Article Contributed on: 11/11/2008 10:15:23 AM
It was about two years ago when things hit bottom for
Ratha Sok.
He'd spent years developing his craft and earning credibility in the graffiti scene - where you're only as good as your last piece, only as prolific as the last round of rooftops you scaled to get your name up. When he needed supplies, he stole them. He'd done community service and time in juvenile detention. His prospects for finishing school were dim. He rarely attended.
To hear West High School teacher
Maureen Hearty put it, Sok "just wasn't that into the whole school experience." So it was nothing short of serendipity when Hearty created the West High School Mural Club.
Sok, initially the club's only member, saw in it a chance to flex his creative muscle and, perhaps more importantly, bragging rights. Graffiti is nothing, after all, if not an attempt to walk the razor-thin edge between anonymity and adulation.
His first piece for the club was a wall-size piece inside West, incorporating the cowboy logo and the graffiti-style letter forms he'd spent years learning. It was transformative for Sok, now 19, who didn't like it under the disapproving eyes of his family and community.
"I loved hearing positive stuff instead of 'you need to stop tagging,'" he said. "The mural was all positive. They didn't look at a spray can as a weapon."
Transformations don't happen right away, though. As Sok's work was drawing attention and members into the mural club, he still lived the double life of a graffiti artist - a life new mural club member
Bimmer Torres was intimately familiar with. Torres had a similar background, but it wasn't until an unlikely Saturday that he would learn about Sok and the mural club.
"Bimmer was at the school that day trying to take an ACT test, but it was canceled," Hearty recalls. That same day, the mural club was working on a new piece, which caught Torres' eye. "He joined us and we were like, 'holy cow this guy is a phenomenal artist,'" she said.
He joined right away, and the two hit it off. Their double lives were putting a strain on their talents, though.
"We said, 'we can't do this anymore,'" explained Torres. "So we started making hats."
If the transition isn't surprising - the chance to turn a buck pushes plenty of graffiti artists to go legit - the results were.
"We didn't even plan it," Torres said. "We got like $200 in hats we just pre-made. I just wanted a hundred bucks to spend on a weekend on movies or something."
But Torres and Sok realized they were on to something. They started a business together, 2Kool Productions, and set to the full-time task of making money off their talents - first with hats, then mural commissions. Perhaps most notably, the two were commissioned by Democratic National Convention merch group DenverCrat for a series of murals of
Barack Obama, one of which would find its way onto licensed T-shirts. One mural got the pair included in a New York Times Web slide show of scenes from the convention.
In the long view, Torres and Sok have their eyes set on fashion. Sok has been taking business classes to improve their game. But for now, they're trying to give back to the community that gave them a second chance.
On Nov. 7, they hosted an art show with artists they've met and networked with, as well as
Lynne Milliken, another teacher behind the West mural club. In their spare time, they've tried to make the same opportunities available to the next generation, holding workshops and encouraging muralists at West and North high schools and Bruce Randolph Middle School. For Torres, it was an easy decision.
"I wish I knew about the mural club (earlier,)" he said. "I wouldn't have got in so much trouble." For more information or to see some of their handiwork, go to
www.2koolproductions.com.