Curbs & Stoops:    Tell us a little about how you got started in art in the first place.

Imminent Disaster:   The real answer is that I started doing it as a kid. My 1st grade teacher was pretty confident that one day I’d be an artist. But really, I’ve always been someone who is stuck in my imagination and trying to make some of those imagined worlds real, whether it be a quilt or a garden or a print or a drawing.

Curbs & Stoops:    I read that you went through a design program with a focus on print making. How did this knowledge-base factor into the beginnings of your experimentation with street art? How is it part of your process now?

Imminent Disaster:    Printmaking as a starting point for a street artist makes complete sense, because printmaking is about creating multiples. They’re not precious, you can make hundreds, and then the question is where do you put them? Printmakers early in their career usually aren’t selling out their editions. Putting them up on the street seems to be a natural progression for the printmaker. You start to get attention and build a career that can sell those editions of hundreds of prints.

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Curbs and Stoops:    You’re a self-taught artist who has put in the work to become a working professional in art. If you didn’t learn in a classroom, where did you learn? Who were your teachers? What life lessons were part of that education?

Chor Boogie:   Yes I am a self taught artist. I basically learned from trial and error through practicing on a daily basis from the amateur stages in my life until now. And you know what, I’m still learning new things on the daily. I did not have some body physically teach me the ways of the artist, but there was one artist that I knew named Brian. This was when I was in my portraiture stage and he would always critique my work and basically helped me correct them. Over time doing portraits started to catch on… then a good friend of mine and mentor named VULCAN basically told me “everybody and their grandma can do portraits… so you yourself need to take it to the next level.” So i did. So more than teachers there were many people who were inspirations and mentors who have helped me out. You can call it fate or you can call it the reason for everything, but i would like to thank them for their inspiration: Apex,Vulcan,Phase2, Pose2, Sake, Coma, Hex Tgo,Slick, Gustav Klimt, Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Dali.

Curbs and Stoops:    You’ve traveled all over the world for your art. What are some of your favorite places that you’ve visited?
Chor Boogie:   They are all amazing. There is something special about each place that I’ve been to. Brazil has amazing women of course, and its street scene is crazy. Everything is covered with graffiti. The food is amazing and the culture is a happy go lucky party culture that loves to have fun. They also don’t play either. The favelas are no joke. Kids walk around with 9 millimeter guns like its cool, but overall the street art is amazing as well I’m glad to be apart of it and left that mark out there. Australia reminded me of San Francisco and New York. It is heavily influenced by America but its blended with their own style and culture as well which I thought was pretty cool. What stood out to me the most were the aboriginals – native people who embody the culture.. Another thing that was interesting to me, and i didn’t even ask – it was just mentioned in conversations is that the Caucasian people were talking shit about how the “white man” came over and took this land from the aboriginals. I thought that was pretty real because they were dead serious and emotional about how their country was founded by criminals. Anyway, I thought the country was beautiful – wild animals out in the open..good weather, and the scenery was priceless. I think i would live there if there was a nuclear holocaust.

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AARON NAGEL

Curbs and Stoops:    You’re a self-taught artists… a statement I feel rather baffled making while looking at your virtuosic paintings. Tell me about how you got started painting. And how you went about teaching yourself…. because you did a really good job. Did you always want to be an artist, or did the fireman thing not work out?

Aaron Nagel:    I started painting a few years after high school. I grew up drawing, but I can’t remember exactly what first led me to painting. I did really like the idea of creating big, dramatic pieces, so I suppose paint was just more fitting for that. I learned mostly by trail and error… a lot of trial and error. Every once in a while I got some tips from people who knew what they were doing and/or had been to art school, but for the most part it’s just been years and years of hacking away at it.

I always assumed I would make art, but I never thought it could be a career (which is still up for debate). ironically, I had planned to be a musician, which is the other impossible way to make a living.

Curbs and Stoops:   How did you get started showing your art? Did you start painting with the intention of someday exhibiting? Give me a little background story about how you went from a self-taught artist to a rock star solo show at Shooting Gallery (their anniversary no less). Have you had any particular supporters in the art world that helped you make that transition?

Aaron Nagel:   My first legit solo show was in 2008, so I’ve really only been showing a short time. It was hard for me to get to a point where I felt like my art was ready to put out there, but I met some guys through a mutual friend who were interested in showing my work in their shop, so that kind of forced me into getting a show together. I’d always had the intention of exhibiting but could have easily just have put it off forever, since it always felt (and still feels) like my best piece is the next one. Once I had shown, and been through the process of painting for a specific show, my outlook towards showing work totally changed, and now I see it as a necessity. I had met the Shooting Gallery guys a few times just because I had been to so many shows there, and once I did my 2008 exhibit, they approached me about doing a solo show. The owner, Justin Giarla, has been super crucial in my transition to exhibiting, and is really supportive.

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