THE STREETS - Issue Thirteen by The Streets

THE STREETS A

S t r e e t

P h o t o g r a p h y

M a g a z i n e

ISSUE THIRTEEN

Photograph by Meredith M Howard

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"Along the way, he or she discovers that the world has been broken for as long as anyone can remember, and struggles to reconcile this fact with the ache of cosmic nostalgia that arises from time to time in [his or her] heart: an intimation of vanished glory, of lost wholeness, a memory of the world unbroken. . . This feeling haunts people all their lives." â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Michael Chabon, Introduction to The Wes Anderson Collection by Matt Zoller Seitz

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Who is in THE STREETS

EDITORâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S LETTER

PERSPECTIVES 12 Dominique Misrahi 26 Neta Gov

NEW YORK

TEL AVIV

36 Eric Davidove

SILICON VALLEY

46 Henry Danner

BROOKLYN

INTERSECTIONS 60 Antar "Cole" Fierce 80 Brent Walker (The Hidden South)

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Who is in THE STREETS

"For about 10 years I was a street performer (mime) who spontaneously exploited quirky and funny situations." – Eric Davidove

"It's not about the money. I'd rather come home and be happy at the end of the day." – Antar "Cole" Fierce "I want to see the unseen." – Neta Gov

"I enjoy the act of preserving genuine, candid moments that show how precious life really is." – Henry Danner

Photo by Natiah Jones @natiahjones Photo by Daisy Poler

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"The magic is in the street." – Dominique Misrahi

"I’m a totally different person than when I started this project." – Brent Walker

Front cover photo Dominique Misrahi (featuring James Henry Hill) Back cover photo Meredith M Howard Editor and Creative Director Meredith M Howard Editorial Assistant Brooklyn Etzel Creative and Digital Assistant Eva Howard Contributors and collaborators Dominique Misrahi Neta Gov Eric Davidove Henry Danner Antar "Cole" Fierce Brent Walker Natiah Jones Daisy Poler Auto Website www.thestreetsmag.com Email info@thestreetsmag.com Instagram @thestreetsmagazine Publisher Meredith M Howard LLC ISSN 2476-0927

All work is copyrighted to the photographer, artist, or author. No part of this magazine may be used without permission of THE STREETS.

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E D I T O R ’ S

L E T T E R

"You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was Dostoevsky and Dickens who taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who ever had been alive. Only if we face these open wounds in ourselves can we understand them in other people. An artist is a sort of emotional or spiritual historian. His role is to make you realize the doom and glory of knowing who you are and what you are. He has to tell, because nobody else can tell, what it is like to be alive." – James Baldwin, Author *

I have noticed lately that the best art comes out of pain. By "the best art," I'm not referring necessarily to art that we hold up as technically perfect but rather art that stops us with a slight jolt because it has succeeded in getting through all of our defenses and reaching our true self that was forgotten under a lot of layers of protection – and suddenly we feel connected to the whole universe, just for a second. It's usually not complicated. It might be the look in someone's eyes in a photograph, one short phrase in a book, or a sigh in a film. And by "pain," I don't mean one has to be a tortured artist all of one's life in order to produce this connection-level art. I mean that there's something driving each of us to do what we do – to right a wrong, to fill a hole, to repair something that's broken – and it is when that comes through in the art, either consciously or subconsciously, that the art seems to grab the viewer out of his or her isolated existance and connect them back to the rest of the universe. And then there's street photography, which often in its very process of making the art makes connections that heals some of that pain.

*As quoted in "Doom and glory of knowing who you are" by Jane Howard, in LIFE magazine, Vol. 54, No. 21, May 24, 1963.

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Editor's Letter Because in everyday life, we do our best to hide our pain from each other and from ourselves. "How are you doing?" "I'm fine." It appears that our modern civilization has not given us happier lives but more ways to distract us from our personal pain. I appreciate the fact that street photographers, in general, aren't running away from the chaos of life but toward it. They are connecting face to face, trying to make sense of the world on a human level. And they often see the good peaking out through all of the messiness of the struggle. As Brent Walker (page 80) says, "I've got to find hope." If you have read this far, you are probably either a Four on the Enneagram or my mother, but in any case, don't be scared off by all of this talk of pain. You can certainly enjoy this whole Issue on a purely aesthetic level. Each series of photographs contains a little magic that stands on its own. But if you want to look a little deeper, I believe you will find that the magic in each person's photographs is born out of their own life experience and struggle, and I hope that's what will reach through the layers and connect with you. â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Meredith

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Photograph by Meredith M Howard Photograph by Meredith M Howard

Perspectives Perspectives Perspectives Perspectives Perspectives Perspectives Perspectives THE STREETS

Dominique Misrahi

12 ISSUE THIRTEEN James Henry Hill @james_henry_hill)

DOMINIQUE MISRAHI P h o t o g ra p h e r

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Dominique Misrahi

Where did you grow up and what were you like as a child? I was born and raised in Marseille, France. I had a very pleasant childhood in one of the privileged neighborhood of my city. I grew up sharing my time between dance classes and the back of my parents clothing store. I was a quiet and shy girl. I moved to NYC in 1999 in a mid-life crisis.

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Leslie Plummer @paigegaga

Dominique Misrahi How did you get into photography? I have always been a photography enthusiast. My parents had a lot of black and white French photography books that I enjoyed reading, and I started buying a lot of fashion and photography magazines. Later in life after having my kids, I stopped working as a personal trainer and decided to take care of my twin boys. As much as I enjoyed it, something was missing in my life. I had always created, and that part of me was totally pushed away by the reality of the everyday life. Using my iPhone to catch memories was not very rewarding. I never like the result. I decided to buy a camera. I wanted something small but performant. I decided on the Leica D-Lux not knowing that I would start street photography. I took a few classes on basic digital photography and when the teacher asked me what I would like to shoot I answered without hesitation â&#x20AC;&#x201C; "People." He gave me some advice on how to approach someone in the streets, and I started my journey.

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Dominique Misrahi

"I love to show diversity and raw uniqueness."

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Dominique Misrahi You studied under two amazing photographers â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Bruce Gilden and Jamel Shabazz. Can you tell us a few things you learned from them? Bruce Gilden is one of my favorite street photographers, so I really wanted to meet him and learn from him. It was a very intense workshop because Bruce is very critical and you have be ready to accept his comments in order to grow. From him I learned how to be more selective on what I shoot, how to direct people in order to get what I want in the frame and how to be more in control of my camera. Jamel Shabbaz is an iconic photographer who knows how to capture the essence of the New York black community. I learned how to approach people, how to engage in a conversation to make them feel comfortable and to establish a connection, and then how to direct them while you are shooting.

Rega Ghul @rega.ghul

Candid photo before Dominique talked to them

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Dominique Misrahi

Why do you like to take street portraits? In your Instagram captions, you sometimes use the phrases – “People are rock stars” and “People are movie stars.” What do these phrases mean to you? I obviously love people, and I'm pretty comfortable talking to strangers. Taking pictures of people never gets boring. There is not one face alike another one. I love New York and its vibrant energy. It is still a city where dreams are made and unmade. Everybody comes here for a reason – for a better life, a career, all kinds of desires and hopes. That is one of the reasons it so unique. The magic is in the street. If you look closer, you can find your rock star or your movie star.

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Dominique Misrahi

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Dominique Misrahi Can you tell us a story about an interesting person you met on the street? I met Milagros at the March For Our Lives in NYC. Her son died from gun violence few years ago. He was about to become a famous rapper. In order to survive the loss, she joined a support group called the Harlem Mothers. I was invited to attend one of their meetings. It was an heartbreaking and powerful experience about grief and acceptance.

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Dominique Misrahi Some of the best art seems to be born out of our struggles. Can you tell me a story about one of your personal struggles and how it may have influenced your art? That is probably the most difficult question to answer. And yes, I had and still have my struggles. Does it affect my art? I let you be the judge. In my teenage years I suffered from eating disorders, body dysmorphia and a tremendous lack of confidence. Part of it comes from my dance background but also from the overload of top model images used by the media. The standard of beauty was very high, and as the teenager I didn't feel like I conformed to society's expectations. What I want to say through my photography is there is beauty in each of us. I love to show diversity and raw uniqueness. In a world where everything is made to divide us, we have to remember we all are citizens of the same planet. One human race.

"What I want to say through my photography is there is beauty in each of us."

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Dominique Misrahi

Jedeye_himself @jedeye_himself

And to finish, I always dedicate my pictures to this city and it’s amazing people.

Voilà :)

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Dominique Misrahi

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Dominique Misrahi

"The magic is in the street." Follow Dominique on Instagram @dominique_nyc and on her website at dominiquemisrahi.com

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Dominique Misrahi

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Neta Gov

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NETA GOV

P h o t o g ra p h e r

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Neta Gov

"My father became a captain on a ship, and we traveled all around the world."

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Where did you grow up and what were you like as a child? I grew up in Haifa, a city in northern Israel, to a Holocaust survivor father from Warsaw, Poland and a new immigrant mother from Hungary. My father became a captain on a ship, and we traveled all around the world. I was very shy and built my whole world through my eyes with a lot of imagination. From a very early age, I was painting, taking photos, and designing everything from the source to something different.

Neta Gov

"I live in Tel Aviv... a city that breathes 24 hours a day."

Where do you live now and how would you describe it? I live in Tel Aviv, which is called the "nonstop city." It's one of the coolest place on earth â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a city that breathes 24 hours a day and is very lively. The streets are always full of people, music, restaurants , dancing, and everywhere there is something to see.

