SKAM

1. Tell me about SKAM, what does the artist name represent, and what does SKAM try and provoke within people when they see your art?

SKAM was created after years of being surrounded by the conservative war machine, the shove down your throat Christians, and the Midwest mentality of not using logic when thinking. I came from the high plain prairie of north dakota. I wanted to point fingers at people, corporations or things i felt were a SKAM. I created the SKAM character with the arrow and head exploding to represent ignorance and disdain for political correctness. I felt like all we ever heard about in the news was either the left or right side. Not the middle side. The side to me which took the best of political discourse and disregarded the worse of the political spectrum. Mind you this was almost 10 years ago when the united states was in a very different place. I eventually moved to doing more art related to horror and always putting upside down crosses in my work to represent the rejection of the christian world view of divide and conquer. Some of the common reactions of my art are being offended, fucking awesome, i hate it, i love it, and provoking open honest discussions of certain specific subjects I shine a light onto.

2. Why do stickers appeal to you as a medium, and where do you see the whole sticker culture heading?

I've always been an artist. I was never a graffiti artist and didn't understand the culture at first. I really came from a shelter place from this specific culture and took a mature look at it and came up with my own ideas and guidelines to follow from other people highly involved in the scene. I was introduced to sticker art in 2003 as i know it today. I always enjoyed stickers but never thought i would ever be one of the most influential sticker artist in the world. I did the whole gallery gig many many years ago and didn't get the reaction i wanted from my art. So i changed and figured out i can put my art on blank stickers and then put my art anywhere that the sticker would stick. That lead to getting into stencil art, then block printing and then silk screening. It lead me down a path i am today. I had an excellent reaction once i started placing my art in the public eye. I feel like sticker culture is natural maturity from just doing tags and destroying shit. I've always felt like some aspects of graffiti culture are incredibly immature and i feel like sticker art is more about art than just writing a name. Art will always been more powerful with images than just words to me. I've seen the scene grow and I don't think it will stop.

3. Why does Portland have such a cool sticker scene? Who or what contributes to this?

When i moved here the Portland sticker scene was very small. Only a few really active people. Me, Mr say, Nasty Nate, Klutch, some of the bay area people from endless canvas. I was already established online and apart of the one of the first sticker message boards called sticker minions. I started learning things from other artists around the world and starting applying those techniques and ideas here in Portland. Within 7 years of being here there has been over 50 active sticker artists in and around this city. I feel like the standard for silk screened stickers in a diy fashion was really heavy in Portland and i think this lead to inspiring so many other artists in this scene. Not to say sticker artists in pdx don't hand draw their stickers or block print or whatever just that silk screening is very heavy handed here. I'm told i'm like the grandfather of sticker art in portland. I'm always willing to help and teach new artists some of my techniques and share my knowledge. I'd say the most active artists in the city since Ive been here are SKAM, Mr Say, Nasty Nate, Rx skulls, Klutch, The lost cause, Buxom, Full Bleed, No bonzo, Kanye pdx, poopin beaks, peel your face off, Russell pdx, Satan spawn, Bose503, Flowernamed jane, Awake435, Invoice, Dr Rasterbator, Princess Daddy, Voxx Romana, Alex art life, Oinkx, Adeptone, Magical, Circle Face, Deadred, Just one, Skrumpy, Hesherpark, Yaks, Nabru, Seeka, Olive Always, and so many more. I think its because of what kind of city Portland is. It's a community based city. Everyone here is nice and if you're a fucking dick you pretty much end up a loner.

4. Who are some artists that appeal to you and why? If you could do a collaboration with someone you haven’t done one with yet who would that artist be?

Oliver de Sagazan is an amazing french painter/live performance artists. Google his shit. Its beautiful and horrifying at the same time. Narcoze has to be one of my favorite artists because ive known him for a long time and watching his style and art evolve is an inspiration. Zdzisław beksiński's art and life are a huge inspiration. Also the video work of chris Cunningham always blows my mind. I would love to do a collaboration with the Grominator. His work blows my mind and its always super different and creative.