women artists

Art Gab with Erin Yoshi

Fyeahwomenartists: How did you get into muralism? Were you a painter first? I was looking through your website and you have scratchboards, paintings, all these different kinds of things.

Erin Yoshi: Yeah. My mom was a painter and an artist. So, she really taught me as a young person growing up. We used to do these great activities, drawing activities, creating our own characters and like make comic series around them and, um, and always drawing. It started off with little animals or things we saw, but I guess I was really fortunate to have that kind of household growing up. So, they were also really into photography at the time. So, my mom gave me a camera set when I was like 7 and they allowed me to build a dark room in this wash closet. So, I had my own little dark room when I was like 7 and I started developing film and everything. So, they were really supportive and they would be really tough critics as well. So, I would develop and I would show them like, “Look! I developed this photo!” and it would be like of my friend or something. They would say, “I know your friend is beautiful to you, but this is not conveying a story. It’s just your friend, and I can see that, but what are you trying to say?” I would be kind of like, “Ugh. God, I tried so hard” and they would be like, “Look at the lighting, it’s all flat.” So, I guess at a young age it had me thinking about content and lighting and positioning and everything. So, it was very helpful in that way, even though at the time you kind of feel like, “Oh, but I tried,” but it gave me thicker skin and I tried and pushed harder. So, I did more illustration and photography and we used to paint a lot. My mom gave us a bunch of oils and acrylics and we would do whatever we wanted with easels and brushes. So, that was a total benefit and then I started getting into mural work just as I got older. It was kind of the want to go bigger. I used to paint behind the door of my bedroom and I only had like 4 feet by 6, or I guess as tall as the wall was, it was about 10 feet or 8 feet tall or something. So, I had all these painted series that were exactly that size. I couldn’t go any bigger because that was my one space to paint. It was literally behind my door. So, if someone came in I would have to move out of the way. So, then it was like you just want to keep on growing and expanding with it, so I started doing mural work and trying to go larger with my expression and I’ve never looked back since. Once you start painting on the walls, it’s such an addiction, it’s so good because you get your whole body into it. You’re kinda working out, but you’re also doing this expression. It’s so fun. I was addicted. I was hooked ever since.

FY: That’s funny because that’s how Sofia [Maldonado] described her work a lot too, with a lot of movement.

EY: Yeah, I mean you almost feel like when it’s fluid, almost like you’re dancing with the wall.

FY: So, what inspires your imagery? Like, for me, I saw Mexican muralism, like Diego Rivera in both your political messages and how you depict people.

