In anticipation of Sentimental Journey opening
this Saturday, January 9th, 2010 at White Walls.
Jesse Hazelip is a Bay Area artist making his debut at White Walls with an impressive solo exhibition. His process starts at the drawing board, where Jesse painstakingly creates detailed drawings of buffalo and Great Blue Herons. He then uses gel medium transfer, or wheat paste, to enlarge these drawings and apply them to found wood while incorporating acrylic, watercolor, aerosol, ink, and even glitter. With this method, Jesse has used 10 images to produce dozens of fine art pieces and hundreds more in the street. These carefully selected creatures are loaded with symbolism, which Jesse explained here. Yet we know there is much more to Jesse than artillery-laden animals: read on to hear about Jesse’s wild ride to Sentimental Journey.
White Walls: Have you ever been arrested for doing street art?
Jesse Hazelip: I was arrested for graffiti a few years ago. I’ve been in handcuffs more times than I can remember, but they only caught me once with enough evidence to arrest me in my 17 years of doing graffiti.
As a young artist, what attracted you to writing graffiti?
Shortly after I moved to California I started taking the train from Santa Barbara to Arizona to visit my mother. I started seeing graffiti alongside the tracks, although I had never seen it living in my small town in Colorado. It called to me and I automatically knew it was what I wanted to do.
How did you meet your wife, Laiyna?
The universe arranged for us to meet on my 31st birthday. We both happened to be visiting Los Angeles on the same weekend and we kept crossing paths due to mutual friends. She was the first person I met who completely understood my philosophy, and she actually taught me a few things about myself. Did I mention that she is hella cute as well?
Cutest thing that your baby son, Kingston, did today?
Today….hmmmmm…he’s getting really strong and was trying his best to destroy this mobile we have over his co-sleeper.
Favorite kicks these days?
At the moment my favorites are snakeskin British Knights (Don’t worry hippies, it’s fake snake).
While living in Colorado, what kind of interaction did you have with the Navajo and Ute community?
For a while I only hung out with a rowdy crew of Navajo and Ute from this little town called Towaoc. I kind of alienated myself from my white friends for a time because there was so much racism there. My brother was the only African American person in the entire county so I witnessed an overwhelming amount of racism directed at him by the white population and that caused me to gravitate away from those friends.
At what age did you move to Santa Barbara and why?
My parents divorced when I was about 12 years old, and we moved to Goleta (outside of Santa Barbara) when I was 14. My father decided to get his Masters at UCSB. We weren’t happy about it at the time, but in hindsight, I’d probably be dead or in jail if I had stayed in Colorado.
What made you decide to go to art school?
I always knew that if I were to further my education it would be at an art college. A good friend of mine, Justin Krietemeyer, was attending Art Center College of Design, and he was trying to convince me to apply. At that time of my life I was mainly focused on drinking and doing graffiti and lacked the confidence to approach Art Center. Another friend of mine, Ken Garduno, told me he was moving to SF to attend the Academy of Art University. When he told me there was no portfolio review I jumped at the opportunity. As it turns out it wasn’t actually an opportunity, but more of an extremely overpriced junior college with a curriculum as crappy as its commercials.
What was the most important thing you learned at Art Center?
Never cross Anthony Zepeda, you will not win. I went to Art Center with a chip on my shoulder, thinking I knew what was cracking. I soon found out that everyone attending that school was extremely talented, and it took every ounce of blood, sweat, tears, sleepless nights and more blood to succeed there. I learned that if I wanted to keep my head above water I had to sacrifice my comfort and abandon my bad habits.
What was the most important thing you learned outside of Art Center?
To trust myself and my intuition. I had become so used to being told which direction to go that I had lost touch with where I was going. It took a while to decompress and reevaluate my intentions as an artist. The tools and discipline I learned at Art Center are invaluable.
What kind of commercial illustration have you done?
I’ve done all sorts but mainly apparel graphics. I’m not very enthusiastic about commercial work but a couple of companies have been fun to work with. I really enjoy working with National Forest Design and with Mishka NYC.
What do you hope viewers will take away from your work?
A sense of urgency to critically analyze our behavior as a species and society, and then make the necessary changes.
What can we do to stop history from repeating itself- especially the ugly history of war and violence in North America?
It would probably take a revolution to make any real change. Our country is locked into this two party system which can’t facilitate change or progress. Until we truly stand up and make our demands heard, we’re going to continue to be trampled on, and we’re going to keep loosing our rights.
We have seen many incarnations of the Blue Heron and the Bison Bison. In the future, will you use other animals to relay your message?
I chose the Buffalo and Heron for very specific reasons. I doubt I will use any other animals in this same context.
How does passerby respond when you are wheatpasting in a worker’s jumpsuit?
Some people try to talk to me, but I wear headphones and act like I can’t hear them. It’s not to be rude, but I’m not trying to stop and rap with them about anything while I’m doing dirt.
What kind of response have you noticed from your street pieces?
It’s a mixed response depending on the neighborhood. I’ve actually been really surprised that they have been left untouched in some areas and the city has actually buffed around a couple of my pieces. I’ve actually had people track me down on the internet to compliment me and see if I have any work for sale. That’s quite a contrast from my graffiti days when the only time someone would want to track me down was to arrest me or fight me.
Tell me about the printmaking process used in your works?
Ever since I was introduced to printmaking it has drastically changed my way of executing a project. I found that I loved the process involved in printmaking and approaching everything in layers. I have been using this same mindset in my paintings, and it has made it very enjoyable.
What kind of reading or research have you done on WWII? What sparked your interest in this historical period?
I have done extensive research on this time period, but mainly with the bomber planes, their crews and the nuclear missions. I was first drawn towards WWII by the propaganda posters and the strong graphic design at that time period. I ended up doing a massive painting of a bomber plane under the direction of Rob Clayton while I was attending Art Center. In my research for that painting I began to get a deeper realization to how devastating WWII was, and through that I started to question why we would ever want to revisit war after all of that death.
How does Sentimental Journey explore notions of death?
Sentimental Journey is actually about life and the decisions we make throughout. There are remnants from the past that include death, and we should reflect upon them. But I’m hoping that people come out of this thinking about how we can learn from our mistakes and make this journey more pleasant. We only have a short time in our lives to be active and make a difference. I think we should focus our energy collectively to make this short existence meaningful.
Sentimental Journey opens this Saturday, January 9th from 7-11pm. Come by to see these immaculate works and to meet Jesse in person!
