'Art & Soul: Futura2000' - Waxpoetics Vol. 6 Fall 2003

Brooklyn. Off the avenue. Pale matte military olive, no markings. Custom fabricated buzzer, no digits. Futura Laboratories.

Writer: Alexander Dawson
Photos: Michael Spears

Door opens. Cream pattern on black fisherman emerges. Black print on cream Bathing Ape T-shirt follows. Under the fisherman’s low brim, slightly bowed rectangles frame the eyes of Futura 2000.

He got down with graffiti in ’69, ran with the legends in the ’70s, did canvas work that was shown in “prestigious” art galleries in the ’80s, and smoothly transitioned onto the computer in the ’90s.

Graffiti. Gallery art. Graphic design. Independent creative entities. T-shirts. Web design. Toys. Packaging. Clothing lines. Limited-edition customizations. Wherever the scene lands, this man already has fresh pieces running.

And he keeps it all in perspective with a loving family.

FUTURA speaks with deep respect and love about his family, friends, and life, humbly attributing thirty years of multimedia artistic innovation to being in the right place at the right time.

AD: Why did you start writing graffiti?

F: Probably just following what I perceived was going on.

I don’t think I had a lot of my own direction in the beginning. I’d like to think I changed that in my character, but in the beginning I was pretty much a follower. I was just trying to be part of [graffiti] and define myself through my work with some originality. But I didn’t have any idea of being an artist. I was a member reacting to what a movement was doing.

AD: Was there a first piece you saw around the city that grabbed you?

F: When I was a teenager going to school in New York, on the subway, I’d see writing all the time. Graffiti was on the trains and in the subway stations. It drew me to it as some form of expression. [I] learned to be noticeable but [also] part of this group thing. I liked being on a team.

AD: Who were the first people you got down with?

F: My partner, ALI. A gentleman by the name of Marc Edmonds, who passed away a few years ago. We started a group called the Soul Artists. We had some alliances with people in the Bronx. Our friend CLIFF and MOSES… this is really early ’70s crew and people. We were influenced by people like STAY HIGH, PHASE 2, RIFF 170, NICI 171, FLYNT, NICO, and UGA. All the popular writers of that time were very influential. They were kids from the street and yet they were famous.

AD: What was the vibe working with these people?

F: My introductory years, before I went in the military, were very different. I was young and experimental. Rules were being made on the fly. When I re-emerged after 1978, I met all of the great writers from that generation. From LEE to SEEN to DONDI, ZEPHYR. Meeting all those guys turned me on to that whole community. In the beginning, I was in awe of the whole experience of being a graffiti writer. I didn’t have a lot of spray paint technique at the time. Even after I came back, I was still the generation of tag artists who just tagged up. With spray paint I wasn’t a good tagger.

I was a marker specialist at my best. I was really into that part of writing. Writing on the inside of trains. Writing on panels in the stations, whatever. I never saw myself as very good at spray painting. I was just laying back watching a lot. I was pretty low-key at that period and didn’t know about the big thing or didn’t know enough or wasn’t smart enough at that time to figure everything out. I was more in awe of who these guys were. They were way more up than I was. These guys had a portfolio of work that was amazing.

The period in the ’70s, the late ’70s, two different things were coming to the movement. I found myself thinking, I’m not on the level of these other artists. I still thought I was just a writer.