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Neta Gov

What makes you happy? I try to see only the nice sides. I can find beauty everywhere. New sights and the amount of birds in the sky make me happy. How did you get into photography? I never learned to be a photographer, and I use a very simple camera. I don't understand camera equipment or lenses, but the small camera is always with me.

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"Birds in the sky make me happy."

Neta Gov

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Neta Gov

Your photographs have a romantic surrealist quality to them. What are you thinking about when you take photos and edit them, and what has influenced you to see this way? I want to see the "unseen." Sometimes I take a picture, look at all of it, and cut only the piece I like.

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"I want to see the unseen."

Neta Gov

Some of the best art seems to be born out our struggles. Can you tell me about one of your personal struggles and how it may have influenced your art? Fortunately I never had struggles. I am an artist and look at things differently. From every lemon I prefer to make lemonade. My whole being is to look at things differently.

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Neta Gov

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Neta Gov

I find it so interesting that you say you have never had any struggles. Do you think your perspective was influenced by the intense struggles that I assume your father and mother had? Did your father ever tell you about his experiences during the Holocaust? My father never talked about his past. He got very successful at his job and gave the family a very good life. When my son grew up, he started to ask him questions about his past, and I was shocked to realise what he and his family went through. I think I am a strong person and try not to get into moods and problems. Also, it is not easy to live always in a war situation, but people get use to it. In the world happiness index, Israel is always in the first five countries in spite of its problems*. *According to the World Happiness Report, Israel ranked 13 on average from 2016-2018. However, this is higher than the United States, which ranked 19. This ranking is significant considering, as Neta metioned, Israel suffers from consistent political threats and attacks. (worldhappiness.report/ ed/2019)

Follow Neta on Instagram @netagov

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Eric Davidove

ERIC DAVIDOVE P h o t o g ra p h e r

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Eric Davidove Where did you grow up and what were you like as a child?

Where do you live now and how would you describe it?

My birthplace was Hollywood California, and I lived the first nine years of my childhood in apartments located near Griffith Park. The remaining years of my childhood were spent in our first and only family home, located near the border of Garden Grove and Seal Beach California (aka Orange County).

The Silicon Valley, located about 40 miles south of San Francisco, is my current home. A few miles in any direction from my home you will find the global headquarters for some well known companies such as Apple, Google, and Facebook. I moved to Northern California about eight years ago after having lived six years in London. The region where I live now is very innovative, leading edge, progressive, open-minded, liberal, diverse, young, beautiful, wealthy, modern and expensive.

I was a child with a strong entrepreneurial spirit, a passion to engage in both visual and performing arts, an interest in having a wide variety of hobbies, and a need to collect items that were likely to hold increased value over time. Like most young male children in my neighborhood, I participated in organized sports, surfed and became a cub scout.

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Eric Davidove

How did you get into photography? I have been using a camera and making photos since I was a child. However, I did not think of myself as a photographer and really â&#x20AC;&#x153;get into photographyâ&#x20AC;? until about three years ago. At that time, I was unexpectedly let go from my employer as part of a company-wide headcount reduction. I wanted to find something productive and creative to do in order to help me through the stress and anxiety of job searching. Photography was ideal because it got me out of my home, required me to walk a lot, and opened my eyes to moments and details that were usually hidden from my view. Photography improved my mood and self image, especially when my photos were selected for awards, exhibitions and articles. This was the time when I started viewing myself as a Photographer. I eventually landed another job but then quit after one year. I decided to double down and go deeper into my photography journey.

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Eric Davidove

"Photography was ideal because it got me out of my home, required me to walk a lot, and opened my eyes to moments that were usually hidden from my view."

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Eric Davidove

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Eric Davidove

Your photographs are quirky and funny. Do you seek out funny situations or feel like you just happen to see them? In life, do you generally look for the funny side of situations? I try keeping an open mind when making photographs and do not consciously look for quirky or funny situations. Yet, many of my photographs do end up that way. For about 10 years I was a street performer (mime) who spontaneously exploited and created quirky and funny situations. Maybe that experience wired me to do the same when making photographs. Quite often I bring humor into conversations and try to make people laugh. My father did the same thing. He was a bartender at the original Hard Rock Cafe on Skid Row (Los Angeles) for many years and used jokes and storytelling to entertain his customers (generally white collar functional alcoholics). During our dinner hour, my father would repeat several of the funny jokes and stories his customers told the night before. Maybe this family tradition has framed how I see the world and triggered my propensity to make quirky and funny photographs. I do enjoy making photographs that make viewers laugh or smile.

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Eric Davidove Can you tell us about something you have struggled with in life? Do you see any connections between your struggle and your art? Two things have negatively changed in my life since I quit my job 16 months ago. My alone time has increased and my income has decreased. I struggle with this reduced amount of social activity and discretionary money. I see a connection between these two struggles and my photography. Most of my photography focuses on people largely brought about by my attempt to fight off loneliness. Getting out of my home and observing other people fulfills me and serves as an adequate replacement for the social activity I once had at work. Having less money inspires me to be more creative with how and where I photograph. I use a mirrorless digital camera (rather than a full frame camera or a film camera which requires a dark room) and print my photos at home. Moreover, I create budget-wise personal travel plans that also provide good opportunities for making street photographs. I get more bang for my buck. Generally speaking, I prefer to visit major cities in the USA, South America or Asia.

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Eric Davidove

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Eric Davidove

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Eric Davidove

What are some things that make you happy? I am most happy when I am with people who I love and enjoy, have the freedom and time to do what I want to do, perform an unconditional generous or kind act, and when I achieve a desired outcome. I am happy when avoiding the temptation to compare myself to other people, and when I appreciate what I have.

Follow Eric on Instagram @edovephotos

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Henry Danner

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HENRY DANNER P h o t o g ra p h e r

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Henry Danner

Where did you grow up and what you like as a child? I was born and raised in the Bronx, NYC. As a child I was very curious, shy and quiet. I spent most of my time participating in athletic activities such as basketball, baseball, rollerblading, manhunt and freeze-tag. I also enjoyed reading, writing poetry, and spent a lot of my formative years in the church attending youth programs. Where do you live now and how would you describe your daily life? I currently live in the Bed-Stuy neighborhood of Brooklyn. My daily life consists of me going to work at Columbia University where I coordinate a program for youth and young adults in need of connection to education and employment resources. I also try to make time to feed my creative appetite on a daily basis through making photos, post-processing photos, listening to music, and reading.

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Henry Danner

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Henry Danner

How did you get into photography and what is your favorite type of photograph to capture? I have always had a thing for photos but never took photography very seriously. In 2017, my girlfriend gave me a new camera as a gift, so I devoted myself to learning how to use it as a creative outlet. While teaching myself through a combination of YouTube videos and practice, I rediscovered my creative sensibilities and my curious nature. I feel in love with street/social documentary photos because I enjoy the act of preserving genuine, candid moments that show how precious life really is.

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Henry Danner

"I enjoy the act of preserving genuine, candid moments that show how precious life really is."

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Henry Danner

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Henry Danner

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Henry Danner

Some of the best art seems to be born out of our struggles. Can you tell me about one of your personal struggles and how it may have influenced your art? I think my biggest struggle throughout life has been to find my voice and to amplify it in a way that has an impact on the world. This causes me to feel inadequate, like an outsider and like I have to struggle to fit in with certain groups. This influences my art greatly because I think that if I can communicate through photos, it takes less pressure off of me to communicate verbally. We all know the old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words, but I believe a picture to be worth an immeasurable amount of words.

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Henry Danner

"I believe a picture to be worth an immeasurable amount of words."

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Henry Danner

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Henry Danner

What makes you happy? I’m not completely sure I know what makes me “happy”. Mostly because I struggle to have a complete definition of happiness. But I think what makes me feel the best is when I do something good for someone else. When I’m able to impact somebody else’s life in a meaningful way it makes me feel like I’m truly living the life I was created to live.

Follow Henry on Instagram @hdsvisions

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Photograph by Meredith M Howard

ANTAR

FIERCE

Interview by Meredith M Howard Photographs from Steel Wheels Collection; shot by Antar "Cole" Fierce, except as noted Photo captions written by Antar "Cole" Fierce

Antar: I’ve been shooting subway graffiti since '85. We used to have this meeting every Saturday on Canal Street at this one hour photo shop. It was maybe five or six guys. A couple of guys were from the Bronx. There was a guy from Queens. A couple of us were from Brooklyn. We would all meet at this one hour spot and bring our negatives because everything was film back then. And we would just get pictures reprinted. It was a place about the size of this table, if you can imagine, and all of us are packed in there and we’re filling out the little card that you got to put the negatives in. But that was where I met Wane* for the first time because he was one of the guys that used to come down every now and then and trade pictures. We used to call it “making out pictures”.

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*See Issue 12 for the interview with Wane, who is a graffiti artist, documenterarian, and graphic designer.

Antar "Cole" Fierce

Mariel – Atlantic Ave Station, Brooklyn; 1986

Meredith: You called it “making out pictures”? Antar: Yeah, you’re getting the pictures reprinted so you’re making the pictures out. Meredith: And you would trade photos? Antar: Yeah, we would trade. These guys would come from the Bronx and say, "We caught this. What did you catch in Brooklyn?” And we'd say, "OK, so we caught this.” It was like a whole organized sport like baseball cards almost. For about a year, that was pretty much what I did every Saturday. And then Henry’s* studio was right around the corner. Canal Street was kind of like a meeting place. But there weren’t a lot of people who were really photographing the trains back then. Because everybody thought it would last forever. And it wasn’t until the late 80s – ‘87/’88 – where it was like – “Oh, shit. They’re really going to do this. They’re really going to win this campaign that they’ve been on for 20 years." And everybody started trying to take pictures. And it was all out – gotta take pictures of everything.

