Sentrock

Joseph “Sentrock” Perez is from “Bird City” a.k.a Phoenix, AZ. His family of origin came from Central America before Arizona was ever a state. Sentrock grew up on the west side of Phoenix and much of that culture has played into his current artistic perspective. He began by working solely with graffiti, but is evolving into a world-class muralist and gallery artist. He now lives in Chicago, IL and is studying art and design at Columbia College.     

This past weekend we had the opportunity to meet and experience his work. He laid down a fantastic mural behind the Geer home in the North Lawndale neighborhood, South Chicago. The theme was “From struggle comes strength” which was an inspiring message to a neighborhood that has seen much struggle. His offering was personal, vibrant, and we were taken with his humble spirit.

Typically we humans tend to clump into scenes, cliques and hang with people who have similar backgrounds or preferences in life. That isn’t a bad thing but it does limit the creative possibilities. To me there is something exciting about the union of differing cultural, creative and philosophical ideals! So, when we heard about Sentrock we were eager to meet him, hear his story and share ours. My hope was that there would be a connection and an opportunity for our creativeness to collide. My hope was that just as we were inspired by Sentrock, that he would be inspired by our family and desire to share his talents by painting a mural on our bus.

We put it out there. Sentrock responded graciously and with enthusiasm that he would be keen to paint a mural on our bus. He came by to visit our space, took home our CD and is using all of it to source inspiration for the design.

We will continue a relationship with our new friend and are excited to see what inspiration comes from the urban, folky connection.

Stay tuned for what may come as we wait with anticipation for the creativity to flow.

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Australia; Tagging

 

We got off of the United flight in Tullamarine (MEL) and found our way to the local fish and chips shop. It had been 5 years since our last visit and our mouths were watering. The sun was bright, the roads busy, everything was moving quickly. We were exahausted from the 30 hour trip but awake enough to take note of all of the grafitti tagging. It was glaring us in the face from the moment we found the car in the car park, on the way to the fish and chips shop and all the way home. It was on road signs, fences, electrical boxes, walls, every surface. At first, we though it might be the region we were in but found that the random squiggles of paint were everywhere, in beautiful upper class areas, remote beach areas, everywhere.

 

What were they trying to communicate? What were they trying to say? In a highly regulated and rule centric country I wondered, was it rebellion in the truest sense or just a bored power trip? Or was it a call for help?