Austin, TX. Skeleart @ the HOG. 2014
Meet Skele. I barged in on Skele's painting party a few weeks ago while doing research for a story I was writing for the Austin Chronicle, the 1st assignment I've gotten from the local alt-weekly since I moved to Austin 4+ years ago. Skele and his friend Deathfox drove down this weekend from Dallas for 3 days of painting walls at the HOG, the privately-owned paint park/social experiment that sits just below "the castle" overlooking downtown Austin just west of Lamar Blvd. Skele says he usually doesn't know what he's gonna paint when he shows up to these walls. But he knew he'd be painting this wild-eyed shark when he showed up today. "I watched Jaws last night," he laughed. Skele proudly told me he's been making a living as an artist for a full year now. And now he's got this badass paint park to share his gift with the world. To top it all off, Skele found out today that one of his paintings ("hail bog") showed up on the cover of the new Austin Chronicle—in a story written by yours truly. Today was a very good day for me and Skele.