Get it? Got it? Good.

Discovering the relationship between the artisan and their personal connection with their trade.

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Get It? Got It? Good. | Episode 6 | 1 Hour Photo with Steve

During middle school and high school, my friends and I would save up our money, go to the mall and take glamour shots at a 1 Hour Photo. Anyone who has taken these kinds of photos before, knows that the preparation was not a joke. Everything from matching outfits, to ridiculous props, to the cheesiest backdrops (like a Playboy Bunny pattern) was extremely important in the creation of these glamour shots. The point of taking these photos was to get them printed in wallet-size to write a cute message on the back of them and hand them out to your friends, which would be displayed inside of lockers, on class binders and displayed inside of wallets (the kinds that had the accordion-fold photo compartment).

When I discovered Steve’s 1 Hour Photo, the adolescent tween in me was overjoyed because all of the 1 Hour Photo stores in every mall near me had closed down years ago. I could tell my excitement confused Steve but later he realized the point of my interview. The craft of getting these kinds of glamour shots taken and the need to print them to share with others was the most human part of his trade. There’s a certain type of life a printed portrait offers that would never feel the same as a portrait (or selfie) shared on your phone or computer. A printed photo holds a sense of care for that moment of time that is now shared in a physical way. 

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Get It? Got It? Good. | Episode 5 | Accordions with Jeff

While I was on the phone with Jeff, scheduling an appointment to interview him, the last thing he said to me was, “You’re gonna love what I do”. On that Monday morning, I was instantly welcomed into his home studio and I already knew he would be someone I would never forget. His love for accordion playing was one thing but his love for showing me the inside of an accordion gleamed an excitement not even my Snapchat recording could do justice.

Because Jeff and his wife have traveled back and forth to and from Italy, he was able to truly indulge in classic accordion making and repairing at the Borsini Accordion Factory. He wore a big smile on his face during his entire interview and was proud to be one of the few pioneers in accordion playing that carried on the history and tradition of this instrument. 

Jeff said, “This is where I like to be. Very simple. I don’t need a lot of complications and bologna filling up my life”. While he played for me, there was a sense of satisfaction and pride in the way his fingers moved and his leg jumping to the beat. The accordion was his instrument but it had also become a lifestyle that inspired how to go about the rest of his days. He was right. I did love what he did and then I realized how much I wanted a bologna-less life too.

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 Get It? Got It? Good. | Episode 4 | The Harp with Tomoko

If you ever decide to hire Tomoko Sato to play the harp at your wedding, I couldn’t imagine there being one dry eye as she would play. If you ever decide to Yelp “Harpist Tomoko Sato” and read her reviews, you’ll understand why. As I was luckily invited to her home, I noticed that the main attraction was her grand harp, sitting in the middle of the living room, adjacent to her piano. 

Tomoko has a soft voice with a modest tone. Her interview was both educational and personal, as are the others that I’ve done but my most favorite moment of her interview was when she played her harp for me. The echoes in the great room bounced every note from wall to wall. The melody was soft but technical and I felt like I was in some kind of fairytale. Her hands and her feet were both moving at the same time similar to playing the piano as she remained focused and confident with every pluck and strum. The concentration in Tomoko’s face beamed a sense of ownership with her instrument as if it was the only one she had ever played on and that love for the harp was pouring out of her. I felt so lucky to be there in that moment, witnessing her personal relationship and how important the human touch of playing her instrument was, that would never be perfectly replicated using any form of technology.

Before leaving, she gave me her album called, “Romantic Melodies On Cello and Harp” that she had recorded with her dear friend. On my way home, I listened to the entire album and it made me miss the live version I had just heard in her home. I will never forget that sound.

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Get it? Got it? Good. | Episode 3 | Charicature Portraits with Djibril

Meeting Djibril actually happened by accident. I was visiting a friend in San Diego, when we decided to walk around Balboa Park. As we walked around the infamous strip of performers, there was a charicature artist underneath an EZ-Up. It seemed like when I approached him, we were both nervous (asking individuals if I can interview them is no easy task). I asked him if he would be willing to illustrate a portrait of me and my two friends and he was just as overjoyed as I was and the nervousness vanished.