This is one of my earliest photos of subway graffiti with a Kodak 110 camera. Historically, Atlantic Ave on the 2, 3, 4 and 5 lines was a writer’s bench. Although I was just beginning to take an interest photographing graffiti on the subway, shooting at this stop was more of a convenience for me because it was on the way to and from school. I was not yet willing to go out of my way to find outdoor stations to photograph subway graffiti.

Antar: By the time ’88 came, all the trains were clean. There were a handful of lines that still had graffiti. But I was relentless. I was out there every day. It was a good time. It was good at first because you thought it was going to last forever, so you’re really selective about what you take pictures of. Because again, this is the film era, so you had to be kind of selective. You couldn’t be out there like today when you can just snap away. I always considered myself more of a documenter than an actual graffiti artist. But a lot of guys who were actually doing graffiti, they just kept going. All gas, no brakes. “We’re just going to keep painting the trains.” And the transit authority would clean them just as fast as they painted them, and that’s what kind of snuffed it out. But it was a good time because we got to see the very end. Jack Stewart******* captured the beginning. Henry kind of got the middle. And we got the end.

"Everybody thought it would last forever."

*Henry Chalfant documented subway graffiti and co-produced the books Subway Art, Training Days, and Spraycan Art and the film Style Wars. ** Jack Stewart's photo collection is among the most extensive and rare

collections of subway graffiti in existence and is now stored in the Emory University Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library. His book Graffiti Kings was published posthumously and was based on his Ph.D. thesis for New York University.

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Antar "Cole" Fierce

Shortly after my trips to Atlantic Avenue, Ket (who was also beginning to bench heavily around this time) convinced me to come to his job way out in Queens at Knickerbocker Ave on the M line. He was good about hooking up free burgers and fries. This photo is from one of those trips. Character detail by Reas AOK – Knickerbocker Ave Station, Queens; 1986

Meredith: Do you remember the first time you ever saw graffiti? Antar: I saw it in the neighborhood just ‘cause I grew up in New York. I was born in ’71. We lived in Bed-Stuy. So, it was always around. I always saw it on the walls, but it didn’t really make sense like what it was. But I think in ’83 or ’84, my dad used to play basketball, so he took me to this handball court over in this place called Kingston Park, which is in Brooklyn in Bed-Stuy. It [a piece] was by these guys that I know now – Craftwork Kings (CWK). I think these guys had just done it because there were empty cans on the ground. I was 12 or 13, and it was just so huge to me. It was mindblowing. That was probably the first time I saw something that elaborate up close. Because usually all I would see in the neighborhood was a bunch of tags. The following year, which was ’85, I got braces and my dentist was all the way up on 96th Street, and I had to take the subway. And I had never taken the subway alone before. I had always taken the bus or walked everywhere. But when I took the subway for the first time, I think that was it. I was hooked.

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And I still wasn’t taking pictures yet. It still hadn’t dawned on me to document. That probably didn’t come until later that year when I was in high school. That following Fall, a friend of mine who wrote VEN, he was in one of my classes and he brought some pictures to school, and I was like – “That’s a great idea. Why didn’t I think of that?” It was like an "Aha!" moment. So, I got a little 110 camera. I don’t think they make those anymore. And I don’t know where I got that camera. I started taking pictures underground, which was horrible. I didn’t know what I was doing. I started taking pictures at Flatbush Avenue station on the 2’s and 5’s – really bad flash burn, angle shots. Then later it kind of evolved into – “Why don’t I move to the outside of the station?” The following year, I took a photography class in high school, and that was when it was in perspective. Now I know about F-stops and shutter speed and which speed film to buy and not to shoot into the sun and not to take angle shots. That was when I started to get serious about documenting because I knew a little more about the process of capturing the photo.

Antar "Cole" Fierce

"That desire to say –

I WAS HERE – that’s as old as humanity."

Meredith: Did you ever want to paint or did you just want to stick to documenting?

people wrote their names as opposed to something else?

Antar: I did paint, but not anything worth mentioning. I started as an artist. I wrote graffiti first with the names A-Ski, Ace, Polo, Reverb and finally Cole, but then it was kind of daunting when you see these masterpieces, you think, “I’ll never be that good. Maybe I’ll just stick to taking pictures. Because there’s no way I’m going to be able to paint a whole side of a subway car like that.” I always painted off and on, but I didn’t have the passion for that that I did for documenting.

Antar: I think it maybe started out with the hobos and kind of evolved into the rail workers. I think it was two things. One, it was to pass the time. You know, these guys who work on the railroads spend a lot of time on the trains with not a lot to do, but I think it was also a way to communicate with workers or other hobos in other places to say “I was here." I don’t think that’s too much different from what it was for the writers either. Whether one influenced the other, I don’t know. But I think that was how that started – to say “I was here,” and now this car goes 100 miles down the line and someone else sees it and they write their message or their name and it goes back and forth. That desire to say – “I was here” – that’s as old as humanity.

Meredith: Did you go to school with guys who were painting? Antar: High school? In New York, in the 80s, there were probably 15-20 graffiti writers in every high school. Meredith: You said – “I’ll never be able to paint like that.” What type of person do you think they looked at it and said – “Yes! That’s what I want to do.”

Sept – Hewes Street Station, Brooklyn; 1986

Antar: Somebody with a lot more talent and a lot more confidence than I had in their ability to be artists. Meredith: I was interested in your paper* where you connected the beginning of graffiti to hobos writing their monikers. Why do you think

*This is referring to an academic paper written by Antar "Cole" Fierce on the History of Benching.

Realizing part of the J & M lines were elevated, I started going out to snap photos there more frequently.

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Antar "Cole" Fierce A little later in 1986, I figured out a new route to and from school that included the Franklin Ave shuttle. Most of this route was outdoors, and I took full advantage. There was always fresh graffiti on the Franklin Ave Shuttle during this time

Lace – Dean Street Station, Brooklyn; 1986

Tekay Magoo – Prospect Park Station – 1986

Sad371 by Weber KAOS – Dean Street Station – 1986

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Antar "Cole" Fierce

DC3 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Jackson Ave Station â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 1986

I was still at a point of not knowing much about the legacy of subway graffiti culture and significance of the various divisions and lines. But I did know the numbered lines seemed to have a lot more graffiti and ran more frequently than the letter lines I had been photographing for the last few months. Atlantic Ave and other underground stations in Brooklyn were no match for my little 110 camera. So on this day in 1986, a friend from class who wrote Wish One and I decided to cut school and ride up to the Bronx where the trains were elevated. It was almost a 2 hour ride from Brooklyn so we got off at the first elevated station on the 2 & 5 line which was Jackson Avenue in the heart of the South Bronx. Unfortunately we only had one roll of film each. This photo is from that day.

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Antar "Cole" Fierce

Fast RSH, Hewes Street Station, Brooklyn; 1988

Antar: I think for the graffiti artists in Philly, the earliest known history is Cornbread. He had a couple of contemporaries, other guys that he was hanging around with writing also, but he’s the one that stands out the most. From what I’ve read, that group in Philly really got started because they were in between the gang thing, and they wanted to do something different, so they were writing along the bus lines. They would go to the bus route, and they would write on all of the walls. At some point, they got the brilliant idea – “Why don’t we just write on the bus?” Because then we can just stay still and the bus can take our name back and forth. So, that went from the bus to the train. That is how it started. This is before it started in New York. When I saw an interview with Cornbread, and they said, “Why were you writing your name all over the place like that?” He said he was trying to get the attention of a girl at his high school, so love conquers all, right? It was really love that started this whole thing. Meredith: When they started cleaning the trains, would they just pull them from the line when they saw graffiti on them? Antar: Yeah, they would pull them from service. From what

ISSUE THIRTEEN

Fast’s message is from the 1986 Ice T song "Ain't a Damn Thing Changed.”

I remember, the trains got cleaned one line after another. It started on the number lines, probably with the 7 line and just went down from there – 7, 6, 5. Once a line became a clean line, if it got hit, they would pull it from service immediately and they would clean it. And it took a while for that to catch on to the writers. David Gunn, who was the transit authority President in ’84, that was his mission in life. He came from Philly. He cleaned up that system, and then he cleaned up the trains in New York. But that takes funding. That takes man power, a lot of labor, a lot of materials, and you got to stay on top of that, because writers are tenacious. And it took them about five years to wipe it all out from when they started. When I first started looking at the trains which was probably about ’85 until they really ended which was probably late ’89 into ’90 because guys were still painting trains . . . When the writers saw that the transit authority was really serious and being just as on top of it as they were, I think it kind of snuffed out the desire to do it. I think that’s what really killed it. But it was too late then, because now graffiti’s all over the world. Even it ending in New York, it was already too late because they had already infected the entire industrialized world.

