Chalktivism in San Antonio

Everything is so much different than it was a year ago at this time. Last year was my first time living in San Antonio since the end of 2012. Way back then I was mostly involved with the Non Profit Organization Inner City Development serving on the inner west side and poetry three years with PuroSlam’s National Poetry Slam Team. Back then my aim was for us poets and the people that appreciated the event to go out and volunteer in the city.

Here it is a little over a decade and my approach is quite different. I’m not opposed to volunteering and I would still do it! Especially if others are going to join me. Nowadays I put most of my concentrating on creating impermanent art in public places. Or, that had been the aim of it for the longest time…I just wanted to put something positive, colorful, impermanent, and unexpected out there…Pretty early on doing it I ended up being celebrated front page news with my story hitting multiple media outlets in Longview, Tx…they then arrested me for chalk in 2019…then they dropped the charges then the police left me alone for the next nearly 4 years I was there…I stayed chalking the whole time.

After the incident with the Longview, Tx. Confederates I knew it was time to get out of town…so I returned to the city that felt most like home…mere months later Leon Valley wrongfully arrests me. Where in the past I would give in to the police and their unlawful commands out of fear…this day I was in the kind of mood where I was too depressed to be that kind of fearful…it resulted in me being released within 15 or so minutes. The city apologized, I did a chalk it up event with them, found an attorney to fight it pro bono, and won.

Before and even a few months after the Leon Valley situation the Police were not bothering me too terribly much or too terribly rough…generally they would ignore it then have Centro or City of San Antonio misappropriate labor/tax dollars washing away impermanent chalk quicker than they clean blood or feces in other neighborhoods. I met with Centro and was told that yes, they would work with me on a piece and pay me to do something on a wall…but they were going to continue washing away my chalk…

So as a person who is always riding the bus…I regularly come across pretty dirty and neglected bus stops…so I started creating at those…then they’ll either leave my art alone so it can be appreciated…or they’ll finally clean up the area they chose to neglect. If I were going out and finding obscure dirty benches that would be one thing…but they’re all over. The absolute worst is by the Centro San Antonio station where there is an unbelievable concentration of piles of feces, active drug use, and generally uncomfortable situations…stuff that I think most San Antonio men can deal with for the most part…but really anything can happen out there…I can’t imagine trying to be a parent out there with your kids.

After a few videos went viral calling out the organizations I got wrongfully detained by Via Police Officer Kevin Epps badge 389 for “Criminal Mischief” then a couple days after that Gamez badge 390 arrested me for criminal trespassing on a public sidewalk near a public bus station…then they somehow “lost” my wallet.

I then did a FOIA request to try and get the body cam footage from these instances…and Via sent the request to the Office of the Attorney General requesting permission to NOT share it! I started a petition to get it, but I haven’t pushed it very hard so far. http://tinyurl.com/LakeyFOIA

I’m mostly sharing this so that I have something new available…I will do a much better post in the near future! For now checking my videos on instagram can give you the most insight over the latest happenings!

Art & Activism in Longview, Tx

This video is like nothing I’ve ever created. Much of it I did not create…but I edited it in such a way that I hope it tells my story in a way that will hold your attention. Prior to living in Longview I never really expected much from Art Districts. I was creating around Longview since before there was an art district. I’ve been everywhere from Los Angeles, to San Francisco, to Austin, to Chicago, to Atlanta, to New York City and lots of places between creating on the streets.

When Longview was trying to get an Art District they saw and celebrated one of my more underwhelming creations with multiple news appearances, along with a front page news story that got picked up by the Associated Press and shared in papers across the country. My art showed up multiple times in their application video and I was told how important my work was…then I returned from my summer travels to create in the newly official art district the day before art walk…and I was arrested, given a cavity search for “encumbering a public sidewalk”, locked up for 18 hours, had my mugshot shared on the nightly news along with them trying to paint me as ignorant of the laws only to eventually admit the charges had been dropped in the interest of justice.

These experiences gave me a voice in Longview so I would try to use my voice to create positive change to the best of my ability. Prior to Longview I wasn’t ever really active with BLM…but the amount of mean/hateful/racist/bigoted things I would see people share in the comments of KLTV, KETK, KYTX, and Longview News Journal helped wake me up to the reality of how bad it was. In the big cities it can feel like there’s lots of people talking about humanitarian ideals without investing time or effort into bringing those ideals into reality…that used to be a turn off to me…but it’s a lot better than places like Longview where people are scared of physical violence or financial retribution for being “too woke.” I understand now that lots of people in the big cities have run away from areas like this and are too busy dealing with their trauma and keeping up with their bills to be able to invest time in trying to fix anything.

