Shepard Fairey (OBEY) takes to the streets of Dallas

Shepard and I on the streets in Big D

Obey mural in progress

Shepard dj-ing the Neon party in Dallas

Earlier this month Shepard cruised into town on a mission.  The Dallas Contemporary commissioned Shep to install several large murals, mainly along Singleton located just northwest of the I30-I35 junction in West Dallas.  The murals took Shepard and his crew about a week to accomplish.  I was lucky enough to take some time out and meet Shepard not only at the Contemporary to help celebrate his murals, but also in the streets while he worked.  From the few conversations we had, I could tell he was a caring guy, and definitely passionate about his work.  The murals all turned out great and hopefully will last for years to come.
Hopefully the city will also back it's own local artists for such murals in the future.

Shepard started his art career in the 1989-90 era when he began his sticker campaign of Phenomenology.  The sticker campaign was meant to awaken the viewer from normal every day propaganda and question the large numbers of Obey stickers emerging into the surrounding environment.  The sticker campaign then grew into other mediums such as larger screen prints, paste ups and stencil collages as well as t-shirts.  Working both legally and illegally, Shepard was on a mission to get his name out.  Many of his images were figures representing equality, peace and love.  With his love of music he also began making pieces of important musicians and singers.  Over the years his fan base grew, but in the election time of Bush vs. Obama his name became internationally known.  Shepard designed the widely used Obama Hope posters used for his election campaign which I believe helped in the election win.  With a huge portfolio of prints and billions of stickers later, he is what you now know today.

Obey icon poster

Obama Hope campaign poster by Obey

I have mainly been following his work since the early 2000's and have collected several prints, books, stickers, etc.  One of my prize possessions is a skateboard deck prototype made by Monkey with the vintage Powell Peralta rip bones logo.  I took my deck to the book signing to have him throw his John Hancock on it.  Unfortunately, this became a huge ordeal with the Contemporary as they only wanted him to sign books. (since they were selling books $$$)  It got to the point where all the employees had me under surveillance and kept telling me he can't sign that.  I figured I would stay in line and try anyways.  I figured worst case scenario they'll ask me to leave, though I didn't really believe they would stoop so low.  I guessed they wouldn't snatch anything out of Shepard's hand, so my goal was to get the deck into his hands, game over.  When it was my turn, the usher asked where my book was and again stated he can't sign my deck.  I replied, "ok, I don't have a book" and just stood there.  As she didn't know what to say next, I then just stepped up past her and handed the deck to Shep and he grabbed it as we began to talk a bit about how long he stayed the night before working on one of the murals.  As he then looked down at the deck and recognized what it was, he looked slightly disgusted, leaned back and said, "Those people never paid me!" (as he pointed to the Monkey manufacturing logo)  Then quickly followed that response with, "Well, I never paid Powell for the rip bones image either, eh."  He laughed and signed it.  Since the ushers were speechless and didn't know what to do since he signed it, I figured I would hand him a few other "non book" items to sign including a large obey giant face sticker and my blackbook.  Took a photo, and let him finish autographing books for the folks behind me so he could get to the talk he was supposed to be giving.  I just thought how small and futile the entire situation was, but how big of a deal the ushers turned it into.  Ironic situation as the title of Shepard's book they were selling: SUPPLY AND DEMAND.

Shepard Fairey aka Obey signing my Ripper deck.  image taken from http://obeyclothing.com/blog/