Antar "Cole" Fierce

Tenth (by Sent) East Tremont Station, The Bronx; 1987

"They had already infected the entire industrialized world." T2Bee (by Doc TC5) Hewes Street Station, Brooklyn; 1987

Sty FC Interval Ave Station, The Bronx; 1987

Although I had a handle on the cameraâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s internal light meter, F-stops, film speeds etc., I was still not quite there yet. Guys I used to hang with were pros. One of those guys was Nic 1. Nic had been photographing subway graffiti up in the Bronx for several years already. He showed me a few good tricks that I still use today when shooting trains. The main thing I remember him telling me was not to go crazy and just start snapping photos when the train pulls in. He told me to take my time and line up the photos. Shoot the photos straight on, not angled. Also to use the orange "stand clear" line on the platform as your guide to walk along and shoot photos. This will ensure your photos will line up like Henryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s. I had seen Subway Art and knew Henry took photos of a train car in sections and stitched them together later, but the execution of actually shooting like that took some practice. By 1988, I had the hang of it. Unfortunately by then there were only about 4 or 5 lines left that had subway graffiti running. I spent a lot of time for the remainder of 1988 into 1989 benching what was left.

THE STREETS

Antar "Cole" Fierce

Eat Shit (by Reas) Vens (by Ven) Hewes Street Station, Brooklyn; 1988

Meredith: Were people painting on freight trains before that or was it really when they wiped it out of the subway system that they refocused to freight trains? Antar: No, people were painting freight trains. . . It’s hard to say when the first freight train was painted. The earliest photographs I’ve seen are from about 1974. Tracy168 and a guy named P'nut – there’s a picture of a freight train that they did in ’74 in the Bronx. But that was obviously a novelty. It was just – “Hey, we’re on the way back from painting some subway trains, and this thing is sitting here. Why not?” It wasn’t a concentrated effort probably until the 80s. There were some guys in Philly in ‘84/’85 who had started to paint them. But they weren’t doing it with the idea of that these trains are going to run and somebody in California is going to see them. They said they were doing it because the freight trains used to sit right in front of the highway, so it was kind of a way for their names to be seen on the highway. The thing that made freights different was that now everybody can participate. It’s not limited to guys in New York. There were guys in Philly, guys in the Bay area, Chicago. There were some guys outside of Boston painting them pretty early, too. But I don’t think the connection had been made yet. Nobody was really painting them with the idea that these trains are going to run. It’s just something else to paint. That doesn’t really come into play until the 90s when we start with the magazines and trading through the mail that people start to say, “Oh, people are actually seeing these.” Then, it’s just fuel to the fire. Now these trains are a vehicle.

ISSUE THIRTEEN

Figuring out (after much trial and error) how to photograph the whole length of the train and stitch it together.

Meredith: What graffiti magazines were big in the 90s? Antar: So, I had a magazine called Steel Wheels. It was just a little black and white magazine we put together at Kinkos. This was before Photoshop and all that stuff. Because I had taken all these pictures, so I was going to start a magazine that’s just about trains.

"Now these trains are a vehicle." Meredith: That’s one of the same reason I started THE STREETS – what do you do with all of these pictures? Antar: It’s funny because when I moved here [Atlanta] to go to school, I had a big crate full of spray paint and had all these pictures – like a whole foot locker of all these pictures. And I was like – “I’m done with this graffiti stuff. I’m going to throw all this away.” But something told me not to throw the pictures away.

Antar "Cole" Fierce

Antar: I was moving into my aunt’s house. My family was already not too hip to the graffiti thing. It was not as cool as it is now. They were just like – "You’ve got to leave this shit in New York.” So, I threw the paint away. That paint is vintage now. Had I kept it, I probably could have sold it on Ebay for God knows how much. But something told me not to throw the pictures away. . . Whatever it was that told me not to throw the pictures away, I’m glad I listened to that.

cater something toward graffiti writers, you’re going to go out of business. It’s a tough market. The only thing I’ve seen be successful, and even that doesn’t cater to just graffiti artists, I was going to say is the paint. You know they have all the fancy paint now, but you know that’s really the muralists that keep them afloat.

So, I had a magazine, but there were so many magazines back then. Some of the more popular ones for graffiti – there was one called Iron Burners. But even before that there was a magazine called Flashbacks. Between 1990 and 1997, there were so many magazines that there were maybe one or two issues and people kind of figured out – “There’s really no money in this.” I think once people figured that out, it was not really as sexy as they thought it was. And it’s a lot of work. So, a lot of them didn’t last. Mass Appeal was another one, which Mass Appeal was a rarity because they did wind up going on into a bigger format. They’re still around aren’t they?

Antar: We made about four issues, and then we kind of left it alone. Then in 2008, we started the Steel Wheels show. The magazine was just a lot of work, and there wasn’t a lot of return. And you know, the internet comes in around this time, so print media is really struggling to survive, in general. You know, graffiti print media was already a tough sell, and now it was even worse. I made four issues, I think two of them actually went to print. Two of them I never even printed because I didn’t even want to spend the money to even print black and white copies. It wasn’t until 10 years later when we started the show that I did anything with Steel Wheels. But the magazine was fun while it lasted.

Meredith: Yeah, they are.

Meredith: Are you doing an annual show now?

Antar: But a lot of them didn’t last. And it was difficult to just stick to graffiti and be a magazine. Even Mass Appeal branched out into the Hip Hop market, alternative market, fashion. So, that’s kind of how they were able to stay around. But I don’t think there were any real graffiti magazines that stayed around because it’s hard. Listen, I can tell you, if you

Antar: We did it annually until about 2013. We did a show in 2015 and 2018. The show was also a lot of work.

Meredith: So, how long did you put out Steel Wheels?

Meredith: I understand. I’ve done both – magazines and shows.

THE STREETS

Antar "Cole" Fierce

Steel Wheels, 2013, photographed by Auto

ISSUE THIRTEEN

Antar "Cole" Fierce

Steel Wheels, 2013, photographed by Auto

should be ongoing. It shouldn’t just be two nights every year or every few years. I think it has staying power. It’s a work in progress.

Meredith: So, where do you get the model trains from? Antar: What we do is we get the blanks and we send them out to different people and get them painted. But, typical me, when we started with the model trains, I took it too far. I’ve got a whole thing in my garage with the trains running around [a track]. I couldn’t just get the trains and send them out to people. Now I'm down here with the weathering. I’ve got all of the stuff set up. It’s like over the top. Steel Wheels, 2018

Our big thing was making sure we get actual artists who actually painted trains, so that it’s authentic. I started getting the model subway trains painted, too, by actual subway graffiti artists and we had them in the show running in 2018, but I don’t bring those out of the house. To me, those are really special. And it’s not so much the value monetarily but, like some of these guys, to get them to sit down and paint a model subway train, that’s a lot. If I lose their train, I’m not getting that again. So, when we had the show, I’m like, “I’m not moving from this table. When it’s over, I’m taking these home tonight. I’m not leaving them here in the gallery. I’m packing it up and taking this home. I’ll bring it back tomorrow, but I’m not letting these trains out of my sight.”

If you can't make it to the shows, follow Steel Wheels online at steelwheelsonline.com and get Cole's book documenting 11 years of graffiti on trains in America.

Meredith: That was probably a good idea. Antar: So, we have a huge collection, but if I had my way, I would open up a whole museum just for that. Because the show does really well, and the feedback is great. To the point that I feel like it’s something that

THE STREETS

Antar "Cole" Fierce

Ket, Hewes Street Station, Brooklyn; 1988

Miro, Hewes Street Station, Brooklyn; 1989

ISSUE THIRTEEN

Antar "Cole" Fierce

Him (by Wane) East Tremont Ave Station, The Bronx; 1987

Meredith: You mentioned the Internet affecting print media. How do you think the Internet and social media has affected the graffiti culture? Antar: A lot of people complain – "Instagram ruined graffiti" – because before that, you really had to be out there. It was very hands on. You couldn't sit in the comfort of your house and be involved. It spawned an entire generation of afficiandos and people who don’t write but who still get to enjoy or look at graffiti without actually being out there. A lot of times people think it’s compromising – you know, "Graffiti is an underground thing and has to remain there." And I get that. They don’t like that it’s being exploited. I definitely think social media has changed it. For better or for worse, is not really for me to say. I see both sides of the argument. But it’s hard to indict anybody because they see something

By 1987, I was really getting into photographing subway graffiti so I decided to take a photography class at school. My father gave me my mother’s old Canon AE-1 because an SLR camera was required for the class. From there I learned how to use a fully manual 35mm camera. However, I didn’t have it all the way figured out when I shot this photo in 1987.

that they like and enjoy it as long as they aren’t taking pictures and turning them over to the police or in any other way engaged in anything that’s bad for the culture. Meredith: And the social media can be helpful for people turning it into legitimate careers – like Wane*. Antar: That’s one of the very few people that’s been around from that era that has been consistently doing work since then. You know Wane’s a really good guy. He reminds me of myself except I was an astronomer and he was an astronaut. He was there, and he did a lot of work. And he was also into documenting. Wane is no breaks. Nonstop. And again, it’s that some people have the talent and the drive, and he’s got it in spades. He’s definitely a hero in the graffiti community in my eyes. *Read how Wane turned graffiti into a legitimate career in Issue 12.

THE STREETS

Meredith: But that’s not your full-time job now, though, right? Antar: It’s not. I would like it to be. And it will be soon, once I finish my masters at Georgia State. It’s a Master of Arts in Innovative and Creative Education. It’s a new program, and I love it. But with that, I plan to go full-time into the creative curriculum development and using Hip Hop to do that is definitely ground-breaking. I think we reach kids at a level that traditional education doesn’t. We’ve gotten a lot of good feedback from people we’ve worked with. Meredith: So, what is the Right Track program? Antar: A couple of friends and I founded a youth development organization where we use Hip Hop as a model for creative education. I do a graphic design workshop and use graffiti as the foundation to teach kids about fonts and how to use Photoshop and Illustrator – usually kids who would not normally have access to things like that but may have a passion or talent for art. Meredith: Do you do camps?