I feel like lots of people in Longview, and in other small cities that are similar to it, most of the inhabitants are not near as extreme, or as mean, as the more vocal ones. Many of them wouldn’t believe the things they believe if it wasn’t for people like Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro, and Donald Trump…and their co-workers, their bosses, their preachers. Lots of people allow themselves to be silenced for a multitude of reasons…but mostly because life is hard enough without taking on new battles.

My last news worthy experience in Longview I think I handled masterfully…yet the silence from those in positions of power and influence was deafening…Video footage of Sons of the Confederate harassing me and erasing my chalk as I wrote Martin Luther King Jr’s I Have a Dream Speech. The ring leader of the harassment is the son of the Commander of the Sons of the Confederate Veterans! Had they stood up this could have been the event to end them…but they were silent. It led to me writing a speech, speaking at City Hall, then writing that speech in sidewalk chalk in the old location of the confederate monument before it got moved to the courthouse…and eventually to this video now.

If anything is to change there needs to be an outside push. I’m hoping this video will lead to that push. Longview needs change. Many of those who marched on MLK day before this happened talked about being an ally, then held their tongue as they saw confederates harassing me and working to erase the words of Dr. King.

I’ve had multiple people tell me that my issues with the art district and the confederate monument are two separate issues…In certain very real ways I’m able to acknowledge them as separate…but at the same time, I believe it is hard for the district to adequately represent our city’s culture if it has a monument to white supremacy at its heart.

What a Long Strange Trip it has Been

I’ll talk about my earlier life some other day…for now, lets start with once upon a time I worked for a timeshare company...probably one of the best jobs you can have if you want to get disgusted with the ugly sides of capitalism as soon as possible. I just did marketing but I saw the heartless and dishonest practices of the successful salespeople, the sexual harassment dealt out in the break room, and the tears of those who failed to make sales while they tried to figure out how they would make ends meet for their families.

I had a vivid dream where I was a vampire, rampaging and sucking the blood out of people, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. This dream was different from the typical work-related dreams I had, which usually involved me being in awkward or difficult situations. The dream was too much for me.

First drawing from 2009 titled “Drama: Don’t Blow it out of Proportion; It’s All Water Beneath the Bridge”

I eventually quit the job, got active volunteering in the community, and more actively performed slam poetry. I ended up competing in 3 National Poetry Slams with San Antonio's PuroSlam team. This lasted until 2012 where, after first protesting with Occupy Wall Street, reading one too many Bob Dylan biographies, and breaking up from what is still my longest relationship...I decided to chase a childhood dream and become a traveling artist and poet.

I had no idea how difficult it was to make money with only art and poetry on the streets, how invisible you become when people think you might ask for something...so a mere few days after starting my travels I had $0.00 and was looking for a bridge to take cover under before the approaching rainstorm rolled in. That first year I shared my art on the streets of Nashville, Gainesville, St. Petersburg, Orlando, Atlanta, and Charlotte. I spent the majority of the nights sleeping on the streets, eating at homeless feeds, and getting to know homeless people from a perspective you simply cannot get from serving or missionary work.

When I returned after that first year my grandmother suggested I go back to working a suit and tie job…I did take her advice as far as putting on a suit and tie…then I would go draw beside my open portfolio and a sign saying “Grandma said I need a job wearing a suit and tie…this is my compromise.” All of a sudden I was no longer invisible. It was a beautiful blending of things normally perceived as being opposing forces. The clothing of the business man, the creativity of the artist, sitting on the streets as we’re used to seeing the homeless, living a life outside the lines, yet still listening to grandma. This made me much more approachable…to the extent that I started bringing out extra sketchbooks and markers so that others could sit down and create with me if they felt inspired.

Through the years my art evolved from unplanned chaos to a more and more ordered geometry which lead to a solo show: “Chaos to Order” at the Camiba Art gallery on East 6th street in Austin in 2017.

Eventually I brought my geometric art to the streets with sidewalk chalk and have now drawn hundreds of thousands of square feet of freehand circles only for them to be washed away. It was a great lesson in learning to let go…until I got a 360 camera which does add a timelessness to the impermanent nature of the chalk. It’s also been quite the experience taking a break from traveling during covid which allowed me to get active in a community for the first time in years. All those years alone I didn’t realize what I was missing having a solid group of creative and healthy friends to surround myself with.

Now, I’m looking to take to the road again, though never on trips quite as long as I did in the past. I long to make the community larger by building bridges between home in Longview and as many other cities as I can across Texas. My time here in Longview has gotten me to be more about supporting local so beyond connecting individuals I hope to connect small businesses with one another. There’s few things that rival the joy of bringing strangers together. “Overlapping friend circles bring a community to bloom” is a quote I frequently write near my circles…now I just aim to make those circles a little bigger to see what happens…all while not forgetting…none of this is permanent. We can’t do much more than create beauty knowing it will eventually be washed away…as will all that isn’t beautiful.