Opening Reception for The Grate Project by Kelly Towles
Oct 23 (tonight) @ The Black Cat Backstage 8pm

Seeking to create large scale paintings that will exist in the public realm, Kelly Towles is painting murals that will completely cover the roll-down security grates at One World Fitness, outside the artist studios at 926 N Street in Blagden Alley, and the Black Cat. Re-vitalizing these grates into dynamic contemporary artworks, The Grate Project is intended to further dialogue about the nature of street art and public art work, while enhancing DC’s street-scapes.

DJ’s Ikon & Stereo Faith are laying down the tunes for this free event.
There will be posters available to purchasde that will go to Benifit Ann & Alan, victims of the fire in Adams Morgan.

Our new adorable correspondant Tanya spoke to Kelly about the project whilst at Styleistics:

Brightest Young Things: Are you originally from DC?

Kelly Towles: I’m a military brat, born in Ohio, lived in Florida, Australia, Maryland. I’ve lived all over the place, but DC is where I feel most comfortable. I hate the suburbs.

BYT: So how long have you been here?

KT: 7 or 8 years now, it’s changed dramatically in that time, it used to be a total shit hole!

BYT: Yeah, I grew up here until I was 17.

KT: So you understand. When I first moved to the city it was just hookers and drug addicts and politicians. Even Dupont was fucked up. It’s amazing now to see everything change into what it is.

BYT: Do you have influences from any other cities/countries?

KT: I’ve been favoring a lot of South American artists recently, they just have a different outlook on how they’re doing their stuff. I mean, of course every country is gonna have their own way of doing things, it’s just interesting because it’s a little bit more… descriptive visually, it’s a little bit more… I don’t know how to describe it. It’s like, in the United States it’s great cause it’s a big jumble, a big collage of every one doing everything, but in other countries it’s like spot on. There is something from Spain and you say “Oh that’s straight up from Barcelona”, or when you see something from Italy, it’s geometric…

BYT: More cohesive

KT: Yeah, they have a different artistic language. Yeah, so I’ve been leaning toward South America and Spain.

BYT: Have you traveled there?

KT: I’ve been through Europe a little bit – France, Spain, UK. My favorite city in Spain is Barcelona – I’m gonna live there sometime for a couple years. My girlfriend is Peruvian so we go down there about once a year.

BYT: Do you speak Spanish?

KT: Un poquito.

BYT: How would you describe the street art scene here in DC?

KT: It is sporadic. It comes in waves, like right now nobody is putting up much, but at some points there are a lot of artists going at it, and sometimes that’s good and sometimes that’s bad. Like sometimes when you have a flood of people crushing it all the time, it gets, I don’t want to say boring, but a little monogamous. So when people wait and they’re like “I’m just gonna hit the spots I really want to hit”, and they go, they hit it really big.

BYT: It’s almost a strength

KT: Yeah, when it’s all coming at once it’s good, but when it comes sporadically it can be a lot better – you notice it more.

BYT: What would you say are the best and worst things about the DC art scene?

KT: The worst thing is that people talk too much. It’s not anyone specific, I’m not calling out anyone, it’s just that people run their mouths about wanting to do stuff. I wanna do this, I wanna setup a street art show, blah blah. Shut up. Just fucking do it. Honestly that’s the most annoying thing I hear all the time. Cause I want stuff to happen! I want to see DC, coming from such shitty beginnings, to now being so conservative – even though it’s 99% democrat, it’s still conservative – have things start to happen. I mean I’m represented by a gallery and they are nice enough to have me you know, and there are things that are starting to happen but for me it’s too slow. I see that cities like New York and San Francisco are killing it, every other night there is some rad street art show, but in DC it doesn’t happen, they just talk.

But the best thing about DC is that it is growing, stuff like the Hirshhorn after hours, I think that’s beautiful, I’m so happy that they’re doing that and people are coming out.

BYT: It seems ridiculous that we didn’t have something like that beforehand

KT: It seems ridiculous that DC is such a tight ass city!

BYT: You hear a lot of debate on the danger of legitimizing street art -, that putting it in a legitimate “context” changes it.

KT: Well, first of all only people that actually do street art should weigh in on that, and that’s often not the case. The thing is is if you’re putting something in a gallery and you’re still doing street art at the same time, it’s legit. If you’re vandalizing something and then you put it in a gallery, then you still go back and vandalize something, it balances it, that’s what I do.

BYT: So the key is you still have to vandalize?

