I finally got to perform without my mentor (Cody Spicer) for the first time in El Dorado, KS at Butler County Community College's "Spring Fling" celebration. Cody had been pushing me to do solo performances since the very begining, knowing that would be the best way for me to grow and branch out as a freelancing spraypaint artist. Needless to say, I was incredibly nervous, not knowing what to expect, who would be there watching me, or how the paintings would turn out because I hadn't painted at all since last summer! The rain clouds lumbering overhead didn't help things, either. Oh, the pressure was definately on.
So, I got there in a round about way after getting lost 2 or 3 times. Honestly, getting to El Dorado isn't very complecated, but I had to get there from Andover right after a class, which I had never done before. Couple that with all the stress I was feeling at the time and it's understandable how I could get lost like that. Anyway, I asked my teacher for directions, which got me totally lost. Then I stopped at a gas station, that was closed for remodeling! There were people in there so I just strolled right in regardless and asked for directions that got me back on track. So here I am, driving down this ramshackle two-way road in the right direction, but with no idea whether or not this path was going to hit my mark. After driving for what seemed like an eternity, the road dead-ended at what must have been the largest powerplant that I had ever seen. It was then that I lost all hope, took a left-hand turn, and ran smack into Butler County Community College of El Dorado, not even a mile down the street!
Ok, now for the good stuff, my very first solo performance. I arrived at the school around noon and quickly found out what part of the campus that Spring Fling was taking place on. Luckily, I had parked near it in the only available parking spot close to the school, which made it a lot easier to unload all my performance supplies. Karma had definitely shifted in my favor because everything just fell into place for me after that. For one, they already had, not one, but two canopy tents set up for me in a nicely wind-blocked area, which if you've ever painted in Kansas, then you know how important that is. I started things off with a few black and white paintings to get myself nice and warmed up. The new paint I was using had chemical problems at the start, but once I started braking in the new cans, they went away. After that I started feeling real dizzy because I hadn't eaten anything all day and the fumes were really getting to me. So I took a half-hour lunch break and jumped right back into painting, this time incorperateing color.
Alright, I'm getting in danger of righting a book on this thing, so I'll close out with one of my favorite stories that I took with me from the performance. There I was, probably on my 2nd or 3rd color painting when I hear some guy in the crowd yeal out for everyone else to hear, "Hey, this looks like some great graffiti art!" My blood started boiling! I can't stand when someone who doesn't understand what I'm really doing right in front of him or her, and calls it graffiti. I'm no tagger and I just wanted to stop what I was painting right then and there to have a "word" with him. Then, almost immediately after, one of the students that had been watching me from the very beginning, who had never even seen spraypaint art before, confronted him saying,"Dude, this is not graffiti. What he's doing right there is to graffiti as Van Gough is to finger painting." Just came up with that off the top of his head. I almost cried. That made me so happy, I just wanted to jump over the table and huge him. It made me think to myself,"Finally, people were getting it." I gave him my first-ever solo-performance painting, and I never give any of my firsts away.
Here are some of my performance pics. Thanks for reading!
