Wednesday, May 5, 2010

April 2010: Crimson Cisa in The Hague

Crimson Cisa is constantly busy; I'm glad he found time to answer some questions for Illicit. When he's not getting up in the streets, he's probably in the library researching for his undergraduate thesis. Applause, you rebellious academic! Today, he takes a break and shares his plans with us. He writes:
"My headquarters is located in The Hague, Holland, but I travel a lot. I’m a regular visitor to Berlin, Germany and Lvov, Ukraine. Since I am mostly into stickers right now, I put up my stuff anywhere I go. Holland is a pretty small country, so it is easy to visit a lot of different cities and spread your work quickly."
"My first memory of drawing something on a wall is the time I used a key to scratch a bird and a lake or something in the hallway of my preschool. My mother was called in to come get me, but I can’t really remember getting in trouble. After that, I think I was 11 or 12 when I started doing stupid tags and what I believed were throw ups."
"To be honest, I enjoy working by myself. I just like to zone out, listen to some music and do my thing. Most of the things I make are pretty personal to me and I don’t like being rushed or distracted. I do really enjoy sketching with friends. My regular partner in crime is Smoke (http://www.flickr.com/photos/smoke1esaga/). He’s not very active, but we do try to motivate each other :) When the both of us are not too busy, we have a day every week when we just hang out, draw stuff and try to come up with new ideas."
"One time, Smoke and I got busted. This happened in the most ignorant of ways. We were done putting our stuff up, walked away and went to a store a couple of blocks further. We’re checking stuff out and everything is cool until two cops show up and ask us for ID. I tried playing dumb and was denying everything, but that didn’t really work. We had to go outside and the cops took us to the police station. They told us that they saw us while we were busy and waited until we entered the store so we couldn’t run. After keeping us in little waiting cells at the station for about an hour, they gave us a fine and let us go. This was probably one of the most idiotic things that ever happened to me. Why did they drive us all the way to the police station? Why didn’t they just give us the fine and let us go? Why didn’t they just bust us right away? Why were they keeping us at the police station for over an hour? Getting busted by the police and getting a fine obviously sucks balls, but the whole experience of being treated like some big time criminal just made it so much worse."
"Right now, I’m working on a couple of new sticker designs. One of these I named ‘The Cult Leader’. I think people will enjoy that one a lot (at least I really hope so). I’m also putting some finishing touches on a new canvas. I painted it together with my girlfriend (talk about bonding experiences hahaha). The canvas is called ‘Ik ben een vliegtuig’, which is Dutch for ‘I am an aeroplane’. It has to do with being a bit crazy and having a ‘crowded’ mind. The last couple of weeks were really stressful for me and I felt really restless. A great way of relieving stress is spreading your arms and yelling; ‘I AM AN AEROPLANE!’, while running through a library."

Thanks, man! For more sticker photos, check out his Flickr.

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