KT: Ha, well I don’t think that’s the key, it’s just that’s what people get upset about, when a street artist goes and puts their stuff in a gallery and makes some money. I don’t want to work a job the rest of my life. I want to sell my art. I want to be successful. But I still want to go out and hit the streets because I feel that I can make this city beautiful in my own way. I don’t need anybody’s permission or guidelines on how to do that, they can go suck a dick. If someone’s going to bitch about me making money on my art, it’s like I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be creative, I apologize. No.

What people don’t realize is that most musicians make most of their money at shows and selling merchandise, so wait, if I have a show and sell merchandise I’m a sell out?

BYT: How did the Grate Project come about? It almost seems like the ideal combination.

KT: Yeah, I’m really stoked about it, I’m actually nervous. I was nominated for this grant, $20,000, but I don’t know who nominated me, someone in the art community just said hey this person should be nominated and I was like alright cool and when I found out I was like, tell me who did it and they were like nooooo.

BYT: So you’d like them to stand up?

KT: No no, I just want to say thank you. So I get this nomination, but all that means is I’m competing with like 30 other people for 10 spots. So you have to go and plan and say exactly what you want to do, like get the price of all the paint and permits, how many people are going to be involved and give actual numbers and invoices. You have to show why it’s going to take $20,000, you have to show how big you’re going to go. It’s been almost 2 years now that I’ve had to justify this.

BYT: How did you choose where to do it?

KT: You’d be surprised, there were so many people that shot me down! I went to like this opium den or like a sex slave shop or something, cause I went in there and was like “hey I got a grant and you don’t have to pay anything and I want to redo your grate and you’re gonna get a lot of press” and they were like “Who sent you, why are you doing this?” They seriously though I was like the FBI or something, I was like no I’m an artist! “What do you do?” Well I do street art. “Why do you want to do this?” Cause I like to draw pretty pictures… I swear to God they had an opium den in the back. So many places I went to they were into it, we had meetings, sounds great, let’s do it, and I’m like here just sign this form and they were like ooooh well we gotta get the business managers permission and blah blah and I’m like why did you wait till the 15th meeting to bring this up? It’s like, to do this legally it’s taken 2 years for 3 murals. Illegally I could have had it done in three nights! But, don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful, it’s been an experience, I know how to go through this shit now. I know that I can rent a lift for like 500 dollars.

BYT: If you could choose some urban space to takeover what would you choose?

KT: A xxxx xxxx.

BYT: Do you have one in mind? A specific one.

KT: Um…. yes.

BYT: Haha

KT: I mean, I just think it would be interesting. Yeah, we’ll probably have to cut that one out… let me make up a new one – haha – Cale, you better cut that shit out. Um… I would love to rock the whole front of the convention center.

BYT: You got some pretty grand plans here dude.

KT: I’m gonna go big.

BYT: I was just thinking you were going to say like an underpass or some such

KT: I mean, I like small stuff, I like seeing little Borf tags. But one time when I was in San Francisco about 12 years ago, my friend gave me an address and was like you need to go out to the docks. I’m not telling you why, just take your cameras and go. We went out there and it was a cargo ship and the whole side of the cargo ship was bombed, it said Tie, it was one of the most massive things I’ve ever seen.

BYT: And it was totally bombed out?!

KT: I heard two things, that it was done illegally by a huge crew of people cause Tie had passed away and this was a tribute to him – that’s a huge fucking tribute. But, another thing I heard was they got permission, which is still cool in a sense cause I mean, I’d love to tag the side of a cargo ship. And that’s one thing I always think about. I want people to go “Holy shit did you see that?” I love that.

BYT: You’re going to continue working at different scales?

KT: Half and half, there is a lot of stuff coming up, I’ve got a lot of things in the works. I love DC the best, I think I’ll always live here but there are some other cities I want to take over.

BYT: Three reasons people should come to the show on Tuesday

KT: One, it’s going to be a benefit for two of my friends who had their house burn down and they didn’t have renter’s insurance and they weren’t at home at the time, it was an electrical fire in an apartment, and thank god nobody was hurt, but they need some help, they are some of the sweetest people I know, they are rad as shit. Number two is I’m gonna have some big DJ’s, Stereofaith and Ikon, they’re fuckin rad, fuckin…

BYT: Gnarly

KT: Gnarly douchebags, I love em. And then number three is… um… what other reason do you need to come out on a Tues night and get drunk?

BYT: Shit yeah.

KT: Those are my 3 reasons. Oh, and maybe some art.