Episode 69: Jason REVOK

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

I think we're ready.

SPEAKER_2 (0:01)

All right.

Heather Jones (0:02)

Good afternoon.

SPEAKER_2 (0:02)

Thank you all for being here.

Heather Jones (0:04)

My name is Heather Jones.

SPEAKER_2 (0:05)

I'm a curator at Drunk Art Pilgrims and Engagement here at The Contemporary Dayton.

SPEAKER_4 (0:08)

Thank you for spending this beautiful day with us.

SPEAKER_2 (0:10)

It's so nice. The sun is beautiful out there.

Heather Jones (0:14)

Thank you.

SPEAKER_2 (0:15)

It's a great turnout. We're really excited and honored to have two of the most influential artists of our time here with us today, Jason REVOK and Mike Giant. They'll be in conversation, talk a little bit about their experiences, things that they've learned in the past that may still influence their work, and who knows what else? We're just going to see what we talk about. Quick reminder, we have Kyle's produce available for sale, as well as a limited amount of his prints. If any of you are interested in those, they are available for purchase up at our welcome desk.

One quick housekeeping note, this is a historic building, so restrooms are a little challenging.

SPEAKER_4 (1:04)

But for our purposes today, the restrooms are outside our door.

SPEAKER_2 (1:08)

Turn left, you'll turn back into the building again, and then grab one of these before you go, because it has the restroom code to get into the door. So, thank you for your, oh, thank you, and there's a stack of them back by the door, so there are cameras in there, blind room.

Thank you for your support. We are, again, a nonprofit organization, so it means a great deal that you were here supporting us today. So, without further ado, I'm gonna turn it over to Jason and Mike.

Michael LeSage (1:42)

Right on.

SPEAKER_6 (1:43)

Thank you guys for coming out today.

SPEAKER_4 (1:45)

Yeah.

Michael LeSage (1:45)

Thank you. Thank you.

I guess to the people, I see a lot of people I've never seen before. My name is Mike. I moved here to Dayton about a year and a half ago from San Diego.

SPEAKER_1 (1:59)

I've been writing graffiti since 89, and must have first seen your work early 90s, I suppose, this is when I first started seeing it.

SPEAKER_6 (2:11)

In the magazines?

SPEAKER_1 (2:12)

That's what I'm thinking.

SPEAKER_9 (2:14)

Tower Records magazine, right?

Michael LeSage (2:16)

Exactly. I learned from two guys, one guy that wrote a degree from Brooklyn, and another dude that wrote Doc from LA.

SPEAKER_1 (2:27)

Doc learned from a lot of guys in a crew called WCA, West Coast Artists. They were the best quintessential West Coast style graffiti crew.

Michael LeSage (2:42)

At the time, the styles between the coasts were very different.

SPEAKER_1 (2:48)

I felt like I got a real opportunity in having teachers from both sides.

Michael LeSage (2:54)

But that said, I would say part of that WCA lineage.

SPEAKER_9 (3:00)

Yeah, for sure. WCA, AWR, KSN, but I also grew up also really looking to K2S and STN a lot too.

TCF, TCF are guys that maybe don't get as much recognition, but they were more focused on the valley and the west side, like Mystik, and I'm drawing a blank right now. That craft is setting in, but there was a lot of really, really good style guys from TCF.

Jason Revok (3:30)

But AWR was definitely like the little step brother for like WCA, KSN.

Michael LeSage (3:38)

That's what I understood, that there was like the kind of some of the founders that might not have been at WCA were adjacent. And then AWR came onto the scene.

And it really, from my perspective, it seemed like you guys just took it to this next level. For sure. That WCA had already kind of set.

SPEAKER_9 (3:58)

And then also too, I was from this crew AM7, which was another crew from Los Angeles founded by this guy, Krenz, who he's literally the first guy to paint pieces of billboards.

Jason Revok (4:10)

Like he started painting full-blown pieces with characters and everything and incorporating the imagery of the billboards, working around it and playing with the imagery that was already there in the late 80s, probably 88, 89, he started doing that.

SPEAKER_9 (4:26)

And he was a huge inspiration on me.

Jason Revok (4:29)

I grew up in the suburbs of Southern California, like about 50, 60 miles outside of LA, Riverside. And so for me, the scene was in Los Angeles. Everything I wanted to be and be a part of was happening in LA.

SPEAKER_9 (4:47)

I ended up, I got kicked out of my house when I was 15

SPEAKER_12 (4:50)