Mike Giant

Issue 19

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Portrait by Jeff Luger

Mike Giant’s career is the result of genuine curiosity and decades of drawing for five hours a day. He’s been—and remains—a world-class graffiti writer, tattooist and illustrator with his REBEL8 line. He’s made zines, skateboard designs, animations, prints, collages and stacks of interesting artist and company collaborations. He travels all over the world, rides his bikes, practices mindfulness, smokes a gang of weed, and is a fully tattooed goofball that one can bring to dinner parties.

Whether a page drawn in a friend’s black book amid collected signatures of other graffiti writers, or the large-scale works he hangs in galleries, Mike Giant’s drawings will fool you, even up close. The cleanliness, razor edges and solid blacks of the images all come from a Sharpie and Mike’s surgeon-steady hand, but look like they were printed. “In some ways, I took a lot of pride in that,” Mike explains. “As the graphic world has become more fixated on vector graphics, I think I wanted to show that I could replicate the same results by hand, thereby usurping the notion that computers are somehow ‘better,’ which I think is bullshit.”

That ability to make flawless solids and lines is a special one, and it separates Mike from the pack, but in art as in life, we can get stuck in the forms that liberate us. “This year, I started to feel like the original drawings were feeling really stale and impersonal when hanging in a gallery… I felt like the time had come to infuse more of my hand, heart and mind in my drawings.” In the summer of 2008, Mike lived on a houseboat in an Amsterdam canal. “Over the course of my summer in Amsterdam, I started to think about ways to make my original drawings more personal. I began by making notations about moment-to-moment things in the white areas around the inked illustrations: things relating to the music playing in the room, or the kind of marijuana I was smoking, or just the random thoughts that I notice when practicing mindfulness meditation. Then I started writing out explanations of the symbols I like to use, outlines of movie ideas, food fantasies, etc.”

Amsterdam wasn’t the first of Mike Giant’s moves and travels. The first took him from an upstate New York suburban home where he had lived since his birth in 1971. “We lived in a two-story house on a quiet street with a huge lawn backed by woods. I went to school on a yellow bus every day. I remember great snowball fights, hockey and Big Wheels.” The next stop was as close to a geographic opposite as the United States could offer. “When I got to Albuquerque in ’79, it was quite a shock. The first thing that was difficult to deal with was the summer heat. In my mind, it has always been as extreme as N.Y.’s cold winters, if not worse. Secondly, I got picked on a lot by the neighborhood Mexican kids because I was the new kid in on the block. For many of my attackers, I’m sure I symbolized the white devil, making me a great target.” Albuquerque was a town with a steady presence of drugs and petty crime. “I’ve had about eight bicycles stolen there,” he counts, “and the house I grew up in was burglarized many times. My dad came home one afternoon and caught some tweaker trying to dig his way through our solid wood front door with a knife.”

In 1989, Mike witnessed a great petty crime: a guy painting graffiti. “I started painting the following day,” Mike recalls. “At first, I just made letters from my head, but I went right to simple block letters and characters. At that point, I didn’t have anything to study other than the walls in my area.” Those walls soon included the isolated foundation for a factory or warehouse building that was never completed. Graffiti writers had found it and called it “Monolithic,” since it had support pillars that stuck up in the air like monoliths. For the few years that Monolithic lasted, it was the site of some of Albuquerque’s best graffiti, much of it done by two transplants from more established graffiti scenes.
AGREE came to Albuquerque from Brooklyn in 1990, and DOC came from Venice Beach at the same time. AGREE was no graffiti superstar back home, but what he knew about graffiti put him miles ahead in Albuquerque, which also gave him the chance to blossom. Being the guy from New York—and in DOC’s case, the guy from L.A.—put a healthy pressure on them to rise to their full potential as writers, as well as teach a small army of young and eager writers like Giant, who first met them in person via a weekly college hip-hop and house-music radio show. At the time, such connections were all-important: there was no internet and very little in the way of graffiti media (magazines, books, videos, etc.) from which to learn, and this was compounded by Albuquerque’s comparatively recent arrival into the graffiti scene. “AGREE schooled me in the various forms of writing—from tags to wildstyle productions—from his N.Y.-based perspective. He had lots of graffiti magazines and photos from all over the world that I studied for hours and hours.”

