walls.

borhood. All the kids in my childhood had tags in the 80s, and no one was avoiding using them. All possible spots in our neighborhood, including train stops, were bombed from top to bottom. The local youth center tried to organize some kind of image campaigns from time to time, where kids were put cleaning the walls but the only result of these campaigns was that a day after the buff those walls had twice as much tags than before.I guess it isn’t hard to tell which was more in- teresting to me, bombing or buffing. My first real

job like a good boy, I just paint on my way towork in the morning or after work on the after-noon.

How has Finnish graffiti scene changed in thepast twenty years? The uppermost observation is that everything has become commercial. In my youth we painted with anything that gave any color. Nowadays’ writers have their own brands for graff cans and what not. Even the cap selection is wider than a candy compartment in a grocery store. Backin the days people were stockpiling caps of a

FTC CrewSTreeTname

Please, introduce yourself to the readers. A painter without higher education. The only subject in this university of life has been graffiti.Streetname FTC Crew.

Favourite color? There are plenty, but the first ones to come in mind are black, red andorange.

Where do you get ideas for the colors of your pieces? Many people use pretty similar color schemes from year to year while your pieces tend to have a very wide repertoire of colors. Well, I like to doodle with colors, I by the way recommend it to everyone, good color markers are part of everyone’s basic equipment. Better not follow predesigned color schemes slavishly tho, you should pay attention to the surroundingswhere you are painting.

At the moment, do you crave more for cold metalor grey concrete? Why?

I always paint by my motivation and feeling, andthey change on a daily basis. There are moments

when I can paint anywhere. At the very moment I crave for grey concrete because it’s more inneed of color. “Cold metal” has a bit of color al-ready. Let’s stay in the world of train graffiti for a while. Where are the best pieces on trains made at themoment? In our two neighboring countries in the west. Those two are still my favorites.

Why are Swedes so good on this field also? Must be the history. Back in the 80s it was a lot easier to get better caps and cans over there. There were more people on the scene and more international connections. Of course there’s also a lot more concrete in Stockholm compared toHelsinki, so there are more objects to paint on.

Let’s stay in the field of history, continuing to your personal one. What got you interested in painting and when did you do your first realpieces?I’m a working class kid from a concrete neigh-

« If you don’t see my pieces anymore I’m probably dead.»

color piece was done in 1991.

That’s already twenty years ago. Whathas kept you on for such a long time? Painting has become a way of life -therefore I’m a habitual criminal ac- cording to the police. But the cops won’t get me down, even tho they are all the time trying to interrupt with my life. I just paint, every day. I do my day

trains.

tracksides.