Interview with KEON (Ex-Vandals)

Partial Transcript: SP: Welcome to the Bronx Aerosol Arts Documentary Project. My Name is Steven Payne [SP], Librarian and Archivist and the Bronx County Historical Society. Today is June 1, 2022, Kurt do you want to introduce yourself?
KB: Yeah I'm Kurt Boone I've been documenting urban culture here in New York 40+ years.
SP: Great and we're very excited to be here with graffiti pioneer KEON, an Ex-Vandal. A really prolific artist working with sculptures and really across a lot of different media as well.

Segment Synopsis: In this segment interviewers Steven Payne and Kurt Boone introduce themselves and the subject of this oral history, KEON ONE.

Keywords: Keon (Graffiti artist)

Subjects: Graffiti

Partial Transcript: KEON: My family background is my father is from the Bronx originally. His father was a police officer. His father was one of six brothers who have all passed away. My mother is from the midwest from Iowa, a natural corn girl. They both started in their history in television at CBS. My father was a television on the Captain Kangaroo show, Walter Cronkite's news show, the NFL Today before he switched all into sports. His father was shot and killed when he was 18 by the mob up in the Bronx. And he told me never to be a hero and mind your own business. My mother on the other hand started as the secretary to Arthur Godfrey. And she traveled all with Arthur Godfrey all over the place and was his private secretary. Basically she was a housewoman but she worked all the time. And I have two sisters and I'm the oldest, and the prettiest if you haven't noticed already!

Segment Synopsis: This segment details KEON's family history and his early life experiences growing up in Flatbush. He describes some of the games he played with his friends, made easier by growing up on a dead-end block where there would be less traffic.

Keywords: Ball games; Children's games; Outdoor games; Subway stations

Subjects: Bronx; Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)--Social life and customs; Flatbush (N.Y.); Iowa

Partial Transcript: KB: So what was your elementary school years like?
Keon: My elementary school years--my elementary school was not good because I've never heard of people outgrowing it, but I had a severe dyslexic problem with they did not catch and socially promoted me until the 10th grade when I finally got kicked out of school and then went to a 600 school where you were allowed to in Manhattan... which I'll get back into that a second. So school was a little bit hard for me. And it kind of gave you this rebellious attitude a little bit. You know people calling you stupid.

Keywords: Savage Skulls (Street gang)

Subjects: Education; Education, Primary--Activity programs

Partial Transcript: KEON: When I got into visual arts that was more writers that I met there. That was Eric Haze, Keith Haring had gone to school there for a year but he was not a friend of mine in school, and left. I think that Barry Applebaum KE-3 was my first [writer friend]. I wanna go back to grammar school because there was a kid who lived in Cobble Hill and his name was Ian Phillips, he was in my class and he was the first guy I saw piecing on a piece of paper during class, and I kind of looked over to him and before you know it I was kind of doodling with that too.

Segment Synopsis: This segment details KEON's experiences in high school, first encountering, and beginning to write graffiti.

Keywords: (D) Train (New York City subway line); Joust-1 (Graffiti artist); Min One (Graffiti artist)

Subjects: Graffiti; Graffiti artists; Local transit--New York Metropolitan Area; MTA; Skateboarding

Partial Transcript: KB: What crews were around at that time?
KEON: Well the big crew for me in high school was RTW Rolling Thunder, and I forgot to mention Andy, Zephyr, who was a huge influence as far as someone who had wired that craft of lettering and color and bits and shapes to me back them and we both had an in-common girlfriend up there the Stern sisters, which one of them is dead now for ODing, but she ended up having a roller skate rental out on the Eastern End of Long Island it had some of the bars. And I remember Andy coming out to her store and did a huge, and I wish I had the picture of it now, because it was an insane piece, and it said sun skates, which was the name of the store... The other big crew was BYB

Segment Synopsis: This segment details which crews KEON knew and were up in his childhood, as well as his changing life at the same time.

