Q&A
What started as a Philly graffiti crew is now a nationwide network of artists — and they’re reuniting for a milestone exhibit this weekend. The Great Escape co-founder Esteme reflects on art, risk, and connection.
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A work by TGE co-founder Esteme. / Photograph courtesy of Esteme
Twenty-five years sounds like an eternity in the life of a graffiti crew, but veteran Philly street artist Esteme is quick to point out that Imperial Casanova Persuaders has been at it since the late ’60s. Nonetheless, it’s been an impressive run so far for the always evolving TGE (The Great Escape) crew founded by Esteme, Curve, and co. way back in 2001.
In the beginning, TGE was a Philly thing, but it gradually became diversified as its members moved to different cities and intermingled with other artists. This weekend they’re celebrating 25 years of art-making with a handsome new book and an exhibition at WP Gallery (1611 Walnut Street), starting with a reception this Saturday.
Last week, Esteme led me around the gallery beaming like a proud big brother at the pieces he and his fellow artists had created for the strikingly eclectic group show. Some were already on the walls, others were waiting to be mounted: tangled three-dimensional sculptures by Totem of Atlanta, thick lettered comics-inspired works by Curve, plus pieces by Faipe of New York/Brazil, Jurne from Oakland/Portland, and more. Another TGE forefather June (aka Japs) — born in Tokyo, now based in Brooklyn — is known for his vibrant, puzzling writing on freight trains in English and Japanese. His contributions to the show include a piece on cement, another made of puffy carpet, etc. It’s going to be an eclectic show.
The Mount Airy-born Esteme got his start in the mid-’90s, donning oversize army surplus fatigues from I. Goldberg and learning to write at a derelict basketball court near Central High. Soon he met up with Curve from CAPA, and June from the Art Institute, and other like-minded artists. They’d hang out at Tower Records on South Street studying graffiti mags from Europe, and giving it a go around town. “A lot of people would say I’m very much rooted in 1980s train graffiti in New York that inspired these European writers,” says Esteme. “But then I spun it with stuff I learned from Totem in Atlanta, and stuff I learned from Detr who was from Portland, Oregon, and Bias who was from Brooklyn. I have bread crumbs from all of that.”
You’ve probably seen Esteme’s work on walls, in underpasses, and the sides of trains around town. He even contributed to Steve “ESPO” Powers’s beloved Love Letters series along the El. “First time I got paid for spraying anything,” he smiles.
With so much of the crew living all over the country, this Saturday’s reception at WP Gallery will double as a reunion. I wouldn’t be surprised if some new artwork sprung up around town by the time the weekend’s over.
Esteme setting up for TGE’s group show at WP Gallery / Photograph by Patrick Rapa
To an outsider like me, a lot of street art feels like a lone voice calling out from the wilderness. What’s the point of a crew?
I remember being in LOVE Park and people telling me you can’t write without a crew. I didn’t have a crew, and I wasn’t put down with any crews. At this point, I’ve turned down crews. I’ve left crews, you know, we’ve had to remove people from our crew, and all of that. Our reason for a crew — I mean, we loved graffiti art first and foremost. That’s where we’ve bonded. It’s the love for letters and the composition of pieces and letters and tags. And I think that’s not everybody. Some people get in because they’ve had charmed lives but want to get messier through the messiness of graffiti. Graffiti is their gateway into street life. But Philly is also the home to probably the most writers who really use graffiti as a creative outlet to get out of street life. You see people who are into all types of crazy things to make money and other things, but could be just walking bus routes and tagging is a way for them to find a little mindful creative space.
Is that what TGE is for you?
It’s a collective of people who taught us something, who we got into crazy adventures with. The type of adventures that make you want to put somebody down. Like Faipe [from Brazil] is the most recent addition to our crew. We went to South Philly Barbacoa and put him down.
Put him down?
Asked him to be a part of the crew. You thought I meant beating him down? [We both laugh.]
Yeah, but first you got really good Mexican food.
At that point he already had organic connections with us all, and painted with Mast and Curve and Jedi and even Jurne. I was the last one; this weekend we painted.
Curve at work / Photograph courtesy of Esteme
It’s amazing that TGE is still at it 25 years later.
It’s a way to stay connected and branded, for lack of a better word, when you’re separate from people. [In the 2000s] Curve was in New York doing his thing. I was in Atlanta doing my thing with people he hadn’t yet really bonded with. We all were under the same umbrella, and then people get to meet. And this exhibit is a rare opportunity. Totem, he’s got four boys who are all prodigious graffiti writers, breakdancers and other things. So some of us have kids now. I have a two-year-old. So we all get to find space to be together, despite other things going on in life.
Do you think your two year old will get into —
[Laughs] I hope not. In Philly, you’d be surprised — in New York too — currently, there’s a lot of father-son graffiti duos.
What’s it like tagging a train and knowing you may never see that piece again?
It’s exciting to do stuff and know it’s traveling, but it’s also a stereotypical letter-in-the-bottle type of thing. You enjoy the moment and there’s some peace of mind and wonder in knowing it’s out there somewhere. … I lived in Atlanta for four years [for college]. I was painting trains — I pretty much lived on the train tracks. People would paint that yard, but I would beat everybody there because I could see the trains from my window. By far the most fun graffiti era. People weren’t painting super huge. There was still a lot of space on trains. This is ’98 to 2002. You don’t like what you did, you do another one the next day, you just keep it moving. Then you catch that one that you didn’t like, and you like it. We painted in Queen Lane in Germantown and at Whitehall yard in Atlanta, I saw the same super large flat trains.
Do you ever like interact with hobos and rail riders and people like that?
There’s a yard that I’ve seen a lot of those people get off at here in Philly. And I don’t really mess with that too much … I associate the whole culture with like the Bay, and the Northwest. There’s a place where we painted auto racks, which are freights that hold cars — big silver things with lots of perforated holes. The only time I’ve ridden a train — the way it works is you try to paint it in an hour, and if you don’t finish, like clockwork, they take the trains down the tracks about a mile. So my boy was like, “Yo, you gotta get on the train.” So we got on different ladders on different sides of this one car that we started painting, and then we rode it a mile down, and then got off and finished.
Was that terrifying?
You know, it was a beautiful night. I’m pretty anxious in those types of situations. So, had my arms probably in the craziest yoga pose around those ladder bars. But luckily, it was only going 15 miles an hour. It’s just one of those moments. I was like, I’m glad my mom’s not seeing this.
Works by June / Photograph by Patrick Rapa
I imagine you can run into all kinds of people in this world.
I joke that there’s only like five percent of the graffiti community that you really want to meet. I’ve been lucky to meet all five percent of them. So I’ve been lucky to have good experiences and good people connected to my graffiti journey, which is probably the rare scenario.
Why don’t you want to meet other 95 percent?
Graffiti in my life has encouraged other, you know, elements of legal ambiguity. I think that’s just being around people who are in that [world]. At the end of the day, you’re probably gonna be a little different if you’re down to paint a passenger train in a city … and research that, study it, clip a fence, walk in, paint something colorful for 30 minutes just for a picture that you really don’t want to show anybody because you don’t trust them to not share.
The Great Escape opens on April 4th, with a reception from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., at WP Gallery, 1611 Walnut Street, mezzanine.
