An interview with Wet Paint Productions
Creative Boom caught up with two of the lovely folk behind Wet Paint Productions, the company that promotes street art with in Brighton. They discuss the state of graf today, running your own business, and the reasons for their success.
Firstly could you let us know who's behind Wet Paint Productions and what your backgrounds are?
GH: The co-founders of WPP are me - Guy Harris and my wife, Fay MacDonald. We started things off in 2009 but kind of made things official at the beginning of 2010, just before the second year of our now annual exhibition and live art event ‘The Beautiful and the Canned’ which we run as part of Brighton Festival Fringe.
GH: I’ve had a long love affair with graffiti which stemmed from a passion for hip hop as a teenager in the early 80’s. I’d never seen anything liked it and loved how it provided the chance to express yourself creatively in an urban setting. This fascination is currently bordering on obsession particularly when it comes to taking photos of street art, as Fay discovered on our honeymoon in South America! As for my eclectic ‘career’ I’ve done everything from manage nightclubs to journalism.
FM: I run my own Events & Marketing company in Brighton, Diosa Media Ltd within which I work as an independent consultant offering creative and strategic guidance to organisations that are looking for more interesting ways to talk to their audiences. Events are my big love as they offer so much scope and opportunity to do something original or memorable and whilst the world of online communications is of course vital, nothing quite beats face-to-face interaction, whether it’s a gathering of half a dozen or several hundred people. My business clients range from the City Council to Brighton Pier. I’m pretty involved in the business community of Brighton within my role as Vice President and Events Chair for the Brighton & Hove Chamber of Commerce and Communications Advisor on the Brighton & Hove 10:10 Committee; a great campaign working towards a citywide reduction in carbon emissions (part of a national and global initiative). Doesn’t sound very rock and roll or ‘street’ does it?! Networks are always invaluable though and certainly have been to me. You need the support from others and its good to be involved with local communities, it makes you feel connected. I wanted to support Guy’s passion in a business environment and fortunately have been well placed in terms of my own skills and experience, to do that.
What made you decide to start up your own company that promotes graffiti art?
GH: It sounds like a royal cliché but one thing just led to another really. I’d been moaning about wanting to do something with street art, so Fay (strongly!) suggested putting on an event as part of Festival Fringe 2009 to appease me and my imagination just took over. What was first envisaged as a little event became something pretty huge and ‘The Beautiful and the Canned’ ended up involving over 50 local, national and international artists and is now an annual event. It was stupidly hard work but it was a great achievement in a few months. Following that, we continued to build relationships with the artists and were constantly thinking of new ideas and ways to work with them, looking at potential different outlets for this type of art. Since the end of last year we decided we wanted to really give it a go and haven’t looked back. We knew we didn’t want a static gallery, as there are already lots of those, plus they are very expensive to run and sustain, which would end up detracting from what we want to do, which was to act as ethical agents or representatives for the artists and find commercial opportunities as well as continue to develop and run our own events. We love the live aspect this type of art can offer, its great watching something pretty amazing be created in what can be a relatively short space of time, especially if they are permanent pieces for public consumption. We’ve been working on making a name for ourselves in this more experiential arena and have in fact just completed a month long campaign for Brugal Rum based around street art, including live painting and in-bar activities with artists.
FM: Given that I love events – especially anything particularly creative or different – and have the ideal skills to deliver them and project manage campaigns and communications, Guy and I were a good combination when it came to Wet Paint Productions and it just felt right. We really feel there is a lot of potential there and that there is real room to develop and grow in this field of art. You can see this in some of the really innovative projects that take on space, technology, commentary and story telling. It gives us both a real buzz because we believe urban art and graffiti is one of the most interesting and engaging forms of communication in modern communities. It’s reflects a visual freedom and a quirky, sometimes dark and humorous interpretation of the world around us, plus when it’s on walls – it’s free for all to see.
Have you had any challenges to overcome in starting the business and how have you dealt with them?
GH: In a monosyllable. YES. If we’re honest, those challenges, or new ones are still there. Some days they can feel insurmountable but mostly we try to focus on them spurring us on. Invariably it mostly comes down to money, or the lack of it, to drive our ideas forward.