EY: Right right. Um, I feel like a lot of murals I’ve done throughout the years that are on my website I’ve done with my collective (Trust Your Struggle). When I was 18, I started working with this collective unofficially. We were friends and we used to throw shows together and I was kind of a curator. I got into this junior curator program and so through that we started throwing these shows or curated walls and we started really wanting to have political messaging because a lot of us were activists on the side. I was living in the bay at the time and I was already doing activism work. So, it was kind of a natural transition. I was already thinking of all of these things and I was trying to find a way to express and I really wanted to put these messages on the wall and to use the political thoughts I had in my head and to put them on the wall. So, through Trust Your Struggle we really wanted to keep the work of our collective to be political and of the people and that we are doing almost a visual translation. So, what really launched us off, we had done a bunch of little shows and walls and then what really solidified our group was going on our first tour. So, we went on a tour through Mexico and Central America and we spent like 3 months on the road together as a group and we just painted murals all along the way. It was beautiful. I actually went down to Mexico a little bit early and just hung out with a friend of mine who was working on a forest restoration project and it was so awesome. So, like, every morning we would wake up at 6 and go plant trees and then come back and work on a mural. It kind of became this very wonderful, holistic environment. So, um, my group that came to meet me, we finished the mural in Guanajuanto, we went to Mexico City, and then we just kept on moving our way down south to Nicaragua. It was just an amazing experience. The people that we met, their stories were just so strong. We ended up linking with women centers and community builders and youth activists and people, like this group Hijos, who are the children of the families who are disappeared. So, we ended up, really, they were sharing their stories with us and we would use that as fuel to then make these beautiful murals or make these things that depict the story that was shared with us. It kind of came about very organically and now we have this approach, that’s kind of our approach for mural making, that we go into communities and we try to get very immersed, and then we try and translate our stories into like a visual translation to create the murals that is of the community. It’s a tricky thing when you go into a community and you can choose. As a street artist you can paint whatever you want or you can paint something political or you can paint something of that community and as a collective that is what we try and do. We do it with much intention, with a lot of preparation work, we do a lot of research on each place we go way in advance, we usually do workshops. So, it’s done very, very intentionally. It’s kind of great because it started very organically; we didn’t think about it the first time, like, this is going to launch the direction of our collective, but it really did. I mean, before that we were already doing political work, but I feel like it kind of glued us together a little more. And then on this trip we had so much fun. Just imagine you are traveling with your very close friends, your best friends, for 3 or 4 months on the road. You start to feel like a band almost. So, we were like we are going to do this every 2 years. This is our promise to each other or whatever. We’re going to do this every 2 years. So, we have tried to do that and for the most part we kind of have. So, our second tour we went across the United States. We can’t just do messages of places that are international; there are so many things that are going on here that need a voice and volume as well, so let’s go across the United States. So, we saved up for two years as a collective. Everybody had to put in so much money and everybody had to raise so much money. We wrote grants, we did a callout, begged family for money, whatever we could do to pretty much make it happen and we raised enough money. We bought a van, this old, we call her Mona, 15 passenger van. We threw all of our stuff in it. 7 of us jumped in this car and drove across the United States. We drove across the road for about 2 months as well and we went along the south, just in the timing for weather and everything, and just some of the connections that we had. So, we went across the south of the United States and then made our way back to California and did our culminating show up in San Francisco and the gallery La Idea de La Raza. But it was just wonderful to paint murals. So, we would do a callout and people would share their stories with us and then we would do additional research and paint this imagery of the community. So, a lot of us are of different ethnic backgrounds. We really bring that into play. We are like a whole plethora of, you could probably tell everybody by a country, because everyone is from somewhere else. So, it’s really nice to have this really diverse group because everybody brings that into their imagery. Like some people will do images of their ancestors, or images of folklore from their community, or really just to also weave in, it also allows if someone has a community that’s similar to the one we are working in, then that person also helps to be a little bit of a guide, or a person to help educate the rest of us because we really try and do that, which I think is important. It’s tough. It’s a lot of work. When we’re on the road we paint every day. Like in Central America I think we went to the beach once. It’s funny, we are like right by the beach and we are staring at a wall. And then we just finished out last tour this summer. We went to the Philippines and we toured around the Philippines, which was just an amazing, amazing experience and we painted about 7 murals as we were on the road and through that just got to meet so many different communities as well. We went to a mining community where pretty much this mine was trying to expand in the codillera, up in the mountains. So, they are trying to expand because it’s very resource-rich. The way that the community has kept the mine from expanding is they’ve set up a fort on the main road. It’s manned by the community members, mostly elders, but sometimes children are there as well, but mostly elders that are the leaders. And they camp out every night and they’ve been doing this every night now for 4 or 5 months. They take turns, men and women, women one day and men the next and Thursday is coed. They sleep there every night so if the tanks come by they physically block them with their bodies. So, to be able to share stories like that, the impact that it has on what you’re thinking about and the work you’re trying to transcribe in a sense, it’s unforgettable and you will remember it forever. Stories that will stick with you. Being able to get to have an experience like that and share with people, we very much take it as our role to what we can give back. We don’t have money or anything else we can do, so that’s our skill we try and share with the communities. A lot of times we will go places and stay in somebody’s house. Sometimes they will feed us, but we cook a lot collectively. Really, they share their stories and their lives with us, their pain, their struggles, their loves, their passions, some of the things that we can give as a group is our art back. So, we try to do our best. It changes your life type thing.

FY: So, I’m really interested in the fact that you work as part of a collective and you do your own work, which I guess, I was thinking about collectives and that doesn’t happen so much. I was thinking of like Faile and how people break off from there and then go do their own thing. Or, so, I’m really interested in ASAR-O, based out of Oaxaca, and they all work under this group name, sort of like one unit. So, I’m interested in how collaborative work affects your work. Do you come up with a group theme, or, how do you think it visually affects your work?

