellout?

But I didn’t win.

Anyway, today I have some other things to talk about-

First of all, here is an interesting article that was sent to me by ExPickwickMoose. Perhaps the most interesting thing about the article is the comments it has recieved- it’s drawing out extreme reactions:

“Boobie traps and a shoot to kill policy. Taggers contribute nothing to society and have no value as humans.”

“Give immunity to anyone who kills a tagger”

“Why should homeowners and businesses pay anymore for Denver`s Sanctuary City policy? I look forward to reading about a tagger who falls to his/her death on I-25 while trying to tag some high overpass. Messy-cans & taggers = scum.”

“You people are despicable, thinking its okay to kill someone over vandalism of property. Grow up.”

Second of all, I was interviewed by our art site. It’s a nice interview, nicely laid out too.

Check it out, maybe?

Here is the text from the interview:

Posterchild
By Zach Smith

Posterchild runs an exciting website where he posts a new wheatpaste image everyday on his site, and not just the lame run-of-the-mill designs either. Posterchild often digs through history to come up with important figures and events, makes the design, and throws it up for his street audience. A great idea, and a great and insightful interview with a powerful force to be reckoned with.How are you able to update your site five times a week with new stencils and wheatpastes you have done? Seriously.

I don’t work. Or at least I didn’t. I had some money saved up from my last job when I decided to go into the art thing whole-hog.

The money that I had put aside was intended for school, but I wasn’t accepted anywhere, (again) so I thought I’d use the money to buy myself some time that I could use to dedicate myself to art completely. My long-term girlfriend had just broken up with me too, so I really had nothing else to do at the time anyway.

It’s been great. I absolutely love doing streetart all the time- and having a place to showcase it worldwide. Blade Diary doesn’t get a lot of traffic in internet terms, but when compared to a gallery show, it’s phenomenal. I average about 200 unique users a day. 200. I’m sure if you’ve added up all the people who have ever been to any of my gallery shows (My alter ego is a Mild Mannered studio artist. An earnest but unsuccessful Mild Mannered studio artist.) there might be 200. MAYBE. And each show takes months and months to prepare the work for, not to mention all the organizing and running around a gallery show requires. With Blade Diary- I make a single work, take a photo of it, put it online, and 200+ people check it out. Along with, of course, the audience offline- the primary audience on the street.

In anycase, my money has now run out and I’ve started working a few odd jobs to make ends meet. I hope to be working somewhere a bit more stable in the near future. I don’t want this to affect Blade Diary, but the reality is I may have to reduce the number of updates to twice a week or something in order to keep the quality high.

You are now living in Toronto, Canada. How is the street art scene up there?
Great. I think so anyway. I love it. It’s active, so there are things to watch. There isn’t that much “Street Art” to keep a watch on, but there is a wonderfully entrenched Graff scene here.

You know, I was just thinking the other day about how similar Bird Watching is to watching Graff.

Most people don’t give a shit about Birds. Everyone knows birds are there, everyone has seen birds before- but few people could tell a Swallow from a Starling. Graff is just like this. Most people don’t care about it. Even though they might see it everyday, it all looks the same to them. But once you get into it, there is so much to become aware of. It’s an interesting, even fascinating, hobby. You notice it go up, you notice when it gets taken down- you can follow the whole lifecycle. You wonder why some things last days and some pieces are dated 2002. You begin to notice certain writers and you start to track their movement through the city. You inevitably pick favourites, and you may even catch one in the act- if you’re lucky. (I never have, they are elusive creatures.)

And I’m not the only one with their eyes to the walls in Toronto- there is an audience here. I remember putting up a few posters and stickers on my way through Toronto years ago, and I was thrilled to see later that someone had taken a photo of some of them and put these photos up on Flickr! That sort of thing would never happen in Windsor, and I put up hundreds, maybe even a thousand posters in Windsor. In fact, when I put up the Mario Blocks in Windsor, people in the area only realized that they were there when it went on the Internet months later. (Granted, the Mario Blocks didn’t last very long, but regardless…)

What first got you interested in stencils and putting them up in the streets?
Banksy. In a way I hate to admit it, because my work is often compared -negatively- to his. I’m not trying to be Banksy, so I don’t like it when people tell me that my stuff reminds them of his work.

But you know, there are worse people to be compared to, and regardless of everything else that may be true about Banksy, he has been doing it longer, better and more than most.

He also has kept up the magicians act; he hasn’t shown his hand and ruined it. He has kept his secret identity.

Banksy is a super hero.

So, anyway, the first time I saw his work I was blown away. I was still in art school, and it was revitalizing to see some art that people could actually get into without having to have the joke “explained” to them in several paragraphs of artspeak. Adam Neate was a big inspiration to me in the early days too. I loved not only his aesthetic, but how far divorced his work was from “permanent” spraypaint on walls. He took the ephemeralness of street art to an extreme; just leaving his work propped up against walls like rubbish. It was brilliant, and the biggest punishment he could expect for it would be for littering! It made posters and stapeguns seem downright permanent by comparison. So Mr. Neate helped me become Posterchild.

I was also attracted to how prolific these two artists are. They work hard all the time, and the finished product wasn’t some precious, priceless, untouchable relic. Again, this was such a breath of fresh air to someone in the ivory tower environment that art school can be.

How do you keep coming up with new stencil ideas day after day?
It’s fun, so it’s easy.

Maybe it’ll get hard to do if it stops being fun.

Most of the characters you use are actual people in history, and underneath the stencil you provide some information about this person. What gave you this idea to paste up important people lost to history on the city walls?
I don’t know, I think it was just because a friend gave me a big ‘ol history book around the same time I started Blade Diary. I mean, some of the lesser known figures in history are just very interesting, and their stories can often illustrate some idea I’m trying to explore.

You say you “explore, begin to understand, and ultimately change the city in which I’m living” – how is this so?
That’s just how the street artist’s process works. You have an idea. You go out into the city with no real plan on where it should go. In your search for the perfect spot you scout out several alleyways you would have never walked down normally and you find a couple of other potential spots, which you make a mental note about, and when you finally do put your work up, you are quite literally changing the city- if only a small part of it, and if only for a little while.

And so on.

Over time, as you explore the city this way, you get to know its streets and alleys better than cab drivers. You also begin to understand something of the character of the city, of particular neighbourhoods, of specific streets. The longer this goes on, the more work you put up, the better your understanding, and the more you’ve changed the city.

Do you receive any resistance from the public when posting any stencils in the streets?
Not really. I’ve only ever gotten enthusiasm, suggestions, and offers of help. One time two “Graff watchers” asked permission to take my photo.

Where do you see your street art heading this year?
Good places. Summer is just around the bend.

Shout outs, yells, hollers?
To my Friends, My Family, to Toronto, and to anyone who has been checking out the site.