CRAIG COSTELLO: I never studied painting.
All my experience with putting paint on
something came from graffiti.
And the kind of graffiti I did was always really simple.
As I started to paint in a studio, I would paint these
letters and straight lines and everything.
And I would try to make it perfect, and it
just drove me insane.
I grew up in New York.
I'm from Queens, Forest Hills.
And I grew up, I was a teenager in the '80s, and I
was into skating and everything from hardcore to
hip-hop, punk rock.
I grew up in a culture of like, you stole your paint,
you wrote illegally, you made your own markers, or you found
your own caps.
And you took care of them, and it was all tools.
And you had to learn and understand
everything on your own.
Like this cap was good for this, or this paint was no
good, or whatever it was.
When I started just doing drips on doors or mailboxes, I
got a lot of positive feedback.
People were really interested in it, they thought it was
really cool.
The fire extinguishers is something that I didn't invent
it, I wasn't the first one to use it for those means.
But it was another example of reappropriating something to
basically use as a tool.
It acted very similarly to the markers that I made.
I moved to San Francisco.
I went to school for photography.
I lived there from '92 to '98.
I don't know, it was easier to get materials.
So from a graffiti sense, paint was more accessible,
markers were more accessible, all kinds of things were more
accessible to me.
Because in New York, stuff is so locked down.
I probably started making Krink around '93,
and that was it.
There's was no business plan, there was no T-shirt company,
there was no street art.
It was just friends and having a good time.
I was able to have my own aesthetic on the street and
stand out from the rest of the people.
And since I had my own kind of tool and materials, people had
to figure that out just to get to where I was.
So it was just being that little bit ahead of the curve.
So I moved back to New York.
I was living in the Lower East Side, and I met these guys who
opened a store called ALIFE.
They were just like, look, this is really interesting
what you're doing.
We think you could sell it--
we'll help you.
And it became this creative project.
I made some Krink.
We made a logo, we made some labels, put some
directions on it.
Put it in their store and it sold out right away.
So they got press.
They had Krink there, other shops saw that and wanted it.
And then at the same time I would hook up
with the Irak crew.
They were young, I was a little bit older at that time
so I wasn't really going hard.
These guys were really going hard.
And so I'd give them Krink, and they would just be out
every night writing until all of downtown
was basically covered.
And that got a lot of attention because everybody's
like what is that?
What is that?
How are they doing it?
It's Krink.
I run a business as one part of something that I do.
But I also work on art and design projects.
And it's really difficult sometimes to be doing both,
because mentally they can be really different spaces.
People ask the question.
Like oh, you were in the street, should stay in street.
And who's to say that I'm not allowed to evolve?
And I really love being behind the brand sometimes, because
the brand is more-- it's a brand, it's not really me.
And I kind of like just brand it and market it.
With me sometimes, it's like stuff is emotional, and I kind
of want to have to be able to do whatever the
hell I want to do.
There's definitely been some great opportunities for public
art projects and travel.
And I think that a lot of people are beginning to try to
organize things themselves.
And I've definitely been involved in things where they
get the community involved, the local community.
And they get business owners to contribute walls.
They fly in artists from all over to paint on walls as part
of greater public art project.
And it's all people who are just really interested in art,
but maybe it's not a formal gallery setting.
It's more interested in the public
space and youth culture.
TIFFANY TANAKA: We are at Loft in Space in Honolulu, Hawaii.
I've been on Queen Street for about the
past eight years now.
Slowly made my way into this warehouse.
We acquired the front, we had a denim store.
And before the denim store we had a streetware store called
Queens, and we carried Krink.
So I was in contact with Krink about five years ago.
And when we were planning these shows, I thought it
would be so cool to bring him here because he's such an
inspiration to so many artists out here.
And the simplicity of what he does is amazing.
But he's the expert in dripping and ink.
One big thing for both of us, I think , is
art for social change.
And it really affects what's going on, and especially our
economy in Hawaii.
JASPER WONG: I've lived in Portland and San Francisco and
Japan and Hong Kong.
And she's lived in San Francisco and New York and
Paris and stuff.
And we're exposed to lots of that kind of
artwork and we love it.
We wanted to bring what we saw out there in
those cities to Hawaii.
We knew it was going to be hard.
We knew that there was going to be a huge educational
aspect to it, because it's not as common
here to have art shows.
How's it coming?
Good?
MALE SPEAKER: Oh, yeah.
CRAIG COSTELLO: I've definitely done some
sculptural pieces, and I'm really interested in working
the sculpture.
And this comes back to like, this is very architectural.
And I'm also do things that are very minimal, and those
things are really interesting to me.
So I think that this shape and this size is really not
foreign to me at all.
I've done a couple of things that have been much smaller.
But I just felt, this space, there was a really good
opportunity, and Jasper and Tiffany were down.
And they're ambitious, and I think this is ambitious.
It's still a small underground space.
We're just trying to make something happen that is going
to be a little different maybe from some of the other things
that they've done.
I've definitely done a few things like this that are
really buildings, or large walls, interior or exterior,
all painted with fire extinguishers.
I've done all over, from Moscow to Prague--
I've been really fortunate.
Dry.
The wall is hot.
You're really dealing with architecture.
You're dealing with the angle of how a wall is seen.
Or maybe it's a rooftop, and you've got to climb to it.
Or maybe it's got a corner, or there's a ledge, and you've
got to stand on a foot-wide ledge to paint the wall.
And you're painting a 10-foot wall by as tall as you can
reach or something.
And all of those things make you consider space really
differently.
And so that was a really big influence
for sure on my process.
I don't write graffiti anymore, but I still see how
it's such a big influence on what I do and how I do it.
In the beginning I had done some stuff with more colors.
But then I just pared it down and just kind of worked within
a smaller palette.
Because it was just easier to make decisions.
I really like yellow and blue, and it was really just the
blending of them making green that became really
interesting.
They're very natural colors-- it's like the sun and the sky.
And it might sound corny, but it's true.
And I think that there's something that people
recognize in that.
With colors, because I've always been in this urban
environment, I can bring a lot to those often drab places.
So this is a cinder block wall.
It's not necessarily architecturally noteworthy,
but I think to bring color to that is part of something that
I'm just interested in doing.
When you do stuff in the public space, basically anyone
can see it.
It's free, and it's available, and people come by.
And there's a reaction, and it's almost always positive.
Oftentimes more people care about just advertising
something, but I think that public art is important.