A temporary art installation curated by goldfish21

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My friend's business has an open house bbq event coming up in a couple weeks on a car show weekend where a bunch of people from a local VW club are invited. Bbq, DJ, freshly vinyl wrapped Toyzilla ('09 Tundra regular cab 5.7L tow vehicle that just got delivered) + 24' racekor trailer + the Audi S3 will be all liveried up by then and other cars to follow.. and so his marketing guy figured we could use the empty warehouse unit that's undergoing very slow renovations ( long story) to string up some lights in and stage a half dozen show cars from the club for a photo shoot.

I was scouring Facebook to see if I could find a local grant writer for some R&D stuff when I stumbled upon a FB group for Vancouver graffiti artists and pitched the idea that since the walls are going to get a 2nd layer of drywall for 2 hour fire rating soon, why not invite these guys to spraybomb them with cool stuff for photo backdrops?? I was met with zero resistance and so proceeded. There's another artist in there literally Right Now, and a boyfriend/girlfriend team scheduled for tomorrow. Hopefully all of the drywall can be arted up below 10' before 2 weekends from now, and then if anyone wants to get high we have ladders, stairs, and a scissor lift - they can go all the way up if they want to.

Anyways, here's the first completed piece:



His tag name is "LESEN" and he's been at it 20 years! For a day job, he's a location manager in film helping make shows & movies.

The 2nd one over to the right is a work in progress:



Once complete, I'm going to have to ask him to interpret his lettering style for me - I can't quite read it, but maybe I can once complete. He's a local carpenter and my friend may end up contracting him to build a few sets of code compliant stairs for the mezzanines.

This 3rd one is kind of special, IMO:



Because this artist typically does train cars!! ! (which is.. frowned upon by railroad companies and law enforcement.) Some of their art has travelled all the way from the West Coast to Nova Scotia on the East Coast and back again! That's pretty rad. Kind of neat to have a train piece on a wall - even if it'll be sealed inside as a bit of a time capsule for some demolition crew to discover a century from now.

The owner bossman guy, my best friend, is a fan of clean white painted walls... but now that he has a marketing guy with artistic influences adding art around "The Cool Office," and some of his automotive themed art has gone up in the lobby, And my influence of getting this project going.. well, combined, I think we're going to be able to persuade him to commission some feature walls for permanent graffiti art installations inside his main and secondary warehouses - and maybe even main entrance lobby, never know.. after all renovations are complete in a year or two. And not because streams of people flow in and will get to see it here, but because marketing guy's photos and videos of race cars and project builds and parts etc will live on the internet forever - and can look cooler and grab more eyeballs than ugly or plain walls ever could. Plus for the cost of regular paint in such large spaces, it's really not that much more money to commission artists to add some fun eyeball grabbing colour.

Annnnyways, there's another piece being bombed on a wall Right Now literally as I type from home - no idea what it's going to look like - and then there's a couple scheduled to come in tomorrow at noon. He does his huge graffiti tag name, and she does looney tunes and other cartoon characters around them, so that one should be fun, too. I'll snap pics and make update posts as these artists continue to do their thing. It's really quite neat how eager they are to come have practice space on drywall vs. trying to find a place outdoors etc; super neat!

Awesome, looking forward to seeing more.

Nice.I also like the third one.

A few more completed over the weekend, pics courtesy of one of my friend's employees:

Meet "Era":



IRL he's a carpenter who lives about a 20 minute drive away who may just be my friend's go-to guy to build ~5 sets of code compliant stairs for mezzanines.

He was ALSO an amazingly upstanding citizen for reporting that there were some guys on the property removing scaffolds and ladders and things from that warehouse who seemed to be up to no good.. he let myself and the first artist know asap, we played phone tag and determined from the description w/o even checking cameras that it was a contractor that works for the old building owner/current tenant (a deadbeat) and was Ok, but I still told him he needs to ask for access so he doesn't put our contractors in an awkward position of wondering if security is being breached and things stolen.

In discussion with "Lesen," on the phone, these guys are always on high alert for stuff like this because people are stupid and assume graffiti artists are hoodlums & thieves so if there's anything amiss they're on it like flies on s**t to ensure they're not going to take the blame for something going missing. Huge respect for that! He also let me know if there WAS a theft in progress that he'd be there in 10 minutes to "assist."

This guy is obviously known as "Big Miles."



Never did get to meet him since I wasn't there. Curious if he was a big guy, or a small guy with an ironic name.. and with the panda, makes me wonder if he's Chinese. Maybe, maybe not. I do know that he drove an hour each way to do this - well, fortunately he had to come to this city on other business and this was another stop, but still.

This next one is a couple of the guys' fave, done by a boyfriend girlfriend team. I THINK it reads "AWEZ," and her name is "dents." One of the guys says we have to cut the drywall out and keep it!



Here's a 360 panorama of their collective work so far:



Looking good! Lights will be off, 5 sets of string lights strewn back and forth across, door open, and 5-6 show cars staged for photos. Not sure if the DJ will setup on the mezzanine in here or on the scissor lift outside or what. BBQ's in the parking lot, the fully vinyl wrapped 24' racecar trailer and tow vehicle and one of the project cars on display - well - that particular Audi S3 will be on the hubcentric dyno in the neighbouring shop. etc. And all of the artists will be invited to come to the party and see their work on background display for car photos.

Then maybe this'll become a go-to spot for some car owners to come stage their cars and snap pics before the walls get double drywalled ? Why not!? There are tonnes of local car clubs and Facebook groups full of exotic car owners and such that are looking for unique places to do photo shoots.. may as well guerrilla market the s**t out of this and invite them here to do their thing.. while we serve coffee/beers and casually educate them about what my friends business actually is.

My friend likes blank white clean walls.. but I think this exposure therapy to colourful art and his employees' reaction to it may be enough to convince him to get some/all of these artists back to do permanent commissioned pieces in his other two shops. Customers pretty much never ever come there - they're pretty much banned from the building lol - it'd all be for photos/videos for Facebook, Instagram, YouTube etc marketing materials. Super cool stuff like this would help grab eyeballs And make his media POP like no other company's, IMO.

Who is that handsome fellow speaking to the artist...



... someone we know?

2 artists, Era on the left (who's work is to the right of that steel cage & ducting), Lesen on the right working on his piece. I took the photo.

I was hoping we would finally see what you look like!

I am also hoping to see pics of the completed installation, with all the other artists' works.

There's a post with a pic of me w/ one of my God sons on my shoulders in a restaurant from about 2 years ago now somewhere on these forums. He's the one that was headed for a life on the spectrum at 12 months old when I intervened and nipped that in the bud. I look similar to that photo, several lbs heavier, new thicker framed glasses, and longer puffy curly hair sticking out under my hat since I haven't had a haircut since around November 2019. (covid)

Here's the thread. He was 8 then, 4 1/2 months shy of 10 now.

Handsome fellows, indeed!