CALE K2S Interview

  Recently We at Maintain had the opportunity to catch up with CALE ONE  to discuss his experiences and views on the aerosol culture we all love. As I imagined he had a lot of insight and knowledge to share. -Maintain  





Compilation of CALE's work from 1993-2010


"Yes. Fame lasts as long as the time between you hitting your peak and the next young guy coming behind you and making his mark. Strive to be talented, skilled, successful and respected before you aspire fame." 
                                                                                  -CALE
MTN: How many years have you been doing graffiti for? 
CL:  I started tagging in 1987, did my first piece in 1988 but didn't begin doing steady pieces and charters until 1992.

MTN: What attracted you to this art form?

CL: At first I didn't know the difference between gang graffiti and writers. I was 11 when I started to really notice the gang stuff and the drawings they did throwing up their gang sign. I was already drawing so I thought it was a cool idea to do it on a wall. Soon though I realized that there was a BIG difference between the two. Good thing too because I would have hated to go the other direction.

MTN: What differences have you notice in the way graffiti is today as opposed to the way it was when you started?
CL: I don't know if it's because I'm older now but it seems to me that there is no more excitement in graffiti. By that I mean that I remember getting so hyped to go to a yard and see graff. It was a thrill to finally meet a famous writer. Because of that, I think a lot of writers from my generation strive to have sharp skills and be named amongst the best simply to be amongst the best. Today it seems that every time you turn around there is some new guy or girl with sick skills who come out of nowhere. My opinion is that theInternet made it so much more accessible and the new brands of paint made it easier to have can control. Try doing a character with mad detail with a half full RUsto. Spit city!

MTN: Most graffiti artists paint letters and others just characters it is rare to find one that likes or prefers to paint both. Do you have a preference for imagery or would you consider your self more of a traditional letter artist?
CL: I've been asked this before and for a time I really had no answer except to say that they are both equally as challenging but now I think differently. First I started doing mostly characters because everyone who I painted with did letters and after getting into my first Graff crew I became the character/background guy. I think letters are much more forgiving because you can dress them up with all kinds of stuff like fills and arrows and add-ons. A character has to look like something and it is very easy to distinguish the artist who can draw hands and the ones who hide them behind letters or behind the character's back

MTN: What artists have influence you, in or out of the graffiti scene?
CL: As far as graffiti I, like thousands of other people, was influenced by Slick and Hex. Big wow, right? Later in life though, I started studying fine arts or rather started researching it on my own and now I can say I am influenced by the renaissance masters.

CALE on Golden West box car C.1997

MTN: In the many years that you have been painting you might have seen some interesting pieces or walls painted in the city of L.A. Do you have a favorite or memorable wall that you were blown away by.

CL: Yes. There are a few that have made me appreciate the beauty of graffiti. Skill's wild style silvers, Size and Bash's "Skate" piece at Belmont, Swanks devil dodging a rock at Commerce and a sketch of a character Design 9 did somewhere on Washington a long time ago and never finished. I just really liked the sketch. Obviously I have to say that the "Alien vs. Predator" wall I did with my crew a couple of years back in El Sereno is one of my favorites. But aside from walls I really dug Gin's, Key's, Angst's and Tempt's throw-ups or throwies as they call them today.

MTN: L.A graffiti battles have been rare. There are only a hand full that I can remember. Are there any battles in particular that stand out to you?
CL: Man, I always regret not being able to go see the Slick Vs. Hex battles. Those guys did so much for our culture that everyone should at least remember that and be thankful that they raised the bar so high at such and early time in Graff. That motivated me to try and be the best I possibly could. I also have to say the friendly battle between my good friend Dash 2000 and myself. We had a great time painting and continued to be good friends after. Rest in peace D2K of course.

MTN: Is there any writer in particular that does not paint any more but you would like for them to make a come back.
CL: Skill

MTN: My impression of your work is that it is quite refined and very marketable. I can definitely imagine your designs as illustrations for magazines, t-shirts or video game covers. Is this something that you are currently exploring?
CL: I do work for many clothing lines and have a done graphics work for clients ranging from logos to page spreads to illustrations. I try to stay as versatile as possible which helps me stay busy, employed and fed.

MTN: Tell us about any new projects you have in mind or are currently working on?
CL: I do creative work everyday but mostly work for hire. I am currently working on a series of paintings which I hope to put on display sometime next year. As much as I love Graff and graphics, I still embrace fine arts as food for my soul and hopefully I can find a good venue to share my passion with others.

                                                                                     DASH 2000 RIP By: CALE 

"I never imagined I would be doing that for him or any one of my friends. Such is life though." -CALE

MTN: If you had a choice of one piece of art that you would most like to be remembered for which of your pieces would it be?
CL: The portrait of my friend Dash. It was painted with a heavy heart because I never imagined I would be doing that for him or any one of my friends. Such is life though.

MTN:  With the popularity of graffiti growing a lot of young kids are attracted to doing it. Would there be any advise that you would give to a young aspiring writer?

CL: Yes. Fame lasts as long as the time between you hitting your peak and the next young guy coming behind you and making his mark. Strive to be talented, skilled, successful and respected before you aspire fame.

MTN: We appreciate you taking the time to share your experience and perspective with us. We wish you the best in your future endeavors
CL: Thanks, guys!

For more of CALE's work be sure to catch him painting live at MAINTAIN's 3rd Writers Bench this SUNDAY from 3pm-7pm or visit www.illfeelin.com

MAINTAIN SENDS OUR FRIENDS IN JAPAN A HEARTFELT KEEP YOUR CHIN UP.

TOKYO – A ferocious tsunami unleashed by Japan's biggest recorded earthquake slammed into its eastern coast Friday, killing hundreds of people as it carried away ships, cars and homes, and triggered widespread fires that burned out of control.
Hours later, the waves washed ashore on Hawaii and the U.S. West coast, where evacuations were ordered from California to Washington but little damage was reported. The entire Pacific had been put on alert — including coastal areas of South America, Canada and Alaska — but waves were not as bad as expected.
In northeastern Japan, the area around a nuclear power plant was evacuated after the reactor's cooling system failed and pressure began building inside.
Police said 200 to 300 bodies were found in the northeastern coastal city of Sendai, the city in Miyagi prefecture, or state, closest to the epicenter. Another 178 were confirmed killed, with 584 missing. Police also said 947 people were injured.
The magnitude-8.9 offshore quake triggered a 23-foot (seven-meter) tsunami and was followed for hours by more than 50 aftershocks, many of them more than magnitude 6.0. In the early hours of Saturday, a magnitude-6.6 earthquake struck the central, mountainous part of the country — far from the original quake's epicenter. It was not immediately clear if this latest quake was related to the others
Friday's massive quake shook dozens of cities and villages along a 1,300-mile (2,100-kilometer) stretch of coast, including Tokyo, hundreds of miles (kilometers) from the epicenter. A large section of Kesennuma, a town of 70,000 people in Miyagi, burned furiously into the night with no apparent hope of being extinguished, public broadcaster NHK said.
Koto Fujikawa, 28, was riding a monorail when the quake hit and had to pick her way along narrow, elevated tracks to the nearest station.
"I thought I was going to die," Fujikawa, who works for a marketing company, said. "It felt like the whole structure was collapsing."
Scientists said the quake ranked as the fifth-largest earthquake in the world since 1900 and was nearly 8,000 times stronger than one that devastated Christchurch, New Zealand, last month.
"The energy radiated by this quake is nearly equal to one month's worth of energy consumption" in the United States, U.S. Geological Survey Scientist Brian Atwater told The Associated Press.
President Barack Obama pledged U.S. assistance following what he called a potentially "catastrophic" disaster. He said one U.S. aircraft carrier is already in Japan, and a second is on its way. A U.S. ship was also heading to the Marianas Islands to assist as needed, he added.
An American man working at one of the nuclear plants near the coast when the quake hit said the whole building shook and debris fell from the ceiling. Danny Eudy, 52, a technician employed by Pasedena, Texas-based Atlantic Plant Maintenance, and his colleagues escaped the building just as the tsunami hit, his wife told The Associated Press.
"He walked through so much glass that his feet were cut. It slowed him down," said Pineville, Louisiana, resident Janie Eudy, who spoke to her husband by phone after the quake.
The group watched homes and vehicles be carried away in the wave and found their hotel mostly swept away when they finally reached it.
The government later ordered about 3,000 residents near that plant — in the city of Onahama — to move back at least two miles (three kilometers) from the plant. The reactor was not leaking radiation but its core remained hot even after a shutdown. The plant is 170 miles (270 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo.
Japan's nuclear safety agency said pressure inside the reactor at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant has risen to 1.5 times the level considered normal, and slightly radioactive vapor may be released to reduce the pressure.
The Defense Ministry said it had sent dozens of troops trained to deal with chemical disasters to the plant in case of a radiation leak.
Trouble was reported at two other nuclear plants, but there was no radiation leak at either of them.
Japan's coast guard said it was searching for 80 dock workers on a ship that was swept away from a shipyard in Miyagi.
Even for a country used to earthquakes, this one was of horrific proportions because of the tsunami that crashed ashore, swallowing everything in its path as it surged several miles (kilometers) inland before retreating. The apocalyptic images on Japanese TV of powerful, debris-filled waves, uncontrolled fires and a ship caught in a massive whirlpool resembled scenes from a Hollywood disaster movie.
Large fishing boats and other vessels rode high waves ashore, slamming against overpasses or scraping under them and snapping power lines along the way. Upturned and partially submerged cars bobbed in the water. Ships anchored in ports crashed against each other.