EY: I think being with a collective, I always recommend to people coming up and just getting into the game to get with a collective because it was my family. There were points in time where we lived together in New York. There were like 4 of us living in this apartment, you know, but it just allows you to be surrounded by the arts all the time and it allows you to have a group of people who you can kind of feed ideas off of, they’ll critique you, they’ll talk shit, you’ll talk shit. It’s very organic to grow and , especially as people, they’re many different skill levels involved in it. So, it just allows you to learn so much and to have people to kind of learn with. My collective is my family, so pretty much my closest friends. We hang out on the weekends, outside of when we are painting or whatever. I feel very, very fortunate to have it. I worked really hard with the collective as well. I’m kind of like one of the organizers of it. You know, everyone has different strengths. So, it’s like some people wanna organize, or, like me, I’m not very good at computer stuff or designing or whatever. So, someone else takes on that role. As we’ve gotten older and gotten more into our own established selves, it’s been easier because we kind of know what people’s strengths and weaknesses are and people kind of take on their own thing. Aside from the collective, I do do my own work. So, it’s tough because you’re always trying to produce and build something. So, you know, I have my own studio, and I paint on canvas, I do murals, I do street art on my own, which I love. I’ve traveled with my collective. I’ve traveled without my collective. It’ kind of allows me to have that creativity. And we discussed it as a collective, that it was time for us all to start pursuing more of our individual careers because we had done so much together that you could almost go to our wall and not know who painted what because similar styles are starting to build up. You know, you learn each other’s techniques. So, we kind of wanted to break from that. We thought we would be a stronger collective if we had more individuals that then came back together. So, we kind of had this long dialogue. So everyone has gone in their own way, but we still very much work together. They, you know, everyone kind of pushes each other like, “You gotta do a wall. You gotta do a mural. Let me see your work.” And we kind of share the stuff we’ve been doing and it’s been nice to kind of have lived out of different cities over the years. So, everyone kind of moves or goes away. So, right now it’s the first time that all of us but one are in the same city. Like, we’re all in the bay area. It’s the first time we’ve been together since, I don’t know, 4 years or something. So, it’s kind of a blessing in that way. We’re now back together. It’s that sort of feeling you get when, when you’re like with a group and you see the magic happen together and it just feels so so amazing. But I definitely feel like, so I have my collective, but I also work with this foundation as the executive director of the mural arts/graffiti arts foundation and we do national work and international work. So, aside from that stuff, I have this other commitment that I’m very dedicated to as well. So, with that I paint with the Estria Foundation, I did the first water rights mural. I curated and worked with a team in LA that were some graffiti artists that were friends of mine in LA and we kind of all grew up in the same community, we painted this mural about water in that community. From there, I went to Oakland, Hawaii, Palestine, the Philippines, and we have 7 more to go, a few more by the end of the year, and the rest into the next year. So, with that, I paint a couple of them, I help guide the project, and I have a project manager to help guide that who does an amazing amazing job, and then on top of that we run the national graffiti competition. It’s the only national graffiti competition in the United States. It’s been running for 5 years. We, our cities, are basically Hawaii, Los Angeles, Oakland, New York, and we’ve done Chicago before. We’re trying to expand it, so next year we’re pushing it off and we are going into planning mode and we’re trying to do sort of regional’s and actually make it bigger for 2013. So, I do the collective, I do the foundation, and I also paint on my own. So, it’s a busy time, but it’s great because it’s all very connected and a similar scope. It’s nice because it definitely becomes a lot, but it’s nice because everything can fit in it’s own space, I just have to pick and choose what I can be a part of because I can’t be a part of everything. You just have to learn how to set your boundary lines and still have time to eat and workout and whatever else you need to do in your life. So, like take care of your body and mind and everything.

FY: So, I was interested in that you’re talking about your collective, but also your other collaborations, like Stinkfish was the one I remembered, but there were a ton of other ones that you had done with other street artists. How do you think collaborating with them affects your work?

