Rob Abeyta, Jr., Hustler of Living Stories, 37, Redondo Beach, CA
When I first met Rob, I discovered that we shared a lot of friends and interests in common. He showed me videos of prison riots, blogs of the underground, and other reference materials for subcultures I was fascinated by, that he lived in or knew well. It didn't take long for me to appreciate the stories Rob's life was made of. How does one paint, raise a family, and become Mister Cartoon's consigliere? Rob lays it out for this internet campfire.
How many careers have you had? What is your current title?
Not many careers, a few jobs: strawberry picker, boxer, 110th Light Infantry, printer, graphic designer, Nike art director, and painter... I should stop. Until recently I was an art director at 72 & Sunny, an ad agency here in Los Angeles. I am a now a free agent.
What project will you be working on next?
Building something new. I’m interested in building in a “non-traditional” sense. Telling deep stories through tangibles seems to be my passion. Be it creative work for a large company, creating apparel or a painting series or film. I am striving for integrity, honesty, craftsmanship in the work. To obtain those points, I try to dig deep.
Also paint, study painting and paint more. I need to finish the 65 other Tianguis painting in the series, which totals 75. I am also working on large pieces based on this theme, 6’ x 9'. These paintings have inspired a furniture designer, so he and I are collaborating on some pieces, which will appear next year. A solo show hopefully.
Making more books, some apparel collabs with our Tokyo brothers. Estevan [Oriol] and I are working with Undefeated on some documentaries. Also I have a book coming out May 2007.
Your house is burning down. What one possession (aside from human/animal life) would you grab on the way out?
I'd let it all burn. It would be a good lesson in impermanence.
When and how did we meet?
We met years ago. Was it Greg [Shewchuk]? Or through Hiroshi [Fujiwara] or Michel Gondry? Joking.I honestly can't remember. I feel lame.
Tell me how a kid with roots in Chicago ends up in Southern California?
I bought the dream. Perfectly marketed and packaged to me. Punk rock, skating, sun.
So then how do you go from the military to art director?
Back up to the entry of the military...
Yeah, how did you end up in the armed services?
I went in on noble appearances. I needed to stay out of trouble. My family and friends weren't the best role models. So the thing to do was join the Army. The Army was a mess for me. I was on the boxing team shortly, only to be moved out due to drinking and um, of course fighting. That's what a 17 year old does, no?
Oh yeah, totally. That's what I did too. Hah.
So I had a skate ramp in there, had purple hair, listened to punk rock and got in trouble. However, my outlet was art also. Skaters, even in the Army, (believe it or not there was a small group of us), are creative people. So we acted like we weren't trained killers. But just kids who made a left turn instead of right.
Tell us a little more about your family and background. Why did that past lead you to the Army?
The Army seemed the best thing I had going for me.
My role models as a kid growing up in South Chicago, my family, were serious in their affairs. I come from a multiple generational history of what would be considered illegal activities. So that's all I knew. I had a lineage to follow. And I'm not talking little weed transactions like Showtime's "Weeds". Not to implicate anyone, but serious events occurred during my growing up, and I was next to come on board. And I was gearing up for that. I was into the whole idea of supporting and building this identity that had been laid out for me. I was going to be a bad motherfucker. "See my name, don't you know who I am!" However, my mom couldn’t handle the violence that comes with that lifestyle anymore. So she got cleaned up, and she become stronger. And helped steer me into something better.
And also, I had been kicked out of two high schools.
You got kicked out for what?
Fighting. I was the guy defending the kid from the bully. Can’t stand bullies. We had a lot of gangs in our school. So you were bound to get into it.
So you had a temper? Defending yourself? Or were you just doing the "right" thing?
All of the above. I like to fight. I haven't for awhile but I liked to defend kids getting beat on.
That's kind of hard for me to imagine. I mean, we've been friends a short time and I know you can throw down, but at the same time you're so zen.
I wasn't a bully. It’s where I grew up; my dad punching me in the face with a boxing glove telling me to stop crying when I'm six and every kid I knew fought and the adults shot each other.
Wow. I grew up in the polar opposite kind of environment. And look at us rolling in the same circles now. Funny how life happens.
Right. Our culture is accommodating not foreboding.
Was it hard for you to adjust to Southern California? And did you build on your art at the army? Or did that happen here?
Okay, I'm 20, out of the Army... same shit. I end up in Pomona, running with the wrong crowd, getting arrested and bam… I hit the wall. Circumstances bring me to my knees with the drinking. I wasn't sober enough or inclined to do art other than drawing some ghetto tattoos and some aerosol. But when I did create, I felt good.
How did you even get on the path to art director?
I don't know. It’s a blessing for sure.
To turn that art into work…
Well… I stopped the drinking and drugs, which made things a little better and moved to San Francisco. I saw how everyone was reading [Karl] Marx and studying art and they looked like hoodlums. I became friends with punk bands or my friend John Yates who worked at Alternative Tentacles and I had a lot of time on my hands. I didn't spend a lot of time at bars, so I taught myself the computer. Went to San Francisco City College for IA. Got a job at a color separation place and learned design and art through peers and by doing.
