Peyton Scott Russell

Born in Minneapolis, MN, Peyton’s earliest memories as a child were making art and being creative. This continued into high school where he discovered graffiti art from the film Style Wars in 1984. This consumed his art interest.

A portfolio of traditional art and graffiti influenced works helped earn acceptance into the School of the Arts Institute of Chicago (SAIC). Graduating in 1991, Peyton became a professional artist and teaching artist by founding organizations like House of Daskarone, Juxtaposition Arts, and Art House Education.

As a Bush Fellowship recipient, 2012-14, Peyton formed SPRAYFINGER. This is a program used for teaching, Graffiti: The Art of Creative Lettering, to youth, adults, seniors and the community at large.

Peyton’s focus is to increase the awareness of graffiti as a teachable art form by teaching, doing more community events, exhibitions and writing grants.

Lifetime Arts: What are your preferred artistic media?

Peyton Scott Russell: Graffiti, collage, and sculpture.

LA: How did you get started as a teaching artist?

PSR: My first teaching experience was in 1990 at the Ida B. Wells and Robert Taylor Housing Projects on Chicago’s South Side. I helped my School of Art Institute (SAIC) classmates, who were training for their teaching degrees, with foundational art instruction for youth. In 1993 I was hired as the lead art teacher for Professional Sports Linkage (PSL) in the Sumner Olson Housing Projects in North Minneapolis, and also worked as a teaching artist-in-residence at my alma mater, North High School.

I founded Juxtaposition Arts in 1995 in my studio, House of Daskarone. Through this program I created unique and original curricula based on teaching by example — having pre-emerging young artists working in professional artist studio. In addition to teaching traditional studio arts media, I was the first in the Twin Cities to instruct and define the art of graffiti as a fine art. After 10 years as the artist director, I left Juxtaposition to explore other projects.

In 2012 I began my Bush Fellowship project, through which I founded SPRAYFINGER: Graffiti Education and The Art of Creative Lettering. This program and curriculum are focused completely on teaching graffiti as a fine art.

LA: What led you to Creative Aging work?

PSR: The opportunity to teach and share with people of all ages, nationalities, class, and demographics has always been a high interest of mine. While working with Intermedia Arts in Minneapolis, I headed the Gen Arts program. This was a cross-generational collaborative project where middle and high school youth partnered with older adults aged 65+. I conducted summer workshops for four years until the organization closed its doors.

In 2018 I was invited to lead a workshop during a training with Lifetime Arts and Aroha Philanthropies as part of the Seeding Vitality Arts in Museums initiative. I was delighted to do so as this was yet another opportunity for me to teach and spread the important aspects of graffiti as a fine art.

LA: What is one of the most challenging or surprising aspects of this work?

PSR: Nothing was too challenging about this class. The surprising aspect was the older adults behaving much like my younger students in that they were very excited and had lots of questions. Some were apprehensive about proceeding and yet were very intrigued and wanted to learn more about an art form they were curious about. For me, the most wonderful thing was lots of feedback and eagerness for discussion and conversation. That is one thing I enjoy the most, and something I don’t often get in my other youth classes.

LA: Tell us about the class you taught for the Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA) in Minneapolis, MN.*

PSR: Just before the class started, I was nervous. I was nervous about teaching a graffiti art class to older educated adults, as most participants were the museums’ docents and tour guides. It was also a generation I fought with in my youth to get my art recognized as an Art. To my surprise, the class was met with curiosity, respect, and wonder.

I began the class with an in-depth history of graffiti writing, articulating the areas and demographics of people who created it and why. I explained graffiti’s 50+ year journey and all the transformations that have created this moment, when it is the most recognized contemporary art form of the world. I was told this was the most powerful part of the course because it provided insight to a misunderstood craft usually seen as mindless youth creating acts of vandalism.

