Artist Of The Year, Devil Chicken Design

growing up an only child combined with moving from place to place means small hands must be kept busy. For Chris Galley, of Devil

Chicken Design, the obvious thing for him to turn to was creating art. With a pencil and some paper, anything was possible. It also served as a way for him to make friends at new schools. If kids see you drawing something cool, they generally gather around to check it out. Eventually, it led to students asking for art for school projects, and in high school, kids were asking for custom stick-n-poke tattoos. Even from his youngest years, people have sought outand supported his work, which increased his confidence, sense of self-belonging, and motivated him to keep pushing forward.

As his art progressed, Chris made a conscious decision to switch up his approach. He wanted to take everything he was good at or wanted to learn and put it all into the art he was creating.

In one of his pieces, you can find

Article By: Amelia “Killer” Rose

multiple mediums including markers, collage, spray paint, acrylic and wheat paste. In my opinion, the best part of his hodge-podge style is that he didn’t care what anyone thought. If he liked it, it was a good piece, and I feel that more artists should have that mentality when creating their work. Another thing he does differently than most artists is that he tries to make his graphics look like digital printouts when in reality they’re hand drawn. He uses things like old boards and makes them look years older, covered in layers of posters and flyers. For Chris, the various materials and medium give the work structure as well as drive the story.

His background in the arts is what Chris feels sets him apart from other artists in our industry. With a traditional foundation in media and an art degree, his first steps in the industry were nthrough art galleries and group shows as opposed to most other artists who are self-taught or came up through apprenticeships. The best part is that at the end of the day, they always fit together with their work, the only difference being perspectives and styles. Most of the people he’s closest with met him through motorcycle shows and each city he has visited greeted him with amazing and supportive people.

“It’s pretty easy to hit it off when you get around people you have so much in common with. This industry is full of talented and creative people who are always willing to share. It’s pretty incredible.”- Chris Galley

As to how he became a part of the moto-art industry, it was the people that drew him in. Not to mention his business, Devil Chicken Designs first started out in the industry six years ago at a local gallery in Buffalo, NY. Since then, he has pretty much been running things from the road which has allowed him to not only travel cross country but overseas. His reasoning for going mobile is that he didn’t want to wait for an audience to happen upon him, he was going to find them first, and the motorcycle industry seemed like a logical connection between his art and theaudience he was looking for.

Not sure if he has one set “inspiration” for the kind of art he creates, Chris claims to be of the Chuck Close mindset. Chuck once said “Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work.” He leans more towards being a motivation kind of guy with people like his wife, Jo, for example, that never let anything get in their way, as his driving force. He describes her as being Devil Chicken’s biggest supporter, being the business manager, promo team and hype man all in one.

To start Devil Chicken, Chris and his wife Jo, sold their “old house in the boonies” to move into the city at that time. Jo was opening a new business, so he gave himself a timeline to get work into some galleries around the town. His plan was within the first year to have a solo show in a gallery, and his first solo shop was on the walls of a gallery after only four months. Since then it’s been full steam ahead! Chris’ plans for the future are just to keep traveling and producing more art, but his dream is to one day have his art in a museum, specifically, the HarleyDavidson Museum in Milwaukee.

Currently, he lives with his wife and their 3 Boston Terriers in upstate New York. He and Jo run the Voodoo & Burned Rubber Art and Motorcycle Show. For them, it’s a great way to showcase the wonderful artists they’ve met on the road and bring together the local artists and builders in their hometown. The 2018 show is on July 7th so mark your calendars!

Right now, things seem like they are really connecting and clicking for Chris who has always looked at his art career like a punk rock band. He loads up some work into his truck and drives to a city where no one knows him to make an impression. Recently, he was nominated and won the Cycle Source Artist of The Year award, which for him is an amazing recognition for all the hard work and time he has put in. To him, it means more people are starting to recognize the beautiful work he’s been putting into the world, and as a personal fan of his, he deserves every vote he received.

If you know of any cool upcoming shows or want to check out more of Chris’ incredible artwork, make sure you hit up Instagram @devilchickendesign or his website www.devilchickendesign.com and support the art you love to see.

Thanks for reading. Till next time,

Amelia “Killer” Rose

Article By: Chris Richardson Photos By: Chris Callen

hris Richardson of LA Speed Shop has been a friend of the magazine and me personally for a very long time now and I regard him among the best in the industry as well as a C great human being. When we had the chance to get him to the IMS in Long Beach to narrow a fuel tank for our viewers, we thought this would be a great chance to bring it to our readers as well. He is known for making things skinny and bad ass, most notably his narrowing of a stock Harley Springer. The following information was pulled right from our broadcast at IMS so you can also go back to our Facebook/ cyclesourcemagazine and see it in video form. Normally you start with a stock Sportster tank and dissect it. This one was sent in by Paughco who makes this and the tunnels so this will be ten times easier than having to do all the advance set up work. I like paper tape for this step. To start off you’re gonna want to find center of what the tank is. We’re at 22 at the top and mark it. Same thing at the bottom and then make a center line the whole way down the back of the tank.

Now you can decide how much of the tank you want to remove. For this tank I’m gonna take two inches out. I make small marks along my center line, 1 inch on each side, then connect them for a line to cut on.

Take the time and make your measurements good or the whole thing comes out wankee. When you’re ready, grab a cutoff wheel. With the two inches removed I fit the tank back together to see what kind of gap I have to identify what areas need grinding. You can see that there is a little gap in the middle.

So now I can make some marks to identify where at the top and bottom I need to grind material away. Taking a little at a time on the belt sander, one side then the other and checking the fitment from time to time.

As the gap disappears from the top and bottom of the backbone of the tank, I can check the front. Here, I make a few marks and start to work it the same way.

Once you have close to perfect fitment, you can get set up to start tacking the two halves back together.

I start at the font and bottom with the two halves clamped in place. Here I make my first tack welds to start getting it ready for the whole weld.

With the front and bottom tacked well, I start to put tacks across the backbone. I keep it tight by doing a little at a time and dollying down the gap. By putting the dolly underneath and tapping the hammer on the gap it starts to close up. It doesn’t have to be a hard hit, just some finesse.

If you go too fast or hit it too hard, you will stretch the metal and even though you can shrink it back, it’s just a pain in the ass. So take your time and ease up to it. One tack weld at a time until you get the entire seam in order.

Now I can go ahead and start to stitch weld about two inch sections skipping two inches in between. This will keep the metal from warping from too much heat.

Now if we weren’t on a time limit for this show I’m not going to complete the whole weld. But after I do I would finish hammer the weld proud to smooth it all out and start to finish it. For now we will move on to the tunnel.

I’ve decided to Frisco this tank. That means a very shallow tunnel that will sit high on the backbone of the frame . I set the tank on the tunnel panel and find center once more. In order to notch the tank to sit flush on the tunnel I have to weld a piece of metal to the front and back of it so I can hole saw it. Unfortunately we can’t use plasma at these indoor events.

I make my mark at the top of the hole say for my one inch tunnel. That will cut away the perfect amount of material for the tunnel to fit in.

With the tank sitting flush now I can mark out the shape I need to cut out for the tank floor.

With the tunnel in place I can finish weld it to the tank using the same method as welding the two halves together. Of course there is plenty more about the filler hole, the petcock and the mounting tabs but this was to give you an idea of what takes to get to this point. We can’t thank Chris enough for his time and please check him out at House Of Machines and LA Speed Shop, both of Facebook