"It’s not about the money. I’d rather come home and be happy at the end of the day."

Antar: We really do workshops. We’ll come into camps or we’ll go into schools. The model is Hip Hop, so we’ll do a B-Boy workshop. I don’t do that part. I can’t dance, at all. I manage the visual arts arm of the program. There’s a music arm where we do workshops on beatmaking, music engineering – the other side of the business. Everybody’s not going to be the person that’s in the spot light, so we try to introduce kids to a variety of career paths. So, there’s a music and dance component, and I do the visual arts. We partnered with an organization called Common Good Atlanta and did a workshop at the Atlanta Metro Re-entry facility about archiving and documenting. These guys were getting college credits and were about to be released. So it’s not always youth. We also do adult education.

It takes a lot of work, but it’s a lot better than 9 to 5. And when you start talking about passion and being fulfilled, I’ve been in corporate America for 20 years and I’m over it. It sucks. I don’t even need to make a lot of money. It’s at that point that sometimes it’s not about the money. I’d rather come home and be happy at the end of the day than feel like I got the shit kicked out of me mentally. At this age, that matters more than the money.

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Meredith: When you say you’re using Hip Hop, what does the actual day look like?

Antar: If it’s really young kids, we try not to inundate them with a lot of lecture because we know we’ve got to keep them active. For my workshop, I would kind of tell them about graffiti

expression and style and how these things are important. A lot of times, kids might say, “I don’t even know what graffiti is. I mean, I see it when I’m in the car with my mom, but what is that?” "Well, it’s a form of creative expression." And we bring markers in and tell them, “Pick a word. What word would you use?” And we let them draw and do their own free hand drawing letters putting their own design and style to it. Now if it’s older kids like at a high school, I go into the history of Hip Hop and how graffiti fits into that so they have some context. Or we jump right into the graphic design, but that’s only when we have access to the technology. So, we did a couple of workshops at Atlanta Metro where they have a computer lab that’s outfitted with the full creative suite, so they have Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and all of that. We were able to go through some introductory graphic design, how to manipulate a photo, and how to add layers. We tailor each workshop to the space we’re going into.

"The thing to understand about Hip Hop is it really started from nothing."

I would really like to do something like this full-time – not just with the kids – but in general educate people about Hip Hop and graffiti. People hear "Hip Hop", and it’s stigmatized, and people think it’s just the music, but there’s a whole back story that a lot of people don’t know. And I feel that’s a story that needs to be told. Meredith: So, what is the story with Hip Hop?

Antar: The thing to understand about Hip Hop is it really started from nothing. You’re familiar with gangs in New York, of course, so there are a few things that fall into place that create space for Hip Hop to be born. One is the gang culture of the late 60s and the early 70s. Another is the huge migration of Puerto Ricans that came into New York. I can’t remember what that legislation* was called, but this was even earlier in the 50s.

Then you have the cross Bronx expressway that was built over the course of about 20 years in the 40s, 50s, and 60s that split the Bronx in half. Everything south of the Bronx were people of color and marginalized people. And when that highway was built, everybody that was kind of on the fringes, moved north. South of the highway you have all these landlords that began torching buildings to collect the insurance money. I remember riding the subway in the Bronx in the 70s and it looked like Beirut. It was terrible. It looked like a war zone. So, you had that, and then you had the gangs. The gang activity was really bad in the 60s and early 70s. And I’m really abbreviating the entire story, but they formed a truce, and it was very delicate. *The Jones-Shafroth Act was signed into law in 1917 conferring U.S. citizenship to people born in Puerto Rico. The end of WWII, air travel, and the continuing economic depression in Puerto Rico led to a "Great Migration" from Puerto Rico to the United States. (Library of Congress https://www.loc.gov/teachers/ classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/ immigration/cuban3.html)

THE STREETS

Antar "Cole" Fierce Antar: At the same time came these block parties, and one of the DJ’s at this block party was a guy named Kool Herc. He introduced this new way of making music which was to take two turn tables and a mixer and to isolate the break beat of the song and use the two records to make it one extended song. Then, the actual MC or rapper comes on top of that as the MC of the party. He’s very clever, he’s very witty, he’s rhyming. So, he’s introducing the people at the party, but he’s doing in a way with so much charisma that that becomes the actual music. And that’s how the music was born.

Cole on the 3rd rail

When we were kids growing up in New York, we loved karate movies, so the dancing is kind

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of inspired by that. It’s hard to say who did it first because it was really participatory. It kind of happened as a group and there were a lot of people involved. And that’s the beauty of it. You have some Capoeira* and some other traditional dances in there, especially in the Bronx where there’s a huge Latino population and a huge Caribbean population. Meredith: I’ve never heard that it was influenced by karate movies. Antar: Oh, yeah. You ask these old guys about it, and not so much the break dancing but the uprocking, you know, like the popping, but when you see a lot of these old guys break dancing, it’s like karate movies. There’s a huge martial arts influence. And I’m not saying it was just that, but that influence is there. And the disco. When you look at break dancing, you see elements of all of that in it. They were break dancing in the subway, and the authorities didn’t know what the hell was going on, they thought it was gang activity.

*Capoeira was form of martial arts disguised as dance that was developed in Brazil by enslaved Africans. In 1975, Mestre Jelon Vieira moved from Brazil to New York and was thought to have introduced capoeira and influenced the movements of modern break dancing. (https://www. smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/ capoeira-occult-martial-art-internationaldance-180964924/

Antar "Cole" Fierce

THE STREETS

Antar "Cole" Fierce

By 1988, most of the active writers began to realize the Transit Authority was actually going to win the war on subway graffiti. For those who were into taking, trading and collecting photographs it was a sobering time. We began to shoot everything that had to do with subway graffiti. We were shooting the insides of the trains, throw ups and even went into tunnel layups and shot the graffiti on the walls.

Various writers on the inside of a BMT letter line car, Brooklyn Scrap yards; 1989

Antar: I think it [graffiti, rapping, and break dancing] just got lumped together. And a lot of them were friends with each other. So, that’s kind of how it became the elements of hip hop. I don’t think it was intentional, and I don’t think it was done internally. But you meet old writers who are not from the Bronx and they're like, “I’m not into hip hop.” A lot of these guys were into heavy metal. A lot of these guys were punks if they’re from downtown Manhattan. And even north Bronx were not into Hip Hop. It’s just kind of the geography – Harlem and South Bronx – was kind the ground zero for Hip Hop. That’s why I say graffiti is part of Hip Hop, but Hip Hop is not necessarily part of graffiti.

be talking about hip hop. It’s Martha Cooper’s book called Hip Hop Files*. She has a huge collection of vivid photos of that day of the time when hip hop was just starting to really solidify. But before she became a Hip Hop photographer, she was a photographer for the Daily News, so she was always going off into these crazy areas taking pictures of kids playing, and doing what kids do, particularly in the South Bronx and Harlem in these areas that were dilapidated. And she has some really good pictures. Meredith: I’ll have to look that up.

A lot of people from that era have varying opinions. What can’t be refuted was Hip Hop was something that was created by kids. It was created in a vacuum because there was really nothing else for them. You look at old New York and you see these kids jumping on these dirty mattresses. This was what they had, and they created this out of nothing. That’s really the beauty of it. And that’s the part of it that makes it a story worth telling. It’s just like jazz or rock and roll, it’s a great American story. And it’s just now starting to be told. Meredith: The theme of this Issue is that the best art comes out suffering. I feel like that relates to what you are saying – the graffiti/Hip Hop culture coming out of the kids having nothing. New York being torched and kids creating their own art. Antar: Yeah, that’s a huge part of it. I would have brought this book if I had known we were going to

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*I looked it up and then bought it. It's worth getting.

Antar "Cole" Fierce Meredith: Did you ever go to Henry’s studio?

Antar: Yeah, my wife was like – “Yeah, I like that.”

Antar: Oh, yeah. Henry opened his studio to writers. Henry’s studio was like a college almost of graffiti history. He would let guys come by. I would cut school a lot and when I wasn’t benching, we would go by Henry’s. He had these big drafting tables and there were just pictures everywhere. He had these big portfolio style photo albums. He had all the pictures cut up – this is before Photoshop and all that, of course. And we would just spend hours in there. It was funny because I asked him once, “What’s your next book going to be about?” This was right after Spray Can Art came out. He said, “I’m not making any more books. The next books that come out should be done by the artists themselves because the graffiti artists can tell the better story. They’re story will be more pure than someone like me who is an outsider.” And that always stuck with me.

Meredith: I thought, “That can’t be his real last name.” Antar: I was a school teacher for about two years, and it was awesome having that as a name.

Follow Antar "Cole" Fierce on the web at steelwheelsonline.com and on Instagram @SteelWheels360. You can find out more about Right Track Program at www.righttrackarts.com and on Instagram @rightrackprogram and through email at info@righttrackarts.com.

He used to talk about how important it was to document – everything – even if it seems like it’s not important because this is an art form that’s fleeting. It’s not going to last. Yeah, I used to go to Henry’s studio a lot and try to get bits and pieces of information from him. Right before I left to move here, which was in ’89, I got some money for graduation. It was like $100. I asked Henry if I could borrow some negatives and go get the pictures reprinted. You know, I was just asking, and surprisingly he let me take his negatives down to the one hour spot and get them reprinted. And I still have the pictures. Meredith: Wow. Antar: I definitely didn’t think he was going to say yes. He didn’t even look at what he gave me. He just reached in and grabbed a handful. "Whatever it was, I want one of each. I don’t care what it is.” I blew the whole $100 on that. Meredith: That's amazing! Before we leave, I have to ask – is Antar Fierce your given name? Antar: Yeah. Meredith: That’s a pretty awesome last name – Fierce. Cole in train window

THE STREETS

Brent Walker

BRENT WALKER

Brent Walker

Interview by Meredith M Howard Photographs and excerpts by Brent Walker

Since 2014, Brent Walker has been wandering outside the edges of mainstream society to find people living on the fringes (who he calls "my people"). He asks to hear their stories and documents the deeply personal conversations. I recently spoke to Brent about how he gets people to open up so vulnerably, the process of creating and publishing his book, and the healing power of sharing our stories.

THE STREETS

Brent Walker Meredith: I love to hear about people’s meandering creative paths of how they got from childhood to where they are now, so can we go back to the very beginning and talk about where you grew up and what your childhood was like? Brent: Well, that’s complex. I grew up in Alpharetta, Georgia and when I grew up in Alpharetta, it wasn’t as wealthy as it is today. It was more country. For me, even from a young age, I didn’t feel like I fit in. I felt like I was different from my peers. I had friends, but I don’t know. I did grow up in a different way. My dad was a very charismatic person. He was one of the best salespeople I’ve ever come across. He found religion when I was 13 years old, and for him it was this fiery brand of religion – this charismatic, fundamentalism. While he and I never saw eye to eye on that stuff, he walked the walk. He opened a house for homeless people when I was a teenager, and that really informed me doing this later on because I grew up hearing stories from people who lived in that house. It wasn’t like they were scary to me or anything like that. They were just people who had stories. And I knew that the narrative that all homeless people are lazy or weak was not true just from knowing them. So I think that was a big part of me growing up and watching my dad. He took me to the prison in Jackson where they kill people when I was 16 years old so I could experience him preaching to some people there. So I got a lot of those experiences that most people don’t get. And I wasn’t scared. I mean, I saw him hug people who were in there for murder. I think that was a big part of it for me. And my mom, too, she took us to homeless shelters to help out all the time. So that’s kind of what started the spark for me as far as the type of photography that I do now.

it was initially about finding people who were suffering from addiction, who were abusing alcohol and drugs, and giving them an opportunity to let go of those stories that weigh them down. It was really as simple as that in the beginning, and then all the other reasons kind of accumulated as to why it was an important project. I’ve been a photographer for 15 years, and I’ve done all types of photography. Everything from school photography – which is the worst (that was my first real paying job as a photographer) – to sports photography. My longest stint was I had a pinup photography business called “Lucky Pinup Photography." We would travel around the South and people would book shoots with us.

"When I started doing this project The Hidden South, it was initially about finding people who were suffering from addiction . . . and giving them an opportunity to let go of those stories that weigh them down."

But as an adult, I had my own issues with addiction. Even as early as my teen years, I had issues with alcohol and stuff, so I was in and out of treatment from the time I was 17 years old and really struggled with addiction for years. In my mid-30s I was able to talk about some things that I had been carrying around that happened to me as a child. I noticed that was kind of the jumping off point for me in the healing process of getting past all of that stuff. When I started doing this project The Hidden South,

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Meredith: You do photography full time now?

Brent: Yeah, the way I make a living is I sell my first book in markets in New Orleans. There are art markets in New Orleans where the artist is there every night. There are probably 50 or 60 of us in the market. Thousands of tourists coming through. I sell my photography and sell my book in the market. And then at times I’ll have private funding – like I had private funding to work on a book about mental health. So, for a year and half, my bills were paid and travel was paid. Meredith: When you say the "book about mental health," does that include some of the stories you show on your website or is that something different? Brent: Well, I did my first book, which was largely about poverty and addiction in the South called The Hidden South – Come Home. That was released in 2016 and that was done through a Kickstarter. I raised $25,000 that paid for the trip and the first 1,000 books and the creation of all that. I met someone in the French Quarter when I was selling that book, and he asked if I would be willing to do a similar book about mental health in America. He funded that work for over a year. That book has not come out yet. I’m still getting past some financial hurdles to get that out. But hopefully that will be out in another four or five months. I may be doing another Kickstarter to try to get it over the finish line. All the stories are completed for it.

Brent Walker

Alfred (LaGrange, Georgia) Alfred: Basically, Brent, my life is real simple. This is my life, right here. I've been living out here for seven years. I went to prison for selling drugs in '97. I thought I was gonna come back and everything would be all merry. Brent: Have you been able to find work since you've been out? Alfred: No one wants to give a convicted felon a chance. Everybody's hollering for government assistance. I don't need the government. I got two feet and two hands. I'm capable of doing what I got to do to survive. I live from trash can to trash can. Most of it I sell to make me a few bucks. Get me something to eat. Brent: Are you happy? Alfred: I'm happy. This is an adventure for me. â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Excerpt from The Hidden South â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Come Home, page 70

THE STREETS

Brent Walker

Paul (New Orleans) Paul: I have profound ADHD and dyslexia. I can’t learn in a traditional classroom. When I was a kid, grammar school consisted of punishment, beatings, being locked in convent basements, and all kinds of different things. I got beat a lot as a child. I didn’t have any self-worth until I was about twelve. Me and my friends were under the streetlight, and they listened to me tell stories, and they loved it. That gave me the right to live right there. . . – Excerpt from The Hidden South website www.thehiddensouth.com; Down on Decatur

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Brent Walker Meredith: Did you go to college for anything in particular or just jump into photography? Brent: Well, I did. I went to culinary school. Meredith: Oh, you did? Brent: Yeah, so I did that for like four or five years. And right when the internet was kind of getting rolling full steam I taught myself how to do web design, and I got a job with SunTrust Bank. I ended up being the Interactive Creative Director for SunTrust Bank for seven years. So, I switched from culinary to that. Part of my job at SunTrust had been managing the photo shoots, so I really got the photo bug while I was doing that. I would constantly ask questions to these guys who we had hired to do the photography for us. When I got laid off from that job, I really went full steam ahead and bought my first Canon Rebel and just started shooting everything. I was not very good, but I was passionate about it and took a lot of pictures. And eventually I figured out what I was doing.

but it was that moment that I thought, "I don’t have to interview anybody. All I have to do is have a conversation with them. I know how to have a conversation. I’m good at that." And I just kind of started doing it. I had many jobs especially right out of school in my early 20s, and one of the things that prepared me well for it was this horrific job selling fake eel skin briefcases door-to-door. And daytimers. It was a straight commission job, and every morning before we would start we have these meetings where they would pump you up. He would do this “Ra ra ra” thing before you go out there and face the world and try to sell fake eel skin briefcases. But that type of rejection that I got from that job prepared me for anything. You do get it in your mind that every "No" is that much closer to a "Yes" – that type of salesman crap, but it’s true. And if you don’t take it personally, it’s not a big deal. If you say "No" to me about not wanting me to tell your story, that’s fine. It has more to do with you than it does with me.

"It was very scary at first. In fact it was so scary that I didn’t do it for years. I had this idea way before I actually did it."

Meredith: When you first started The Hidden South project and started going out walking around trying to find people to interview, was that scary to you or exciting? How did you feel? Brent: It was very scary at first. In fact it was so scary that I didn’t do it for years. I had this idea way before I actually did it. And it was this whole idea that I don’t know how to interview somebody. I’m not trained in that. People are going to think that I’m being obtrusive. People are not going to want to do this. I talk about it in the introduction to the first book but basically this woman kind of stumbled across my path. I was working on a zine called Instant Gratification and basically I just went around and asked people to pose sexy. I wasn’t posing them. Two shots with an instant camera what they thought was sexy. I came across this girl Alice. She was walking by train tracks by my house in Newnan, Georgia. She looked like she might be a sex worker, so I stopped and asked her if she would do it and gave her a few bucks. But after we were done – the pictures were just raw and awesome – she asked if I would give her a ride, and she just started telling me her story like about why she preferred black men to white men, about her first sexual experience, all these intimate things. I wasn’t recording any of it because I just didn’t know any better at the time, but when I got home I wrote it all down as quickly as I could. I included that story in the zine,

So, yeah. There was a fear there, but once I overcame that fear, I really got the bug and thought, "There are thousands of these stories out there that nobody has ever heard before, and I’m perfect to go find them."

Meredith: I’m wondering when you said earlier that growing up you didn’t feel like you fit in, what do you mean by that and do you think that has anything to do with your interest in talking to the people on the fringes of society? Brent: Yeah, my dad, when I went back through his yearbook, everybody called him "Weird Wes." He almost embraced it. He was a little weird. He was eccentric. But he was well-loved. He didn’t fit in either. He embraced his weirdness. For me, though, I guess, as a teenager and even as a young child, I wanted to fit in. But I never felt like my insides matched what other people were showing on their outsides. I knew that I was feeling things different than what my friends were presenting as far as all types of stuff – sexuality, the way I felt about the world. I don’t know. I’ve always been more empathetic than I think a lot of the hard-ass guys that I hung around with, you know? I think you hear this a lot from people that have suffered from addiction, you just don’t fit in. I fit in, but it wasn’t because they really knew me. It was because of what I presented to the world. Yeah, I think going and finding the fringes of society is very much about telling the stories of people. Yeah, my people. They’re my people.