Following the history, we explored our personal signatures, which personalizes the craft for each person. The personal signatures are shared with each other, and individuals learn about one another based on the creation of their signature. Participants were then asked to make up or use a nickname and create a signature using this name. This signature is now their tag. After tags were created, I introduced letter structure — the drawing of letters, font design, and stylization of their tag.

I began the class with an in-depth history of graffiti writing, articulating the areas and demographics of people who created it and why…I was told this was the most powerful part of the course…

The class then moved into collage with colored paper and layering techniques. This is a method I created that helps people think about lettering in different ways by cutting paper into shapes that form the letters of their tag. In some cases, it helps to eliminate the lack of drawing skill because often people can cut a straight line instead of trying to draw one.

Following collage, participants were introduced to aerosol painting. Spray paint is the apex of the graffiti culture [and the medium] by which all graffiti writers and artists are judged. Participants begin with aerosol’s hazy, overspraying, very drippy nature and then slowly learn can control. Can control is introduced as the last part of the instruction because it is the most challenging part and can have discouraging results. Creating sharp clean lines and being able to start and stop the paint intentionally takes years to master. Recognizing that hand/eye coordination, hand/finger pressure, distance, speed, and angle of the can also all play critical rolls in controlling the characteristics of the medium.

After participants had a chance to experiment with their signature, drawing letters, collage, and spray painting, we then tried a group collaboration called, “Graffiti Wall Mash Up,” where participants work together to make create a collaborative mural. This is entirely made up on the spot. The easiest way to approach this is to paint your name — or the name of the represented peer group —in this case it was MIA. “MIA” was painted on three large canvases to create a “Soft Mural.” (Soft Mural is a term I made up in the 1990’s based on the soft sculpture concept by Claes Oldenburg.)

After each segment was introduced the group had an opportunity to discuss, share, and ask questions. Again, for me these were the best parts of the program. Feedback from older adults is something I never get.

Graffiti is an art form created by youth for youth, so getting older adults to participate and talk about their experiences was the highlight for me. And, because half of the class participants were MIA docents, the buzz around the museum spread quickly. It was a huge hit. I feel blessed and grateful for the success of my program and look forward to teaching more with this age group.

*MIA Graffiti & Street Art Class Participants making art. (Credit: MIA)*

Graffiti is an art form created by youth for youth, so getting older adults to participate and talk about their experiences was the highlight for me.

LA: Tell us a short story from the class that demonstrates the benefits of Creative Aging for participants.

PSR: The medium and course I have to offer is unique, especially for older adults. It’s an art form largely produced by young people. Yet, its 50+ year history has allowed it to grow for anyone that has a name and signature and is interested in showing it to the world.

The joy of my course was seeing this group articulate their names, discuss them with each other, and recognize they had something to contribute to the whole group. At one time people were comparing tag styles and joking about placing them around town. During the program’s final reflection, one gentleman said he came into the class very cynical, wondering who could possibly teach a class on graffiti and whether it was going to be some high-class academic that read a book about street art and now going to teach the class? He said he was blown away and that it was truly a master class and one of the best classes he’s ever been in. Everyone just had fun, learned new skills, met new people, learned about a mysterious art form, and left wanting more.

LA: What did you have planned for the culminating event?

PSR: It was a traditional MIA show-and-tell-type of exhibition. Most of the pieces created were on display during an event called 3rd Thursday at MIA. It’s a huge party MIA has every 3rd Thursday of the month. It was well attended with hip hop, DJ’s, food and drink; just a very beautiful event. This was the first of two culminating events. The second will happen in January 2019. I have selected one work from each participant to be framed and hung in the commons area at MIA. This is an exhibition space for their arts’ educational classes.

LA: What are your current and upcoming projects of both your own work and teaching assignments?

PSR: 2019 will be another powerful year for SPRAYFINGER as well as my personal work.

SPRAYFINGER will be teaching at:

Mississippi Creative Arts Academy in St. Paul in partnership with Interact Center
Franconia Sculpture Park
Red Wing Arts Center
Austin MN Art Center
Kaleidoscope Charter School
South High School

Personal exhibitions: