Spray-can artists Joe Watson and Dan Langlois are on campus today to give students a free, one-of-a-kind piece of spray-paint art.
Watson’s company, Artist Joe’s Spray Can Artists, tours the country producing 5-7-inch pieces of art, which will be available to students for free.
The artists focus on landscapes and space pictures, Watson said. He said they don’t do human or animal characters because of time constraints, but they offer students a different explanation about why they only do landscapes.
“I generally tell the students that we paint the future, and there are no people or animals in the future,” he said.
Watson said they produce as many pieces as possible, generally one piece in three to five minutes. He said they can do up to 200 pieces, but the average for two artists in a four-hour show is around 150.
The event is billed on posters around campus as “Spray-can artists Joe and Lefty,” but Watson said Lefty will not come to UNM because she retired.
Bryan Jurus, director of Student Special Events, said Watson and Lefty came to campus several times before and were popular among students.
“Students love it,” he said. “It’s actually one of the most-attended traveling events we have, in student numbers.”
If the wind is too high at the Duck Pond, the duo will be moved to a more shielded location outside the SUB, Jurus said.
The pieces will be customized, and students can choose from a list of basic types of paintings. Watson said the students pick a basic background and then can ask for further customization. For example, he said someone might request an ocean view, and then they get the choice of day, night or sunset. Based off the person’s decision, the artists build the painting.
However, the artists leave themselves some room for interpretation, Watson said.
“We like to keep it so that we can still create, not becoming a human jet printer.” he said. “We basically keep it vague so that we can do something we want to do based on their choice.”
Students’ personal style and dress may also influence the painting the artists do, Watson said.
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“If someone has fluorescent pink shoes, you’ll probably find fluorescent pink in the painting.”
Watson said he is self-taught and developed his style over years.
“I didn’t have a teacher, so I just kind of added things as I discovered them, whether it be finding a new pattern that looked like something else,” he said. “There was a pattern I used for planets that ended up being woods because it looked like, you know, looking into a forest.”
He said he’s able to achieve a lot of detail in a postcard-sized painting by using tools other than spray cans such as a putty knife or paper and plastic bags.
“It’s almost mixing scratch art with spray-can art,” he said.
Just because the artists will use spray paint, students shouldn’t think that Watson and Langlois are graffiti writers, Jurus said.
“Graffiti that (has) caused issues is, I guess, more or less ‘tagging,’” he said. “And it’s not necessarily done with the art perspective in mind. It’s done with the idea that, ‘I’m claiming a territory.’ And we’re bringing art to campus. We’re not … encouraging that.”
Watson said his art is distinct from graffiti.
“I never really did any signing or graffiti writing, or any of that,” he said. “I basically started doing space-scapes, planets and more astral stuff. I just thought it looked cool.”