THE STREETS

Brent Walker

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Brent Walker

THE STREETS

Brent Walker Brent: And it’s the same reason that I spend a lot of time in New Orleans. It’s the acceptance of people that are different. People that are not like everybody else. That’s normal here. Your difference is normal here. It’s a beautiful place. I’ve been coming here since I was three, and I think I’ve always felt more at home here than I ever did in Atlanta. It’s always kind of been my home without being my home. Meredith: There was a man that told you a story, he was homeless, he was talking about how much people would share with him; and if he needed something to eat, he could just walk to the back of a restaurant and ask a chef to make him a sandwich. Brent: His name’s Nolan. Which is odd because it’s only one extra letter from NOLA. Meredith: Oh, yeah!

may seem unimportant as just a homeless man, but he’s not unimportant. A woman I used to date here was a jewelry maker and he used to bring her all these all scraps of metal that she would then turn into these beautiful pieces of art. And he still does that type of stuff. He serves that purpose. He’s a hustler in the best sense of the word. He’s out there hustling every day trying to do good. And I haven’t seen him for a while. I hope he’s finally got that house and that he’s doing good. Meredith: Can you talk a little bit about what the process was like putting your first book out? What did you learn that you wish you had known before you started? Brent: Well, I think I did a lot of things right, and I don’t know why I did them right because I didn’t have experience doing them. I feel like when you’re on the right path, sometimes the wind is at your back and the right people show up and things just click into place. I very much feel like that happened with the first book. For me, it was about posting the stories consistently [on the website]. I would post at least 5 a week, and I really built up an audience. I had one or two people who really helped me financially in the beginning, who didn’t want any recognition, who kind of helped me get my following up. Here’s the thing – I treated it like it was my job before it became my job. So, I went it out there every day and did my job every day and I guess I had faith that it was going to work itself out. And it did. Asking for $25,000 for a book when you’ve never written one before is a lot of money to ask for. And if you look at it logically I probably shouldn’t have been able to do that. But I did it.

"Your difference is normal here."

Brent: I’ve known Nolan for a while. He’s one the people that you see in that area where I work and write and hang out a lot – lower Decatur Street. Yeah, he’s a beautiful guy. And he told that story so beautifully, and I was so happy because right now I’m working on a book about New Orleans specifically – but not just about homelessness or addiction. I want to tell the story of the city that’s so important to me through the stories of other people. And his was the first one of that series, and it was so perfect. So beautiful because it was true. This city is not all peaches and cream. It’s a hard city, and there’s a lot of dark here. But there’s also equal amounts of light, and they just dance together in a beautiful way that you just don’t see in other places. Meredith: So, is that going to be a separate book? Brent: Yes. Right now I’m calling it Down on Decatur. It’s going to be different than anything I’ve ever done because while the hidden South was the region I chose to work within for that project, it was never meant to tell the complete story of the South as much as it highlights the issues of some of the people that are in the South. With this one, I hope to actually do a really good job of telling the story of this really important city through the eyes of people to whom it means a lot. I’m coming at it from a much different way than I came at the first book . . . or even the second book. The second book is about mental health in America. Every story in here is going to be about that subject. This one about New Orleans is going to be across socio-economic lines. I’ll have locally famous musicians in there to people like Nolan who are really the heart and soul of this city. When you look at somebody like him, he

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Richard (New Orleans), Down on Decatur

Brent Walker

Nolan (New Orleans) Brent: You said you would never go hungry in New Orleans? Nolan: That's right, you'll never go hungry. I've walked up to restaurants and asked for food. Or I've asked one of the chefs taking a smoke break, "Man, can you fix me a little something to eat?" and before you know it, they'll go in and bring you something. It never fails. There's one pizza place down here, at one in the morning, you can go by there . . . it's crazy, they'll just give you pizza. It's that kind of city . . . I know God put me out here for a reason, to share him with other people. No matter how down I am, I'm gonna be a positive person. If I catch somebody who's down and out, I'm gonna help in some way, whether it's opening the door or giving a kind word. You're never alone in New Orleans. Someone is gonna reach out to you. â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Excerpt from The Hidden South website www.thehiddensouth.com; Down on Decatur

THE STREETS

Brent Walker Brent: One thing that surprised me was how few people donated that followed the project. What it took was Kickstarter really got behind it, and it was on their home page for like three weeks straight. So, I was getting all of these new people that didn’t know about the project involved that were fans of Kickstarter and were interested in helping people get things over the line. I just think people saw the value in it. So, the process for me was – post every day like it’s your job. And then I did the Kickstarter thing. Once I got the money, surprisingly the $25,000 was almost exactly the dollar amount I needed to get it over the line. Some of that was travel money, and I used it to take the trip around the South to gather more stories. Part of that was to hire a publishing company to do all of the things a publishing company would normally do. I hired this company called Beaver’s Pond Press out in Minnesota, and they did an excellent job for a reasonable amount of money. They provided all of the editing services and project management. They connected me with the printer that I ultimately used. I designed the book myself, but I had never designed anything as big as this book, so they provided the design resources to check my work to make sure it was good to go to print. I interviewed about ten companies before I chose them, and the reason I chose them was because they really saw the value in what I was doing and they really got it. If you look at the list of titles that they’ve produced, they seem like a very unlikely place to produce this type of book, but they did any amazing job.

What ends up happening is you start with this blank canvas but you’ve got a hundred pieces of the puzzle to work with and those are the stories. And the trick is to create a flow within this container, which is the book, to tell a bigger story and paint a bigger picture, and I actually love that process. No matter how successful I became or how many people work on the project, I don’t think I would ever give that up because that’s the part that’s the juiciest. Meredith: When you’re putting the book together, do you find connections between people’s stories? Brent: Yeah, and I try to find the uncommon ones. For example, the first book had an insane amount of sexual abuse in it. A lot of the stories touch on that, so I would never try to connect things through that thread because that thread was so common. In fact, I tried to separate those out just to give the reader a break from it because it was so heavy. But that was hard to do because there were a lot of them and I felt like a lot of them were important in different ways. I try to find the uncommon thread.

"I try to find the uncommon thread."

As far as distributing the book afterwards, I decided that I was going to sell everything I had, as well as my photography business, and buy an RV and travel the South and other places and just tell people about the project and the book; and I’ve been doing that ever since. New Orleans is the easiest place for me to do that. But I’ve done it in Union Square in New York. I’ve set up a table in front of a furniture store in Macon, Georgia on a normal Saturday. I really believe in the project, and I believe that stories can change lives. And I just ordered my fourth round of books, so it’s still going strong. Meredith: Which part of the process is your favorite – collecting the stories, putting the book together, selling the book? Brent: I like all of them in different ways. I love collecting the stories. I don’t like transcribing, so as much as I can afford to, I farm that out to somebody who’s better at it than I am. I do like the process of talking about the book, so when I’m out there selling the book, it’s really more about talking about the work. I like that most of the time. I like putting books together. That’s something I didn’t know I was good at, but I really am.

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Meredith: I did notice the number of people talking about sexual abuse. How do you stay connected to your empathy without feeling overwhelmed by all of the pain these people are carrying around? Brent: Um . . . it’s not always easy. I did an interview the other day with a guy I actually know here in New Orleans named David. He’s been sexually abused since he was three years old. His mom used to send him to deliver weed to a known pedophile at the park when he was five. The amount of abuse that he’s been through. He contracted HIV from a rape when he was 21. So, I’m sitting here and listening to all this stuff, and I know him. I don’t know him well, but we see each other a lot and I’ve known him passively for a couple of years. He’s always kind. He’s got kind eyes. And I really did have a hard time during that interview staying on track because everything he said made me say, “How are you still kind?” It’s tough sometimes.

Brent Walker

David (New Orleans) David: How do you have a defining moment in your life when every single situation feels like a defining moment? I've spent most of my life surviving on the streets since I was a little kid . . . I was fascinated by your project The Hidden South because I understood the hidden part of it because I was that way my whole life . . . I don't tell anybody my story. Brent: Why did you decide to share it with me? David: Because I'm at a point in my life where I feel like I'm so saturated with darkness and bullshit that it's time to unload a little bit and look for something more positive. And funny enough, today was the first day of that change. â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Excerpt from The Hidden South podcast, Down on Decatur www.thehiddensouth.com

THE STREETS

Brent Walker

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Brent Walker Brent: I think when I was working on the book, and I was doing like five stories a week for the first part, you kind of put the empathy aside, in a way. I was so focused on getting the stories and finishing the project that I did put that to the side and somehow you kind of compartmentalize. When I was done with the book, it really hit me hard. Not only had I heard these stories first-hand, but I had listened to them over and over when transcribing them, and I had read them over and over when going back over the book. I had to take a break. In fact, I didn’t do any stories for a long time. I would try, and it would just flop because I just didn’t have the will to do any more. It’s just now in the last two months that I’ve been gearing things back up.

"I've got to find hope." I think it was important for me to do the first book, but I need balance. And that’s why I asked David when we were almost done talking, “Tell me about the best day of your life.” And he did. It was about when he was ten and went to ride horses for the first time and it was beautiful story. I can’t do another book like the first book . . . I mean, it needed to be done, but I can’t do that over and over again. So, I’ve got to find hope. And I did that with the mental health project. I went to places that were peer support type of places. I went to places that were helping people get off of anti-psychotics.