Subjects: Art--Technique; Graffiti artists

Partial Transcript: KB: During those years you wrote KEON? Did you put pieces on trains? Did you tag trains?
KEON: I wrote KEON. No now that I've listened to a lot of people talk about what they did and didn't do, how much is belief what is not belief. Graffiti for me stemmed from a rebellious alter-ego. I was not a piecer on the trains, I was a street tagger, truck tagger, station tagger. I had some tags on the trains but I was not a piecer. I am just a guy that was part of the culture, from the early 70s watching it, through the teenage years, through high school, and into college. And when I went to college and finished college the School of Visual Arts gave me a job as a TA in the sculpture department. The likes of some kids like Aaron SHARP [Goodstone], LUSTER from the Village, STASH-2 from the Village, and ELF MPC from the Bronx, they were all my students. So they come to their first year and there's a mandatory sculpture class...

Segment Synopsis: This segment relates to KEON's time as a Teaching Assistant at SVA after his graduation from the institution, and how he came to teach a number of other young Graffiti writers. He also speaks at length about his personal influences, the first writers he remembers seeing, and early encounters with the Ex-Vandals.

Keywords: Morris Park Crew (Graffiti artist group); School of Visual Arts (New York, N.Y.)

Subjects: Art in education; Disciplines in art education; Education in art; Graffiti

Partial Transcript: KB: So what was your introduction to the Ex-Vandals, and while we're at it, do you have any photos of your early tags?
KEON: Well I do but we'd have to put that on pause so I can look find them on the phone, which runs our life, and it might take me a while to find those things. You know I find it really cool how people have pictures of their stuff. All I know is that myself and JOUST did not have a camera, we did not have a cell phone, I know I threw my beeper up against the wall when I had to call someone back and go to a phone booth and didn't have a quarter, the beeper was another thing. My introduction to the Ex-Vandals, who were my all-time favorite crew, and first crew that I knew that I was watching their graffiti. Intimidating is the word! When graffiti is in a neighborhood it's intimidated.

Segment Synopsis: This segment details KEON's introduction to the Ex-Vandals. We learn that he was not a member at the height of their street tagging, but that since that time the Ex-Vandals expanded their breadth and became a more general worldwide art group and it was at this time KEON was let in. He sees it as ironic that a "white kid from the neighborhood who grew up looking" at their stuff is now running with them.

Keywords: Erasmus Hall High School

Subjects: Ex-Vandals (group); Neighborhood leaders

Partial Transcript: KEON:It got very hard and dangerous to do in the 80s that which the kids did in the 70s. And remember in the 80s graffiti had morphed into more of the shaped and stylized letters. And you will see shades of that morphing with guys like BLADE, who, say what you like about him, was the most innovative guy along with LEE who brought in--even the thing that came out of the Village Voice that famous picture of his swinging BLADE letters.

Segment Synopsis: Keon speaks on the shift in style and complexity in the 1980s. The greater risks associated with graffiti in that decade led to more whole cars and larger scale projects. He says he doesn't expect his writing career to be particularly remembered by others, but that the lessons from graffiti were brought into his sculpture and painting work. He also speaks on his sculpture career using found objects and the difficulties associated with being a professional artist. The East Village art scene also features.

Keywords: Blade (Graffiti artist); Quinones, Lee George

Subjects: Art and style; Graffiti; Sculpture; Sculpture, Modern--20th century; Sculpture--Technique; Spray painting

Partial Transcript: KEON: Whether you're an artist, a "good graffiti artist," which got deemed also by the bougie crowd. And I'm not gonna start naming people that have documented graffiti because I know them and they're friends of mine or their collectors of mine (with my canvases not my graffiti canvases). But when people write about anything they write about it from Manhattan. They're always talking about Manhattan because Manhattan is the Mecca. It's New York. The other boroughs where you see these great writers where these kids come out of other boroughs the way we talk about in the early 70s, they're not recognized because they're from Staten Island they're from Brooklyn they're from Queens.

Segment Synopsis: The commercialization of graffiti from KEON's perspective, speaking on issues of global differences in reception, the focus on Manhattan, and canvases. He also speaks on technique in graffiti and the early techniques that he used and recognized on the street.

Keywords: Spray painting

Subjects: Art galleries, Commercial; Commercial art

Partial Transcript: SP: What was it like picking up a spray can and trying to write with it for the first time?
KEON: You know it was just a tool that seemed to come easy to me. You know I was a scared little nelly so I did it fast. I usually went solo except for JOUST when we got a little older. It wasn't a hard thing you know it was a can of spray paint it wasn't like I was doing it on a unicycle.