When you get your portrait drawn, you notice how intimate it actually is. Your eyes are meeting frequently, the artist is studying every detail on your face and is visually interpreting what he sees at that very moment. Djibril continued to draw my friends as I watched his process from staring, visualizing, drawing, smiling and then staring again. He seemed so used to the personal interaction with individuals that I bet he would win a staring contest without flinching. He told me he travels from San Diego, to Santa Monica, to Venice and even to Paris just to meet new people and share his talent where people are wiling to let him.

During Djibril’s interview he said, “People are afraid to look foolish. There’s no filter here. It’s who you are.” and it actually dawned on me that the art of charicature portraits did the opposite of filters on social media and applications. It exaggerated parts of your face that normally you would try to hide in “selfie angles” and those actually seemed like the most fun moments to illustrate for him. It’s in those moments within the portrait where it seemed the most human, most realistic and most honest even while being a cartoon. He spoke about the connection of people and I understood how important that was, especially in his craft. If there is no connection between him and his subjects, there would be no life in his portraits.

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Get it? Got It? Good. | Episode 2 | Pinstriping with Tom Kelly

I remember being nervous to give Tom Kelly a call that day because I was about to ask the last of the first seven American pinstripers (Kenny Howard, aka Von Dutch being one of them) to possibly take time out of his day to meet with me. It turned out that Tom lives right around the corner from my parent’s home, I went to grade school with his grandson and his daughter was my 3rd grade teacher. What are the odds?

Since his studio in Bellflower is currently being used by one of his sons, he mostly works out of his detached garage, surrounded by airbrushed and hand painted work, buckets of 1-Shot Sign Paint and an old boom box that’s used as background noise. We went through older and newer work, as I had to stop my eyes from getting bigger and bigger because of the focus I had on the level of detail in each of his pieces. I noticed a new thing every time I looked away and came back to it.

Tom is one of the most humble individuals I’ve ever met. Here I was, sitting in front of the grandson and prodigy of The Baron of Baron and Roth (Ed “Big Daddy” Roth), while he kept saying to me, “this isn’t a big deal. I’m just a regular guy”. As I watched his steady hands glide across the plastic board, the smile on my face showed the level of gratitude I had for this “regular guy” who continues to carry the torch for the art of pinstriping and Kustom Kulture. He told me stories about his old hot rods in the 50’s, his memorable trips to Europe and we even talked about the current election. All the while, Tom was painting perfect thin and thick symmetrical lines and offered to teach me as long as I was serious. I now do my best to walk around the block and visit him every other week when I’m home and I value every minute of it.

In one of his interview clips, he calls himself a “dinosaur”, describing himself as a dying breed with a dying form of art. He made sure I knew that it’s important for young people these days to make things by hand because of the heart and soul that goes into it and that’s certainly something that should not die. I agree. I think we were eventually meant to meet each other.

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Get It? Got it? Good. | Episode 1 | Disk Jockey with DJ Skitz

On the second floor of a corner building in Koreatown, I met up with DJ Skitz, a seasoned Disk Jockey who was born and raised in Los Angeles. His love for music and the physicality of collecting and scratching with vinyl is abundant in his space, his sanctuary, his own personal house of music.

In the first room of his studio, there was an entire wall tiled with nostalgic album covers; everything from Jurassic 5, to DJ Kool, to Lauryn Hill, to Wu-Tang, to Mos Def and even the soundtrack to Training Day (a classic Denzel film).

Immediately, the vibe was clear as he talked with me about his first time on the turntables and how the progression of technology continues to maintain a borderless history for the legacy of deejaying. He values Serato just as much as the next rising DJ on Soundcloud today but it’s important to understand that you can’t have one without the other. Without crate digging, vinyl collecting and turntablism, where would the heart and soul of the best house parties dating all the way back to the 1930’s be today? How could seamless medleys of our favorite tracks be mixed and therefore unified without the original version of matching beats, relying on over-sized headphones and the excitement to cue the next track to play?

I watched his well-trained hands go from mixer to vinyl, mixer to vinyl, mixer to vinyl. He tentatively listened to the beats through his headphones and pulled out a new record each time to lay on the tables and bobbed his head back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. His mixes were like mini skits that told one large story. Then I remembered why he goes by the name of DJ Skitz.