THE STREETS

Brent Walker Brent: In Vermont, there was this farm and that’s what their purpose is – to help people get off anti-psychotics and to learn to live with what they have going on. I visited another place in San Francisco called Hearing the Voices where they teach people how to live with the voices they hear. I tried to find hope. I tried to find the experts that were doing different things with PTSD out of necessity for myself as much as I want to show the world that there’s a different way than the path that we’re choosing. And the path that we’re choosing right now is with all of our eggs in the pharmaceutical basket. And there are other ways. Better ways. Meredith: Do you have tattoos on your knuckles? Brent: I do. I’ve been thinking about it for years. Yeah, so I’m a big believer. I’ve been passively working on a book about knuckle tats, and I see it as more of bathroom book than a coffee table book. Very short stories about why people get these because usually they have very important meanings behind them and oftentimes they are a predictor of what life is going to be like for that person. You know, if you have “Hard Luck” on your knuckles, I almost guarantee that that’s what you are experiencing or what you have experienced or what you’re going to experience. It’s a predictor. I saw this Erica Baydu video and she’s stripping off her clothes and at the end of the video, it’s got “Evolving” written across her back. When I saw that I was like – “Wait, that’s eight letters. That’s perfect!” And it says “Love” backwards. Meredith: Aw, that’s cool.

it before I put it out there, “Are you OK with that?” And she said, “Yeah, of course.” I guess I was struggling with it being so personal, but this project is very personal to me. So at the end of the day, I think it would have lacked if I didn’t leave that in there. Meredith: I thought that was good. As a reader, you don’t know exactly what that means, but it still touches you. It’s kind of a mystery but a bit of . . . it was touching. I’m glad you left it in. Brent: Well, good. As long as it was touching. That’s what I was hoping for. And the fact that it’s ambiguous, that’s actually perfect. Meredith: Going back to when you are going out and interviewing people, do people open up to you pretty easily or does it take a while for them to feel comfortable? Brent: Usually it happens quickly or it doesn’t happen. I am very clear about what I’m looking for as far as I ask people to tell me about something that really changed their life or impacted them profoundly for better or worse. So, that’s our jumping off point . . . I don’t spend hours getting to know somebody before they open up to me. I think part of it is that I’m pretty open about my own life. Anything from my past I freely share with whoever. So, people know that I’ve had my own issues with addiction, and I’m happy to talk about those things. Sexual abuse. All that stuff. I think that really helps people open up. I think the fact is that most people want to be heard even if it’s a difficult story. A lot of people I’ve talk to, nobody ever asked them. Nobody ever wanted to hear to their story.

Brent: Yeah, so it’s the perfect tattoo for me. Meredith: Even though some of the tattoo stories had some hard elements, it seems like they have a more positive outlook on the future in working through their issues. Brent: A lot of them, yeah. The one I posted two weeks ago was tough. It was about doing time in prison. That one was pretty hard. But the one I posted last week was a friend of mine Alison and her tattoo says “Much Love” and it was a beautiful story, and I really struggled with leaving that last part in where I asked her if she has anything else to add and she says, “I’ll love you forever.” That was very personal. And I asked her about

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"Most people want to be heard even if it's a difficult story."

Brent Walker

Carlos, Inked Soul

THE STREETS

Brent Walker Meredith: I saw your two different posts on Tory, who you took twice to rehab. Oh, the first time you took her to rehab, and the second time you took her to her grandmother’s house. How does it affect you when you’re trying to help someone and then you see them again and it seems like they’re in the same situation? Brent: I don’t know. Tory is a sweet woman, and ever since the first time I met her, she’s been very open about sharing everything with me. As you can tell from the photos, she doesn’t shy away . . . I don’t ever ask someone if I can photograph them shooting up. I think she wants people to see the pain that she’s in. It’s hard because I see the beauty in her and I see the potential in her. She’s very intelligent. The hard thing for me to wrap my head around is that she grew up in a seemingly good home. I think she had sisters who were never sexually abused. And she got sexually abused over and over and over again. I don’t really understand that. I feel like – “Why her?” And why do some people just have it so bad. And she just seems to attract people into her life – I don’t know if that’s the right word because I don’t want to say that it’s her fault in anyway, because I don’t think that – but I do feel like some people attract certain people into their life. And maybe some people are drawn to a darker side of things. I don’t know. Yeah, it’s hard. And I think about her often. I wouldn’t say that we’ve spent enough time for us to be friends, but I feel like she’s somebody that I care about and I wish the best for her, and I do think about how she’s doing out there because the Bluff is a tough place. Meredith: When you were talking about as a teenager dealing with addiction. Was it alcohol or drugs? Brent: When I was a teenager, I would just do anything. And I was actually talking to somebody about this the other day. I’m not sure I actually had an addiction when I was 17 years old. I knew that I was broken, and I knew that I was abusing alcohol and drugs, so there were these options that were presented to me. And you just go with those options at the time. It wasn’t like

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I was shaking when I was waking up because I didn’t have a drink. I wasn’t physically addicted to – cocaine is not physically addictive – but I had all of these life problems, and I didn’t know how to deal with them. I was in a lot of pain, and I was trying to kill pain. I think at the time, treatment seemed like a good idea because somehow they would fix those underlying things. I didn’t consciously think any of this, but when I look back on it now, that’s probably what I was doing. I don’t think I actually had an addiction to alcohol until late 20s or early 30s, but I would go for periods – like I would be sober for a year and then drop off again for a month or two and then get sober for six months. So, I would have these periods of sobriety. And then I would do the normal 12-step type of things and that would save me for a while. I reference 12-step programs in the book more than once. I haven’t had a drink in 15 years. I really think the difference for me was finding photography. That’s been the big difference – finding a way for me to express myself and finding a way to . . . I don’t want to say I shifted addictions, but I did in a way. Find something that’s healthy for you that actually produces good, and you just go with that. For my dad, it was shifting from alcohol to Jesus. For me, that never worked. It was photography and storytelling. Doing what I do and talking about the project all the time. All those things are what keep me healthy. Plus, I’ve healed so much in the last 15 years. And since 2014 when this project began, I’m a totally different person than when I started this project. It’s transformed me in a profound way. Meredith: I would assume talking to people might help you work through some of your pain but also feel like you’re helping them by listening to them? Is it a helpful process? Brent: Yes. The only reason AA works is because the person that was before you is now helping the next guy out. It’s called service work, and so for me, this is my service work. I haven’t gone to a meeting in years, and I don’t predict going back to those. For me, they served their purpose. I’m glad they were there when I needed them. But it’s not for me anymore. What is for me is some of the principals that I learned during that process, and the main one was service work.

Brent Walker

"Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m a totally different person than when I started this project." THE STREETS

Brent Walker Brent: It was this idea of giving back what was freely given to me. For me, that is telling the stories and the ability to let go of some of these things and have power over them instead of letting them have power over me. I think that’s where the shift happens. At one point, the fact that I had some sexual abuse in my childhood, I would have taken a bullet rather than divulge that information. I really would have. I was toxically afraid of being called gay. So, I would never have told anybody. But now, me being able to share that, I’ve got power over that. It’s given me power in my life and I’ve used that to create a whole new life for myself and this project and all these great things have come out of that thing that happened to me. But at one point, it was so toxic because I wasn’t able to share it that it was threatening to kill me. So, that’s what I do with my life. I do this thing that I feel like I was called to do and hopefully it helps some other people.

And then I’m just getting started on one about New Orleans. Who knows which of those will come out first. My hope is that the mental health one does because it’s ready, but we’ll see . . .

Follow Brent on Instagram @thehiddensouth and on his website at www.thehiddensouth.com where you can read all of his interviews and listen to his new podcast and purchase his book.

Meredith: I think your vulnerability in your work does help other people. So, your very next book will be the one on mental health. Is that right? Brent: That’s my hope. I’ve got all the stories compiled. I’ve got the book ready. I think because of the people that I sought out to talk to – the people that were doing things in alternative ways – the gentleman that was funding the project wasn’t comfortable with that. So, he decided not to fund it to completion. I was not surprised. I tried to let him know along the way, who I was talking to. I need about $15,000 to complete that book, so I’m just trying to figure out right now how I want to go about doing that. What I think might happen is that I may do a Kickstarter. I know I’ve got some organizations that are willing to give part of the money, so I don’t know exactly when that’s going to come out. I hope soon because the stories in there are really important, and I think the experts that I talk to in there are really important. I talk to people like Robert Whitaker who wrote a book called Mad in America, which to me is the most honest recollection of mental health in the U.S. for the last couple hundred years. He does a really good job of telling the story of how crazy our system is. He has another book that deals specifically with pharmaceuticals and our dependence on pharmaceuticals. I interviewed Elyn Saks who has a best selling book called The Center Cannot Hold. She’s been diagnosed with schizophrenia, and she’s a law professor out in California and is tremendously successful and has this TED Talk that if you’ve never seen her TED Talk, it’s really worth checking out. A lot of people who are very influential in that world talked to me for this book. I feel like it’s a really good accumulation of all the stories backed by some of this information about new things people are doing.

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Check his website to find out how you can be involved in getting his next book out into the world . . .

Brent Walker

Alex (Atlanta, Georgia), page 138 of The Hidden South

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Not the End

" Writing gave kids something as far as branching out and meeting people. There is no racism in graffiti because we're all brothers and sisters through the paint." â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Ban

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2 in Hip Hop Files by Martha Cooper

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Not the End

Photograph by Meredith M Howard @meredith_m_howard Featuring Ashton Willis Graffiti by DEK @dek2dx

Get out of your bubble and back on the streets... Follow us on Instagram @thestreetsmagazine

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Photograph by Meredith M Howard Photograph by Meredith M Howard