We’ve had to be creative in many ways to get to this stage. Running your own business requires pretty thick skin and also the ability to recognise that things will constantly evolve and change and to go with that rather than letting it unnerve you too much. Good relationships and a support network are also crucial to get you through the darker days! You have to be willing to ask for help – you can’t do it alone and you can learn so much through other people. After the first event, we thought, never again but we found ourselves unable to resist! So our first big challenge was to find a way to fund it, otherwise it was a no go. Through sheer determination and some very supportive organisations, colleagues and friends, we managed to pull together enough sponsorship to pay for The Beautiful and the Canned this year by working with the Council and their graffiti officer to negotiate wall space for murals in the North Laine. These now cover former tagging hotspots whilst adding some fantastic free art to the city’s creative heart. We also still managed to support and raise money for a national charity, Shelter and worked with a construction company, Cheesmur, who were great and keen to be aligned with both Shelter and public art due to their social housing work and community values. So they built the Paint Box for us, which formed a 24ft x 8ft blank canvas cube in Jubilee Square and a central focus point for the event.
FM: I hope that we’ve both learnt from some of the mistakes I have made within Diosa Media in a positive way. It’s inevitable that you go through sleepless nights and various emotions when you start something new but we try to take each challenge as it comes and try not to forget the good stuff we’ve done and achieved. It can be easy to focus on what’s not working which can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I also think one of the hardest things for small businesses is knowing when and how to grow and expand – particularly in terms of human resources. Building a sustainable business also takes time and it can be hard not to be impatient! We try to keep the bigger picture in mind. Funding is especially hard as we want to be able to do cool stuff and give artists opportunities without creatively selling out. I think you have to just pick and choose which projects you say yes to.
What reasons do you think have contributed to Wet Paint being a success?
GH: Single bloody-mindedness, self belief, love for what we do, respect for the artists, taking the time to build relationships and trust, shared vision, professional delivery alongside a desire to have fun and be creative. And of course, a fantastic and supportive partner.
FM: Ha ha. He doesn’t normally say that! It does help that both of us have a passion for bringing this kind of art to life in a variety of ways and that we bring different but complimentary skills to the table. We can drive each other nuts and have to stop ourselves from talking shop a lot of the time, but the partnership does definitely contribute to the development of the business – and that’s the key point – that we do want it to be a proper business, not just a hobby, so we’re pretty focused.
In your opinion is graffiti still a misunderstood art form?
GH: Graffiti is still misunderstood although attitudes towards it are changing these days. Some artists hit spots with throw ups and tags but for some that is just what they do – get their name up – maybe it’s all they can do. We see well-thought out graffiti improving the environment and having a positive effect on communities. Even if people don’t understand it they can still like it. Graffiti as we know it, has been around for a long time now and a lot of artists who may have been painting trains or walls back in the 80’s are now creative directors for art agencies or web designers and so graffiti – or a pale representation of it – has been introduced into the mainstream and can be influential – whether overtly or in a more subtle way.
Where do you see Wet Paint in five years time?
GH: We would like Wet Paint Productions to be the leading urban art agency in the country, working with some of the brightest talent and the most influential and cutting-edge brands out there. That said, we would want to remain authentic and true to our aims of wanting to work with artists, environments and communities in a genuine way. We still want to create free public art as well as earn a living.
FM: I’d like to think that we’ll be involved at a more strategic level with organisations that appreciate the value of this type of art, expression and design. That would give us more scope to contribute to shaping projects and campaigns and to be bold and experimental. I also hope we will be able to showcase and support new talent as it emerges and continue to give something back to communities.
Do you have any projects coming up that you want to shout about?
GH: Lots of projects in the pipeline! But none we want to really shout about at the moment. We hope we can pull off some good collaborations – there is a lot of cool stuff going on and some real talent we’d love to work with and who we can learn from - across urban art and graffiti and that whole street culture – music, photography, design, interiors etc.
FM: We’re working on our own various events and community projects as well as dealing with ongoing private and corporate work. We don’t want to get too ahead of ourselves but we’re hopeful that exciting times lay ahead. Watch the space that is www.wetpaintproductions.co.uk!
