Uptown United LiveArt REMIX w/Skipfolio & Sean Valli

"...everybody going Uptown,

that's where i wanna be

Uptown

set your mind free

Uptown

Got my body hot

Get down,

I don't wanna stop, no!

As soon as we got there

Good times

were rolling

White, Black,

Puerto Rican

Everybody just a-freakin.."

in fact the mood was more subdued when I walked in about 9:45 from the cold front sweeping across OKC, for the Live Action Art gig at Uptown United. It would be better to say specifically that the energy was down-tempo chill with a acute sense of the promise of a good time this evening. The ambient mix was smooth droopy and straight loopy, as guests milled about talking in groups with drinks and iPhone in hand. The DJ and the tech guys were running final checks of the lights,the audio and video equipment...and Sean Valli had already been at work on the mural rendering his signature sub-atomic-organic Tree of Life.

Below: Chad Mount (tribalbot) of Uptown United with artist Sean Valli

As the crowd began streaming in, my task was going for a pure jazz,hip-hop improv.

Something edgy,raw and love desperate like doodles in a heartbroken poet's notebook.I blocked in the large black iconic and ironic figure as a visual stabilizer for the image plane. In a nod to the film 'Beautiful Losers', I scrawl in the name "Sonny Liston", the mob-owned heavyweight champ who lost his title to a young Cassius Clay. I begin filling in the negative space with loose marks, signifyin' snarky text, curly arabesques, prime numbers, Japanese kanji and Spanish slang. Big-AfroSoul Sista geishas float laconic about the garden of random graphics and text like ghetto angels at Golgotha, and the Sistine Chapel

After a while I manage to tap into the Flowmasta, channeling a lifetime of visual prompts, impressions, the intuitive, but informed,.. Past the thought uncensored and grammatically challenged 'wordz'..Dopamine(?),

With a Salt N' Pepa remix trip-hoppin' through the speakers, I'm running with this line of fluid ink, like a child with sharp scissors.

The night unfolds,the creative process emerges and builds to a crescendo of handmade flourishes, "Looks good, Skip, I think you done, man...", the tag of my autograph and the flashing of cameras brings the last 3 hours of alchemy to an end.

Post project: Sean,Chad,Sam and Skipfolio

Live Art REMIX @ Uptown United: featuring Artists Skiphill and Sean Valli.