Who are you, where are you from and what do you do?

Posterchild: Posterchild, Ontario, paint on other peoples walls.

Where does the name Posterchild come from?

Posterchild: When I started I was doing only posters, and I imagined myself doing only posters forever. I also liked the wordplay, how it could be nicely shorted to POST or PC for tags and throwies, and the fact that there wasn’t anyone else going by that moniker.

How long have you been doing street art?

Posterchild: Bout’ 6 years now…

How did you get started putting your art up in the streets?

Posterchild: I made a bunch of posters, cooked up my first batch of wheatpaste, and spent a night way too freaked out pasting stuff for the first time.

Who or what influences your work?

Posterchild: The city and the particular space. I try to make something that will really work with whatever space I’ve chosen.

How often are you out putting your work up in the streets?

Posterchild: All the time. I update my site with new work every weekday, so I’m out on the street alot. That’s the way it should be, I reckon.

When was the last time you put some of your art up? What was it?

Posterchild: Hmm, the last time I tried to put up some work it didn’t go so well. It was a “Betabot”

a new model that hasn’t hit the streets yet. It’s meant to be a “Genderbot”, one that explores gender roles and identity. It has three buttons, and each one plays a different song. I was putting it up in the rain under some construction scaffolding, where it would stay nice and dry, when two squad cars pulled up and parked near me. I thought it would be prudent to put my drill in reverse, quickly remove the betabot and walk on before they decided to ask me what I was up to.

How do you select the placement for your art?

Posterchild: Sometimes I find a great spot, and make a work for it- sometimes I make a work and have to find a great spot for it. Finding the perfect spot after making a work takes longer… I have 2 big pieces taking up a lot of space in my room right now. They have been waiting about 2 months for me to find the perfect spot for them…

Are there certain places you won’t put your work?

Posterchild: Sure. All the usual spots, places that look like the work would be highly unwelcome. You know.

Do you have a favorite place or surface you tend to use?

Posterchild: I like plywood, it’s too porous when unprimed for paint, but it’s good for posters and great for anything I need to mount with screws. I like wooden hydro poles for the same reason- I’m sad that they’re all being slowly replaced with concrete poles. I LOVE cinderblocks for posters and stencils. Posters stick super-well, and it’s easy to tape stencils up to the relatively smooth surface of cinderblocks. Primed or unprimed, ciderblocks take paint like a dream.

Do you make your own wheat paste? If so what’s your recipe?

Posterchild: Yep! Bout half n’ half water to flour. Cook on low to medium heat, stirring constantly with a whisk. Remove from heat when desired consistency has been reached. Don’t leave it unwatched. It overcooks really quickly!

What do you want people to take from seeing your art in the streets?

Posterchild: A smile. A sense of not being alone in a crowd- not alone in a big, cold, anonymous city.

Would you say you’re anti-advertising?

Posterchild: I suppose, but I’m not a “Ad-Buster” or “Culture Jammer”. I don’t exist solely in opposition to ads. If all advertising disappeared from the city tomorrow- I’d be happy- but I’d still be out there doing my thing.

What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen or experienced while out putting up your art?

Posterchild: Man, I dunno. Lots of sketchos, drunks and crackies share the night with me- especially when the nights are warm and nice in the summertime. I’ve had lots of encounters with folks who mumble or yell stuff, but those aren’t great stories…

One time a sketchy crackhead dude yelled “HEY!!!” behind me while I was spraying a stencil- startling the hell out of me- I nearly jumped out of my skin. He came up, and starting shouting “What are you doing?!?” I’ve learned that sketchy dudes are mostly looking for someone to talk to, or at, and while they come off as crazy and aggressive, they are fine as long as you don’t antagonize them. So I started to explain what I was doing quietly and calmly, and he was shaking his head, saying: “There are better things to look at! There are better things to look at! And, anyway, two cops just walked by.” I was like “Huh?” but said “Thanks, Sorry!” and packed up and left. As I was leaving I saw two cops walking up to where I was painting, from around a corner in another alleyway. I just missed them! They just missed me! Sketchy dude was only trying to warn me! He was a volunteer lookout! WHO KNEW?

One funny story I have is putting up a stencil above a backdoor behind a building. I guess it was a delivery door for a grocery store or restaurant- I’m not sure which. The idea with the stencils I was doing at the time was to take advantage of “Visual ledges”- lines on the surface of buildings that look like ledges, but are actually flat. So I was up on a short ladder to get a stencil of a naked, beautiful, regal-looking lady wearing only a headdress

up on the visual ledge that is this door- so it looked like she was sitting on it- and this night I happen to have help.

This is pretty rare for me. I had just starting seeing this girl and had brought her along so she could see what I do.

So I’m up and she’s below, and when I’m done with the duct tape (that I use to hold up the stencil while I spray it) I just drop it for her to catch. She doesn’t know I’m dropping it for her, and the tape lands in the snow. Which is fine, whatever- I finish up spraying, come down with a big, wet stencil in hand and I whisper for her to help gather stuff in order to speed our exit up. She retrieves the fallen duct tape and to get the snow off it, she knocks it hard a few times against the steel door! Up to this point we had been steathly ninjas, but now we have just announced our presence! I’m there, frozen, with a ladder against the door, a spraycan in one hand and a wet stencil in the other, and we hear a voice from inside yell “Coming!”

Haha! We SCRAMBLED double time to grab all the crap and get away and around the corner- JUST in time- as we hear the door opening! Luckily, whoever opened the door didn’t look up and see the new addition sitting above him! But no one ever looks up… I suppose he probably thought someone was just playing Knicky-Knicky Nine-Doors. We laughed about that one.

But she broke up with me a little later… I- uh… I don’t think it was related.

What can we expect to see from you and your work in the future?

Posterchild: Good things, I hope.

Do you have any last words for the Senses Lost readers?

Posterchild: Thanks for reading this, I hope you’ll check out my site. Peace!

 

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