DOC was painting in the brightly colored style that was typical of Los Angeles graffiti of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Whenever people commented on how much they liked DOC’s color schemes, Mike would ask him what colors he used and make mental notes for the future. “Most of the color schemes I use to this day came from time spent with DOC,” says Mike, who is colorblind. “When people have positive things to say about the color schemes I use, in my mind I always credit DOC, because really, I’m kinda faking it. I can’t see the subtleties between colors sometimes, so I have to be really organized, and trust in the feedback of my peers.”

DOC took Mike on his first trip to Los Angeles. He got to meet West Coast graffiti pioneers in the WCA crew and held a vintage can of the long discontinued Krylon spray-paint color Jungle Green. “It was the first time I’d seen AWR graffiti, massive cocaine use, real L.A. gangsters, and the Playboy channel… It was a super formative time for me.” The mentorships didn’t last forever, as Mike and DOC drifted apart and he and AGREE had a falling out. “At one point [AGREE] told everyone we were gonna battle and that he was gonna cut off my finger if I lost. He started rolling with a harder crew of people and we lost touch. I hadn’t spoken to him in a year or so when he passed away in the early ’90s, but his presence in my consciousness will be life-long, without question. DOC was also, unfortunately, another dear friend that had a lifetime of drug and alcohol addiction problems stemming from childhood difficulties, which eventually took him just a few years ago. And as it was the day I met him, his presence continues to inform my mind’s daily ruminations.”

Before they parted ways, both DOC and AGREE passed on a few vital lessons. “In particular, I’m thankful that both AGREE and DOC understood the importance of painting on the street at night,” Mike says. “Throughout the early ’90s, until I left for San Francisco, I painted nearly every single night, sometimes alone, sometimes with a solid partner, and sometimes with a little crew.” Albuquerque as a whole instilled in Mike a work ethic. “It was important to do a little graffiti every day during the early years in Albuquerque. And even today, I try to get at least one drawing done to completion. That’s how a graffiti writer stays up over the long haul, and how an artist stays in the creative flow.”

In 1993, Mike packed up and moved to San Francisco. Its graffiti scene in the early 1990s was surging, driven by an influx of writers from all over the United States: JASE from Baltimore, KR from New York, CYCLE from Connecticut, FELON from Washington D.C., GREY from Albuquerque, BLES from Los Angeles and dozens more. The out-of-towners brought out a renewed energy from the San Franciscan writers, many of whom had been going strong since 1984. Many of the city’s graffiti writers—people such as San Francisco graffiti pioneer DUG ONE, as well as Barry McGee/TWIST, Margaret Kilgallen and others—also had developing art and illustration careers, with crossover between them to a degree that wasn’t as visible in any other city at the time. It was the kind of era, a confluence of people and ideas with a particular place, that people have talked about since it happened, and will continue to talk about. “I’m sure at the end of my life, I’ll look back and still be in awe of that time in this amazing city. There were tons of really talented and driven artists around, from all over, and it was incredibly inspiring.”

For his part, Mike was “feeling out life’s ups and downs. I was working a day job at Think Skateboards, doing LSD weekly, going to raves or clubs at least once a week, writing graffiti and skateboarding every day, and pro-actively developing my understanding of women, spirituality and love. I had really good friends during those days, who put themselves out for me on many occasions, and even some who went to jail so I wouldn’t have to. The last time I fought someone was during that time. It was intense, in both good and bad ways.” He was also trying out all of the creative options he could, in addition to graffiti and designing skateboard graphics. Mike had always made little zines of graffiti and drawings, first with names like Albuquerque Aerosol, and now under his Skullz Press label, with wordplay names like Passive Moles and Snot Hatch.

By the late 1990s, Giant was as well known a graffiti writer as could be, famous, in particular, for painting razor-clean lines that others couldn’t. With his background in illustration and his steady hand, coupled with his ability to put people at ease, tattooing was the logical next step. After an apprenticeship and a few years of learning, Mike was world-class and booked up months in advance. Still, tattooing is a tough business, a buzzing, sweaty, wiggling, sometimes bleeding business. In 2007, Mike Giant stopped his formal tattoo practice except for the occasional one for an old friend.