EY: Oh my gosh, totally. I feel that collaborating with outside folks, or really anybody, you grow so much because you learn from them. It’s like a sharing experience to paint with somebody because it’s so fun, it’s very organic, but you learn from their techniques, you learn ideas that get shared amongst each other while you’re painting, like, “what do you think of this?” A lot of times I like to dialogue with people a lot like, “Do you think we should go with this color palette or do this?” or “Could I draw this and put this character in here?” You kind of have this ongoing discussion. So, like, Stinkfish, I was living in Columbia and I had moved there after New York. I was a high school teacher in New York and a business manager of this art and design high school called New Design, which is now the largest legal graffiti space in Manhattan. It’s a square block and everybody, so many people have painted there, New York artists, international artists, people come from all over the world to come paint this school. It’s beautiful. It’s called New Design High School and it’s pretty much all decked out. We used to have this show twice a year called Rooftop Legends, where we would have an open display of this open-air museum. It’s a beautiful space and it’s curated by this guy Jesse Pais, he’s the dean of the school, and I worked at the school at the time so I got to kind of be a part of the whole process from the beginning on and so those sorts of experiences were really really kinda powerful to push me to another level as well, but then I was like I just want to dedicate my time to just being an artist. I’m gonna be an artist for a couple of years and that’s it. So, I quit that job and moved to South American, and I was like I’m just gonna pursue it and paint every day and whatever. So, I moved to Columbia and I pitched this project to this organization called Reniciar, they’re a law firm and they have a court case against the Inter-America Human Rights Court against a lot of the genocides that have happened from the 80’s until today as well as a lot of displacements throughout the country. So, the idea that we had talked about was doing a mural series about a genocide that had happened from the 80’s until 2005 and to paint and do mural workshops in different communities around the country and then paint these murals in libraries, union halls, universities, and really public spaces. So they bit. I was totally floored that they were like, “Wow! Yes!” So, I was down there and had gotten this project together and I had done an international call from my collective and all of my friends, people I knew, Sofia [Maldonado], everybody. Like, “Come down and meet me and let’s paint these murals. I have a small budget. If you can buy your own ticket I’ll give you a place to stay and we’ll paint.” So, you know, people bit. I lucked out. A lot of people came and met me and we did these murals throughout the country. So I got to travel all over Columbia as well and I would meet a graffiti artist and partner with a graffiti artist locally as well. I’m big on that. Like, if I’m going to come and paint in your community I want to paint with somebody from your community, you know? I think it’s very important. So, we would partner with an international artist and a local artist, do workshops with local families and survivors of the genocide. So, that was really, extremely, extremely amazing to be able to share stories like that because some of the people that were in these workshops didn’t realize there were other survivors, or so many other survivors, and they weren’t connected to them. So, it was kind of a space that they got to actually heal each other. So, what I realized is like, what can you say to somebody who has been through something that catastrophic? You know, some people have lost their entire families. What do I have that I can say? I can’t. So what I can do is open up the space and make it such a place where people feel welcome to share their stories and people can heal each other because that’s really where the power comes in I think. So, I started setting up these workshops so that people can share their stories, so they would be kind of fun at the beginning and get really into the crux of the content, like: what happened, how were you effected by it, what was going on at the time, and a kind of way that people can continue to connect. So, they would then share these stories and they would get the inspiration and paint on the messaging. So, through that I met a bunch of other artists in Columbia, Stinkfish, he was one, part of this crew called APC. You know, they let me rep APC too, it’s cool, but we painted together a bunch when I as there. I would paint a mural on the weekends or kind of throughout the week, but when I would come back to Bogotá, which is the capital, I would want to paint as well. So we would go out every couple of days or every other day or twice, three times a week, and we would just go paint walls together. We just formed this great friendship. He is just such a wonderful guy, and his collective, he has this beautiful woman painter in the collective called Bastardilla, I love her she’s amazing. She’s amazing, that girl gets up like no other. So, it was great because I got to meet so many new people and paint with them and they just included me so much and welcomed me into their family. I learned, you just learn so much from other people. I feel like that’s, I never went to art school, I was never formally in an art class, in high school, this whole other story happened, so I was never really in an art class, like I’ve never really taken a drawing class. I just don’t know the formal techniques of what you’re supposed to do. I just know this is what I’ve done for so long. I probably do things backwards in a conventional sense, but, yeah, it’s kind of my teaching ground. It’s like these folks I look up to as guides and friends and to share with and to build with and I love it because when you paint with new people and other people you just, sometimes there’s a freedom in the trust that they give you to just do what you wanna do. It feels very good, like, it feels really awesome to just be able to like go and express with people you’re just meeting.

FY: So, my last question was, this is a good transition, who would your dream collaboration be? Like if you could collaborate with anybody.

EY: Damn that’s a hard question. It’s a really really hard question. Of course, it’s like, God, that is such a hard question.

FY: But that’s what’s so fun about it. Like I got answers I wouldn’t expect from Sofia [Maldonado].

EY: Yeah. Totally totally. And they’re so funny because it’s like a reach, a dream thing, like, “Oh my God.” So, you know, I would say for female, I would love love love love love love to paint with Faith47 in South Africa and Swoon. Those would be like two I would flip out I think. Like, flip the fuck out as well as kind of like elders. I love these two women Judy Baca, she has the largest mural in the United States I think, it’s like a mile long, it’s called the Great Wall, it’s in Los Angeles, in LA River. I’ve gotten to know her well over the years and she drove my down over the river path and to see all the pieces in the river and the history behind it and all the different people that she had involved in the project from youths to traditional painters. I mean to see a production of that level it’s like what can you say? It’s another thing that really made me thing that I have so much work to do. People have done so much and they have set the bar so high. Her and then this other woman named Noni Olabisi. She does these really powerful political murals on the Watts Riots and just very, very, so rich in the cultural messaging that you could feel the emotion of her paintings. I think she is one of my favorite all-time women muralists that I would just be honored to meet her. To paint with her, I think I would definitely flip out, but just to meet her I would be totally star-struck. I would not be who I am today without you type shit. So, yeah, those are my favorites. I love Faith. I think what she does is beautiful. Swoon is amazing. I’ve met her. Her work is just stunning. She works so hard. And the two elder women muralists, they just blow my mind.