Nico Hend Creative | Mission District Graffiti Murals

OG Joker One coming at you from the alleyways in the Mission. You know, about to let you know how it goes down, how we get these walls, how we paint these walls, how we decide who's gonna paint these walls. We've got certain people, uh, keeping up the alleys, looking out for it, making sure there's no weak stuff that goes up or stays up, making sure that when there's something ugly It gets gone over, somebody better comes over, you know, trying to maintain the quality and the level of art we have out here. So right now we're in Cypress Alley, a little alleyway near 24th and Mission, and this alley has just been added to the Lilac Alley mural project, which started in Lilac Alley a few blocks over, first moved over to the other side of Mission on Osage, And then now, uh, the curator Randolph Bowes, he, uh, talked to as many of the property owners and residents here as he could to have this alleyway added to the mural project. So, um, the mural project is, uh, the Lilac Alley Mural Project is basically like a living, breathing, constantly evolving, uh, public art gallery. Yeah. Is the best way to describe it. And we have all kinds of artists, mostly graffiti artists homegrown in San Francisco, who regulate the walls, but all kinds of artists from all over the world that actually come to San Francisco, and this is where they come to paint. We do it for the community, you know. For a lot of us, graffiti saved our lives back in the days when it was a choice between, you know, being in gangs or selling drugs or doing graffiti. And those of us that were lucky enough to get hooked on graffiti Now years later are, you know, doing art, public works of art for our communities and for the families and the residents and everybody who's out here. They're very nice. So they don't have to see the little toy-ass taggers everywhere, you know. Taggers, keep to certain spots, but don't tag on people's personal property, you know. So that's why we come out here, add a little color to the streets. The Zoo. Pango was doing pieces on these walls in this same alley before there was such a thing as graffiti in the way you think of it now. I'm talking early '80s, '83, I think '82, '83, something like that. Like before New York graffiti on trains became a fad, uh, that spread to the West Coast. They were like doing cholo pieces back in the day. So it's always an honor to, uh, paint next to my man Pango. You got Mase, another San Francisco OG who's recently come out in the last couple years to paint. It's like, I don't know, some, some weird like thing going on in the universe where all this whole generation of people are, are being like pulled back towards street art as it has like another resurgence. It's kind of like a modern-day Renaissance in a way, is the way I look at it. Like All these old dudes, and I'm one of them, that came up, you know, the '80s babies that were in middle school and high school in the '80s, '90s. Coming up on 3 years, and since then I've managed to, you know, reestablish myself in the graffiti game. You know, started out bombing. I didn't go straight to piecing because, you know, in this game you gotta earn your walls, you know what I mean? You really gotta pay your dues. Really, I just do these pieces so I can justify my bombing when I go out, because at my age, as a bomber, it's just not a good look, you know? We like to play up the art, and there's definitely a benefit to that. I'm turning 30 this year. I just don't really consider myself an artist, but I guess I am. I've been putting art in the streets now for about 2 years straight and getting a lot of positive response from that. I have a whole following of young people that That I try to, you know, help mentor as much as I can to, you know, follow their dreams through art. Yeah.