Will: So, let’s start, what’s your favorite food?
Foan: I forgot they always start off with this. Fuck, I should have been more prepared. I’m going to go with a breakfast sandwich.
Will: Sausage? Bacon?
Foan: Just egg and cheese, I don’t eat meat. And preferably $2 and from a gas station on the side of the road.
Will: Do you have a favorite Philly place to go?
Foan: I got to say the carts in front of City Hall because you get it on the Amoroso rolls, not the full-size cheesesteak one the little ones. And they use Siracha as the default hot sauce. Last I checked it was $2.50 and you can get a cup of watery ass coffee. It’s beautiful.
Will: How did you start doing graffiti or art as a whole.
Foan: I had always played music and then I moved to Philly and did not have any friends immediately. And I had started drawing on some stickers my friend gave me before I moved. So I spent the first couple weekends hold up in my room drawing on these postal labels I found, the venerated label 228. And started posting them all around. Then I quickly realized that there’s like a whole world of this going on. I started more in the political realm doing sloganeering and stuff. It eventually just turned into becoming aware of characters, letter design, and learning how letters work together. Learning different inks, markers, different shading techniques, 3D etc. And by that point I was hooked because Philly had such a rich hand drawn sticker scene.
Will: I see a lot of Philly artist focus on characters. What made you learn towards your style.
Foan: I had a couple characters in the mix, a couple different visual things. But if you ask a graffiti writer versus a graffiti artist, depending how you want to spilt that. Graffiti is a love of letters. And I’m someone who was in special education for my penmanship when I was in elementary school. So, I kind of took it as a challenge and I really liked the idea of taking a bit of text and turning it into a more graphic representation of a letter. Along with learning the structure for example how the open counter on a C has a lot of negative space and how are you going to manage that with the letter next to it. And I found all of that very, very fascinating. The way I think of blanks, particularly 228s, essentially are a portable and modular black book. And you have this thing that’s on a background that is associated with graffiti culture and sticker culture. You could frame it and put it on your wall, stick it in your black book, or what people really should do with slaps is take it and put it up somewhere. And that’s sort of how I can into the this world and this love of this.
Will: Did going out and putting up stickers help you find your way around the city.
Foan: As a sort of geographical waypoint, yeah it did. I remember in Fishtown before the pandemic there was this gigantic road sign at the intersection of Girard and Frankfort by Johnny Brendas. On the back of the sign was like the leaderboard for the neighborhood because it has a huge surface area and people would tag it and put slaps. You could kind of tell who was around at that time. It was dynamic, the slaps would crumble and fall off and get buffed occasionally but it was always there. With time I was able to tell who’s up in which neighborhood, who had come through recently, who had something that had been running for years that managed to dodge the buff. There are a bunch of old binds on south Broad on some of the poles that look like they’d been up for 10 years. So I was able to put together a sort of geography in my head of who goes where. It makes walking and navigating the city that much more interesting and enjoyable when you’re able to see these changes, know what they mean, and know some of the artists even.
Will: In those first years who were some of the artists that pushed you to keep going and making?
Foan: The first thing I noticed was Butter and Salmon. When I was drawing every slap by hand I thought there was no way this was one person, this has to be a crew that does this every single night. I do believe it is one individual and I did learn you can have 1000s of stickers up in one city if you put enough time and effort in. Then I was seeing the old 33 crew, El Toro, Robots Will Kill, Chris. And now some of the folks that have really carried the torch in the past couple of years, Praise Dobler, AntiFlowerShowMovement, folks from Shakey Hands group. All of that creativity and the accessibility is what drove me. Anybody can fucking do this. You don’t need to be a well-trained artist, you don’t need to even know how to write. You can just pick up some markers and go.
Will: I guess that begs the question, what is the difference between a “real” writer and someone who could be labeled as a toy?
Foan: This is going to change on who you ask. Who has any or thinks they have any authority, and I would say a 10,000 foot view. We all put shit on walls that isn’t supposed to be there and we have one common enemy and that is the Buff and by extension the cops.
Will: Let me rephrase it too. When did you feel like you “belonged”?
Foan: It was when I started to meet a couple people and had things up in a couple different sections. I think what is comes down to is having a certain amount of stuff up will give you certain sense of place. Particularly if you do that with other people that will give you a certain sense of belonging no matter what you’re doing.
Will: In your travels are there any cities that stood out as really awesome graffiti cities?
Foan: I’m not a well-traveled person. I have been in the northeast my whole life; I have never been to California, so my experience is pretty limited. I think with New York, if were are just talking slaps and stuff in one neighborhood in Brooklyn it was fucking grilled. There is no point in putting up a slap because everything is crusted the fuck over. My impression of New York is that there is such a high density of people doing slaps and graffiti that unless you’re really dedicated. You know you don’t work 40 hours a week and you have the resources to do graffiti all the time is the only way to stand out. I’m sure people from New York have different thoughts on that. Philly is sort of that perfect medium where you have an average density of less than 1,000 people per square mile. There are enough surfaces and dense walkable areas that you’re able to go and get enough stuff up. And there’s an active scene within it but its not so hit with everything. That’s sort of the Goldilocks right there, I hope people in Philly know and appreciate what they have.
Will: You mentioned your love for 228s, what are some other blanks you have taken a liking to.
Foan: The 228 in and of itself is a signifier and you have all different iterations; the 2013 version, 2006, all the way back to the 90s which are being increasingly rare. The thing I like about the 228 and particularly with alcohol-based markers I started using is that the bleed through of the label, I love that. I feel with a lot of other printed blanks they can feel a bit confined. There are some really good blanks out there, I’m thinking about the Newport loosies eggshells. People have some hilarious blanks that get really creative, like rip-off brands and make them graffiti oriented and I think that’s genius. But one thing I started drawing on that I wish I saved was a stack of US census forms in 2020. It was like the top sheet with blocks of text describing the bureaucratic process from the census bureau. I have a couple drawing somewhere I wish I had, they got lost to the sands of time. One thing I’m looking forward to drawing on is like obscure government forms. I have done a couple things like parking tickets, a jury duty notice floating around, I want to get some DMV forms. Those are nice too because they are thin and can be wheat pasted as well.
Will: Have you been looking to do more wheat pasting?
Foan: I had done a little bit before coming into this [graffiti] world. Just to like to go out and get messages out there. I didn’t really think of it in terms of art at the time. I find wheat paste a bit unwieldly because you have to carry a bucket or a sprayer around with you. And you got to stop take a big thing out of your bag, put a bit on, stick it, squeegee it or whatever. I just think it’s a lot for one thing. I think anyone who’s successful at slaps or street art wants something that is quick and easily repeatable that has a central theme. And I think I can accomplish that easier with slaps.
Will: Do you have plans to get larger pieces up?
Foan: Bigger pieces are fun. I started experimenting with some wordplay because there are four letters in my name. That’s fun and you can entertain yourself for a lifetime if you are pushing yourself to come up with new techniques and styles. I don’t want to limit myself to just this is my word, these are my letters, and this is how I did it differently. I think you can have a lot more impact on a viewer if you’re able to switch it up and go and write something that’s humorous or relevant. But you don’t have to do the same thing over and over again. I’m looking forward to that and expanding my horizons.
Will: Thanks for lending me your time is there anyone you want to shout out?
Foan: No problem, the folks over at Priority good friends and I’m looking forward to their nexr issue. Shoutout Shakey Hands Crew and fuck Allan Domb.
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