There are so many creative people in San Francisco. It's not all about technology. That's a good crowd to get lost in if you can handle it and don't end up with a class A habit.
Right. So after San Francisco I opened my own studio at 25. I had six employees with a gallery on the top floor. We made hand made books, used digital technology mixed with traditional printmaking and invited artists in to work and create.
I took the company public and then things began to change. Shareholders strangled funds. I wasn't being creative because I was doing shareholder newsletters. I shut it down and went back to skating as an art director for Think.
Wait, that's the company where you were somehow involved with Robert Rauschenberg?
Yes.
We where doing digital prints with watercolors on a substrate that you can transfer to other materials. So we would create an image in Photoshop and I had a guy working for me that was a sculptor and I wanted to transfer those images to plaster. It sounds easy, but no. After a lot of R&D we perfected a technique, it looked a lot like frescoes. So a friend of mine who set up Rauschenberg with the same technology at Captiva Island (he worked for the equipment company and was a color consultant) wanted me to go to Captiva to teach Rauschenberg that technique because he had been trying to achieve the same thing. After many phones calls, setting up the trip… months pass. I open a Vogue and there is Rauschenberg -- a full photo, of him using our technique to create art. My friend sold us out.
Whoa, have you ever looked at that copy of Vogue again?
No. I was kind of pissed.
“Since 1992, Rauschenberg has used an Iris printer to make digital color prints of his photographs. It is this technology that allows for the high-resolution images and luminous hues in the recent large-scale works on paper, the Anagrams (1995-97). In 1996, he transferred Iris prints to wet plaster in the Arcadian Retreats, a fresco series that provided him with an entirely new avenue of exploration.” – Guggenheim
You’re eyeball deep in art. How did you end up as Mister Cartoon's consigliere?
Ha ha. Not to make the story too long, I come back to Los Angeles, freelance, hookup with Andy Jenkins and start at Girl [Skateboards]. I meet Estevan [Oriol] cause I admire his photos. And meet Toonman [Mister Cartoon]. We start doing music packaging together for companies like Capitol and Sony. This moves into building other product like apparel and footwear. The consigliere thing is kind of a joke. But I do give advice in that capacity.
Everybody needs friends. How is it that you three ended up creating together? Was it something conjured up late one night or everything just kind of fell into place?
Our styles are all similar where Cartoon would illustrate, Estevan shot photos, I designed the whole thing. I showed Estevan my hand made books and he loved them. He said, “Wanna do some music packaging?”
So it was all a very natural progression of your friendship.
Yes.
So you take in all the skate influences and end up working in action sports, then Nike and an ad agency. Each job is similar but different. How do you find a way to balance your creativity at work and then for yourself?
It’s all very similar. Problem solving for different viewers. But the energy is the same. My time is a juggle. I am constantly trying to make better use of my time.
I think a lot of our friends feel that way. I don't know any one person with the traditional one gig anymore without any side projects.
Right?
What exactly is a Tianguis painting?
The paintings are inspired by the Tianguis in Mexico City -- tiny, informal markets where all kinds of illegal activities and trades occur. Inspiration came from these markets. In addition, the mysticism of Mexico City I experienced, colors the work.
Tell me about www.supercompanycustoms.com, what have you got to do with them?
It's my friend Trevelen's custom bike shop. He builds custom death traps. I'm building one with him. He won the Discovery Channel's Biker Build Off.
It seems like you are getting a lot of mentoring... all involved in creativity. Be it ink or bikes.
I've been into bikes for a bit but not to the extent Trev is. [Paul] Mittleman and I were talking about this. It’s all craftsmanship, pride in the work, taking some and re-designing, making it better, more suitable to your needs or personality or culture.
Like the Neighborhood and Wtaps guys in Tokyo. They do it with apparel, they ride motorcycles, skate, and work on the bikes in their studios. The craftsmanship carries over into the DNA, if you will, of the product
Is there any one creative today, you appreciate a lot?
I will say I admire the crew I run with. Including yourself.
Man, thanks.
As far as I appreciate or get inspired by I’d say off the bat [Gerhard] Richter, Polke. I like what Banks Violette is doing. Sam Durant and The Chapman Brothers.
That's cool. You intersect with so many artists I'm sure it's hard to pick one. Before we wrap this up, what's up with your book? What's it all about?
The book is out. It’s 96 pages. It's called "Compliments of...". It’s some work, inspirations, and concepts I'm exploring. I didn't want it like "Here’s my art" thing. It has six chapters. It's a book about my work and how I arrive there, [with] very little writing, so a lot of art.
Who's publishing it? And where can I find it?
Upper Playground is publishing. Distributed on Ginko Press. [Editor's note: Rob's book, "Compliments of..." is available here.]
Any parting words for the up and comers?
“The map is not the territory”- Alfred Korzybski
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