The tsunami roared over embankments, washing anything in its path inland before reversing directions and carrying the cars, homes and other debris out to sea. Flames shot from some of the homes, probably because of burst gas pipes.
Waves of muddy waters flowed over farmland near Sendai, carrying buildings, some of them ablaze. Drivers attempted to flee. Sendai airport was inundated with thick, muddy debris that included cars, trucks, buses and even light planes.
Highways to the worst-hit coastal areas buckled. Telephone lines snapped. Train service in northeastern Japan and in Tokyo, which normally serve 10 million people a day, were suspended, leaving untold numbers stranded in stations or roaming the streets. Tokyo's Narita airport was closed indefinitely.
In one town alone on the northeastern coast, Minami-soma, some 1,800 houses were destroyed or badly ravaged, a Defense Ministry spokeswoman said.
As night fell and temperatures hovered just above freezing, tens of thousands of people remained stranded in Tokyo, where the rail network was still down. The streets were jammed with cars, buses and trucks trying to get out of the city.
The city set up 33 shelters in city hall, on university campuses and in government offices, but many planned to spend the night at 24-hour cafes, hotels and offices.
Japanese automakers Toyota, Nissan and Honda halted production at some assembly plants in areas hit by the quake. One worker was killed and more than 30 injured after being crushed by a collapsing wall at a Honda Motor Co. research facility in northeastern Tochigi prefecture, the company said.
Jesse Johnson, a native of the U.S. state of Nevada who lives in Chiba, north of Tokyo, was eating at a sushi restaurant with his wife when the quake hit.
"At first it didn't feel unusual, but then it went on and on. So I got myself and my wife under the table," he told The Associated Press. "I've lived in Japan for 10 years, and I've never felt anything like this before. The aftershocks keep coming. It's gotten to the point where I don't know whether it's me shaking or an earthquake."
NHK said more than 4 million buildings were without power in Tokyo and its suburbs.
A large fire erupted at the Cosmo oil refinery in the city of Ichihara and burned out of control with 100-foot (30-meter) flames whipping into the sky.
"Our initial assessment indicates that there has already been enormous damage," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said. "We will make maximum relief effort based on that assessment."
He said the Defense Ministry was sending troops to the hardest-hit region. A utility aircraft and several helicopters were on the way.
Also in Miyagi prefecture, a fire broke out in a turbine building of a nuclear power plant, but it was later extinguished, said Tohoku Electric Power Co.
A reactor area of a nearby plant was leaking water, the company said. But it was unclear if the leak was caused by the tsunami or something else. There were no reports of radioactive leaks at any of Japan's nuclear plants.
Jefferies International Ltd., a global investment banking group, estimated overall losses of about $10 billion.
Hiroshi Sato, a disaster management official in northern Iwate prefecture, said officials were having trouble getting an overall picture of the destruction.
"We don't even know the extent of damage. Roads were badly damaged and cut off as tsunami washed away debris, cars and many other things," he said.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the 2:46 p.m. quake was magnitude 8.9, the biggest to hit Japan since record-keeping began in the late 1800s and one of the biggest ever recorded in the world.
The quake struck at a depth of six miles (10 kilometers), about 80 miles (125 kilometers) off the eastern coast, the agency said. The area is 240 miles (380 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo. Several quakes hit the same region in recent days, including one measured at magnitude 7.3 on Wednesday that caused no damage.
A tsunami warning was extended to a number of areas in the Pacific, Southeast Asia and Latin America, including Japan, Russia, Indonesia, New Zealand and Chile. In the Philippines, authorities ordered an evacuation of coastal communities, but no unusual waves were reported.
Thousands fled homes in Indonesia after officials warned of a tsunami up to 6 feet (2 meters) high, but waves of only 4 inches (10 centimeters) were measured. No big waves came to the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory, either.
The first waves hit Hawaii about 9 a.m. EST (1400 GMT). A tsunami about 7 feet (2.1 meters) high was recorded on Maui and a wave at least 3 feet (a meter) high was recorded on Oahu and Kauai. Officials warned that the waves would continue and could get larger.
Japan's worst previous quake was a magnitude 8.3 temblor in 1923 in Kanto that killed 143,000 people, according to USGS. A 7.2-magnitude quake in Kobe in 1995 killed 6,400 people.
Japan lies on the "Ring of Fire" — an arc of earthquake and volcanic zones stretching around the Pacific where about 90 percent of the world's quakes occur, including the one that triggered the Dec. 26, 2004, Indian Ocean tsunami that killed an estimated 230,000 people in 12 nations. A magnitude-8.8 temblor that shook central Chile in February 2010 also generated a tsunami and killed 524 people.
___
Associated Press writers Jay Alabaster, Mari Yamaguchi, Tomoko A. Hosaka and Yuri Kageyama in Tokyo; Jaymes Song in Honolulu and Mark Niesse in Ewa Beach, Hawaii; Seth Borenstein and Julie Pace in Washington, and Michael Kunzelman in New Orleans contributed to this report.