Meet the Ringmaster

Originally published on www.clownskateboards.com

Hi, How Are You?

Built from the worlds of skateboarding, the arts, cultures, and movements, CIRCUS is an extension of the socially conscious work started with Clown Skateboards’ Clown in Action initiative. CIRCUS is a collective – creating, producing, teaching, and supporting. As the CIRCUS slowly comes alive, its goals spread; to be a print house, a producer of boards, a publishing house for books, prints and zines, an organiser of workshops and events. The aim is to be a collective, creating, producing, teaching and supporting. As the UK starts to open, the USA side of Circus has just received the keys to the first official Circus venue in Albany, NY. We caught up with USA ringmaster Bryan to discuss printing and punk, DIY and Daniel Johnston, creativity, social activism and more.

“I think creatives and weirdos tend to attract one another,” ponders Bryan Hamill, “so not long after moving to Albany, I started meeting people who were into the same stuff that I was discovering I was into.” We are in the midst of an email back and forth discussing the intrinsic connections between screen printing, activism and creativity, in the context of his long-running printing business (Pepper Spray Press). DIY printing is something which has, over the years, become indelibly intertwined with grassroots activism. Marshall McLuhan once said that the medium is the message and, in the case of Pepper Spray Press, their message is stamped into their processes and methods for all to see; eternal guerilla agitators with a goal to make the world a better place via whatever methods they have at their disposal. The company began in 2015, with a goal to fund prints by emerging artists by selling work by more established and well known figures.

Alongside this dedication to elevating the visibility of up and coming artists, they make a point of being involved in a swathe of social initiatives. Since its adoption by Andy Warhol in the 1960s, screen printing has been viewed by many as an inherently countercultural activity; a symbiotic relationship where adoption by successive subcultures has seen many screen printers coming from backgrounds in punk rock and skateboarding. Punk music was Bryan’s entrance;

“I've always loved screen printing - the look, the repetition, the imperfections. I grew up playing music and screen printing was always a part of the DIY scene - making fliers, posters, record covers, shirts, patches, whatever. I had always wanted to learn the process, but until I had a space of my own, I wasn't able to. So I started reading everything I could and eventually building a studio.”

In that DIY vein, everything the press does - from mixing ink pigments from scratch, to experimenting with printing methods - is carried out in house, in their premises in Albany, NY. Pepper Spray’s Split 7” series was conceived by longtime Pepper Spray collaborator Scout. Its premise - pairing up two artists to create a joint artwork in which one half compliments the other - is a nod to their backgrounds, the split EPs that punk record labels seem to excel at releasing and the creativity the scene engenders. However Bryan is wary of putting things in a box, even when discussing his roots;

“I don't think there was ever a conscious decision to ‘be punk’. We wanted people to hear our music and since we were broke, we had to make do with whatever tools and materials were around. We were young, crafty, energetic, creative, and anti-authority. I guess that's all that punk is really.”

To highlight this looseness of form, the idea of punk as a state of mind rather than a strict genre, when I enquire as to what is currently on the Pepper Spray playlist he offers an eclectic array of responses; J-Dilla, Philip Glass, the new Sleaford Mods album, Bowie's later stuff,  the new Kendrick Lamar album and Floating Points are all brought up. The people that Pepper Spray work with come under a similarly loose fit description, with no criteria to involvement rather than an emphasis on experimentation and a dislike of artists and musicians trying repeatedly to recreate the formula that first brought them success; “In my opinion, the most important thing in art has always been moving forward.”

To these ends, the group’s work with Clown Skateboards and CIRCUS in the USA (whose boards will be printed at the CIRCUS in Albany) came about when they realised a converging of goals and ethos, and other recent collaborations include the anonymous heART project with Heart Research UK and work for the Defund the Police and Black Lives Matter (“The most important work we’ve ever done”) movements.

Alongside these social initiatives, they work with a wide array of artists. I wonder, if they could work on a project with any single person, living or dead, who would it be?

“Warhol for sure, with Rauschenberg not far behind, though it would be pretty neat to work with the people who painted the caves at Lascaux. Being in the room to feel Basquiat’s energy would be amazing. Or being one of the first people to tag a city - Cornbread or Taki. Or working with Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec as he figured out how to print multiple colours. Man, it’s 2022 - where are the time machines at? As for current artists, I’d love to work with Ai Weiwei, JR, or Paul Insect. All three are pushing the boundaries of what 21st century art can be.”

For a time Pepper Spray organised exhibitions, hosting events in both London and New York to raise exposure around specific artists, but the small-scale nature of the organisation made these a challenge.

“I never intended PSP to be a money making exercise - it was only a means of getting work out into the world. Any money we do make goes into the next project. PSP has evolved a bit and, at this point, I'd rather spend that energy on getting pieces up in the streets, or in the hands of people marching, than into galleries.”

When asked about some of his proudest moments with Pepper Spray, alongside printing materials for Black Lives Matter Bryan mentions sending out 500 copies of Scout’s Amerikan Nightmare for the 2017 Women’s March and singles out working with Daniel Johnston as a particular dream come true moment.

It is this focus on grass roots activism mingling with artistic freedom which has become PSP’s calling card; seeking out social initiatives and similarly minded artists to work with has led to those artists and initiatives seeking them out, an array of symbiotic relationships that spread across borders and seas and become a wider network of those who refuse to be made helpless by mainstream news narratives and the seeming hegemony of laissez-faire capitalism. I ask Bryan, what role does he see grass roots activism playing in effecting social change?

“I really think grass roots initiatives are our best shot to get things done. If history has shown us one thing, it's that we can't expect change to come from the top down. We need to take matters into our own hands. Thankfully artists are wired to deconstruct, making them great agents for social change.”

Interview by Jono Coote