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Transcription: [00:03:27]
{SPEAKER name="Benjamin Bloom"}
What makes your guy's style each of your styles?
What sort of makes it your own or kind of differentiates it from other people? Tim?

[00:03:38]
{SPEAKER name="Tim Conlon"}
Um, I think just of course the letters. The name that you choose that's gonna set you apart from anybody else.

[00:03:48]
Um- I guess style wise, my style pretty much reflects mostly you know New York street letter style that- I mean or street letter wild style.

[00:03:58]
You know something that's bar letters very readable you can tell what it says. Um, it probably has a little bit of Baltimore influence to it.

[00:04:07]
Um, and there is some west coast stuff that I've added to it just when I lived out in LA for a little while, just some little tidbits a little pinning techniques I do that I remember from out there but uh-

[00:04:17]
Yeah, I'd say it's pretty generic but I mean I've done enough, you know, I've painted enough over the years that people recognize it. You know, even if they just glance at it they probably know it me before, you know, if they actually read the letters. The same probably goes with Dave's style too.

[00:04:32]
{SPEAKER name="Benjamin Bloom"}
Yeah, so how about your style Dave?

[ 00:04:35]
{SPEAKER name="Dave Hupp"}
Just a Bari style- I mean it's changed over the years just, uh, I mean but I pretty much I don't do a lot of connections lot of single letter bar style, you know. I want it to be readable so when it flies by I want a truck driver to be able to read it you know the average person. I don't want it to be some wild crazy stuff that you can't read.

[00:04:55]
So usually my- each letter is separate for some- there may be some simple connections, but just a bar real bold bar-style letters.

[00:05:03]
I mean it's- you know I'm from Baltimore, I got a Baltimore flair but it's gotta influences just from a variety of people I hang and know with. You know, you just you get influenced. I get influenced from a lot of different things I mean and a lot of different people from all over.

[00:05:20]
{SPEAKER name="Benjamin Bloom"}
Well, can you make any generalizations about like an LA style versus a New York style versus a Philly versus Baltimore? Like what are the things that kinda jump out really generally?

[00:05:35]
{SPEAKER name="Dave Hupp"}
Well, Philly has a tall print tag, uh, it's real tall and skinny. They call them wickets, one of them, it's the name that they choose. It's just real tall and skinny. Real flairy, certain ones.

[00:05:51]
Which- whereas a Baltimore tag is more long left to right whereas theirs is up and down long. Um, you know when you get into other cities New York, San Francisco, um-

[00:06:02]
{SPEAKER name="Tim Conlon"}
LA has like a chollo gangster style um, you know Mexican gang influence type of thing. Ummm that's kind of spilled over into graffiti writing.

[00:06:12]
{SPEAKER name="Dave Hupp"}
San Fransico has a bus hopper-style tag, which is like a, it's like a one str- a lot of it looks like a one-stroke loopy tag, like I mean without showing you it's hard to explain but I mean a lot of cities have unique styles that are, you kinda know "hey this is such and such city tag".

[00:06:28]
I mean then there's ones that you don't and like Tim said due to the Internet, uh, a lot of people you don't know where they're from just do their influences from the Internet.

[00:06:36]
So they get it from, you know, from Europe to California to Canada. They really don't have any- You know, it's just kind of Internet-born style.

[00:06:49]
{SPEAKER name="Benjamin Bloom"}
How do you feel about, um, about graffiti being in a museum, Dave?

[00:06:55]
{SPEAKER name="Dave Hupp"}
Well, I'm glad to be alive and be in the Smithsonian! 'Cause I guess prior to that, I don't know much- how long ago you had to be dead to be in a portrait gallery right?

[00:07:03]
{SPEAKER name="Benjamin Bloom"}
That's true.

[00:07:06]
{SPEAKER name="Dave Hupp"}
[Laughs] So to be alive and to be in it is good. Um, you know, it's a sign of the time- you know, some people may say "Hey, you're a sell-out."

[00:07:15]
I look at it like being a musician and never wanting to make a rap- uh, never make an album or put a CD out. I mean, you know, why are you strumming on a guitar for 20 years if you can't make a buck or be seen or be heard.

[00:07:29]
You know, and uh, this is a way to be seen and be heard. Uh you know how many people- uh, this is huge.

[00:07:39]
I guess when I walked down that marble floor and through the pillars and see this- these huge panels fixed to the wall like "Damn, that's our stuff."