Segment Synopsis: This segment returns to KEON's early days of writing. He speaks on his very first experiences, as well as telling us how racking became a non-issue for him because he had a friend who worked in a hardware store that could leave the gate open and insure KEON and his friends could get their paint without significant risk of arrest. He also writes about how the art world has changed recently, especially with its expansion into Brooklyn.

Keywords: Spray painting

Subjects: Graffiti; Shoplifting

Partial Transcript: KB: In your personal life in your struggle, did you raise a family?
KEON: Well, I did. It's a subject that I am not going to talk about. I was married for a long time to a high school sweetheart, and had two kids. One is 20, bless her she has a full scholarship to USC. I hope she's doing well we don't speak, nor do I speak to my son and ex-wife any longer. It's a court thing, it's a monetary thing, the wife poisoned me that kind of thing. But now I'm in a very happy relationship and happen to love Roxanne, Rocky 184.

Segment Synopsis: This segment briefly details KEON's personal life outside of graffiti. His marriage and two children is a sore subject for him, but his recent relationship with ROCKY 184, whom he met in old-timer writers circles fulfills him greatly.

Keywords: Rocky 184 (Graffiti artist)

Subjects: Family life

Partial Transcript: SP: You've talked a lot about it being a kind of underground youth culture similar to skateboarding, why don't you talk a little more about skateboarding because that's clearly a large part of your childhood as well? Where you'd skate, that kind of thing.
KEON: Yeah that was really large. It was a big thing. Nobody did it when I was doing especially down Flatbush Ave.
KB: Andy Kessler was the pioneer
KEON: Well they called him the pioneer because the boards had changed. The guys in California were the real pioneers. But we were, and I'm speaking of Andy Kessler and I'm speaking of a lot of other people that you wouldn't know. But our stomping grounds was in Central Park because of the hills there and because there was an audience. If you ever go in the streets whether you're in SoHo or Williamsburg, there's always a bunch of kids showing off. Why? Because they want to be seen. Kind of like a graffiti artist. Writes the name because they want to be seen.

Segment Synopsis: KEON's experience with early New York skateboarding, including where it was happening, why, and what brands and styles of equipment he preferred.

Keywords: zoo york

Subjects: Skateboarding; Skateboarding--Equipment and supplies

Partial Transcript: KB: Where were you when Wild Style movie came out and Style Wars?
KEON: Style Wars came out in the 80s. I was working at the Roxy, which means I was roller skating, I has just started Visual Arts, I had just gotten my studio.
KB: You know something? I saw the movie Wild Style, you know I saw Wild Style first. And to this day I have never seen Style Wars. [points to self] Is that a fuckin' knucklehead? But you know something I know those people and I know the history. So I don't really need to see the movie! Because my DVD player broke!

Segment Synopsis: Kurt asks KEON where he was when Wild Style and Style Wars came out, and what their impact on his was. Much to the surprise of both interviewers, KEON says he still hasn't seen Style Wars!

Subjects: Style Wars (film); Wild Style

Partial Transcript: KB: You're in the Bronx, we're at the Bronx Historical Society. What do you think of the Bronx?
KEON: Well I'll tell you what. The Bronx closes up early, so does Brooklyn for that matter. The Bronx is a lot like Brooklyn that it's (not now) but it's a lot of separation over a bridge or the Bruckner expwy to Manhattan. It's always quieter. Like I remember taking the train from Manhattan to Brooklyn and crossing the bridge. Back over the moat. Brooklyn had a different flavor. And all ethnic areas, Downtown Brooklyn now especially is built up to cosmopolitan heights I can't afford to live there. I don't want to live with a bike lane anymore. The bike lane hasn't come up to the Bronx yet. So it's kind of similar in that it's a borough that isn't clustered Manhattan. But the Bronx is a little more mellow the way Brooklyn used to be.

Segment Synopsis: KEON's thoughts on the Bronx in comparison to his native Brooklyn and Queens. His only youth experience with the Bronx was visiting his Aunt in Parkchester.

Keywords: Parkchester (New York, N.Y.)

Subjects: Bronx; Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.); Manhattan (New York, N.Y.); Queens (New York, N.Y.)