Though he’s currently living in San Francisco, Mike spent the past few years in his old hometown, taking advantage of its low cost of living. “I’ve seen way too many horrible beatings to mention. It’s a tough town. Ask any of my clients that went to Albuquerque for a weekend of tattooing. They’ve all borne witness to the mayhem.” It eventually drove him out again. “After living in places like Amsterdam, San Francisco, New York and London, the harsh reality of continuing to live in Albuquerque got to feel unnecessary and unhealthy.” It was just one of a series, and there’s no reason to think that Giant will stay put in the Bay forever. “I moved to San Francisco by myself in 1993 because I had a job and a place to live, and no real reason to stay in Albuquerque any longer. When I got tired of the skateboard business in 1997, I moved to London to pursue work in the music industry. When I got offered a job tattooing in NYC in 2000, I took it. Whenever an opportunity to see another part of the world has arisen, I usually go for it. I want to see it all, and there’s so little time.”

In recent years, Mike has gone on retreats led by Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh at his Plum Village site in southern France. The focus of the retreats was mindfulness, the Buddhist practice of being aware of the present moment. “At first, I practiced mindfulness with great faith that it would improve my overall well-being, which it did. And now, I practice to simply enjoy the perfection of the present moment, using my breath to bring me back when my mind takes me for a ride, no matter where I am or what I’m doing.” Awareness of breathing was something that Mike had been doing all along, whether he had formally named it mindfulness or not. The razor-sharp lines he had become famous for were simply not possible without it. Standing at a wall, spray-painting perfectly parallel colored stripes of paint six feet long isn’t something one can do by simply holding in one’s breath and going for it. It’s a physical act that involves harmonizing one’s feet, arms, and the subtle up-and-down of the shoulders as one breathes. Mike had been doing this for years.

Though he’ll go on retreats with famous Zen masters, Mike doesn’t call himself a practicing Buddhist. “I’m just me. Mike. Not Mike the Buddhist. I’m on my own path.” That also includes a longstanding appreciation for porn. “I’m just into sex, and I’d rather watch fucking than fighting any day. That’s all.”

Today, Buddhism and porn are but two of many sources of imagery from which Mike pulls his artwork. “I’ve been looking through old tattoo flash a lot, particularly from the ’70s, especially wizards and unicorns and shit like that. I’ve also been digging through my library of Freemason stuff a lot lately. And, of course, I’m always looking for great images of naked girls.” His current other staples of inspiration include bikes, Victorian houses, comics, album-cover art and lettering, especially cholo fonts, which held a special place in his Albuquerque youth. “I wish I had taken photos of all the awesome gang writing I saw as a kid,” Mike rues. “I loved it and feared it. As a kid, walking alone through an alley full of gang graffiti was super stressful. It was clear that I was in the wrong place, and I should keep my eyes peeled.”

Learning these fonts wasn’t something a white kid could do. “I remember being really jealous of the Mexican kids in my class that would get cholo fonts written out for them by older kids. They kept them hidden from me, mostly because I showed interest, and I was a pinche huero (fuckin’ whiteboy).”

“Later on as a ‘writer,’ I didn’t pay much attention to gang writing,” Mike continues. “I was always way more interested in N.Y. graffiti… It wasn’t until I’d achieved some fame as a graffiti writer that I met guys that would put me down with old cholo alphabets and show me their Teen Angels magazines.” Now, as an illustrator, he’s made it a point to perpetuate these lettering traditions.

His body keeps this link to his past alive as well, fully tattooed by some of the most formidable practitioners of the craft. “I can see now that I covered my arms with cholo-style tattoos to look intimidating to the kids that used to pick on me.” Yet his body isn’t fooling anyone—his goofy grin disarms the tough look of the tattoos, and though it uses so much aggressive, potentially scary imagery, his artwork is plainly welcoming, inviting you to love what you might otherwise fear. “I can clearly see now how those early experiences with violence really shaped my outlook on the world around me, for better or worse, and I think that definitely shows in my work.”