Tag and Hold

From the side of one railcar, a surreal portrait of Mother Nature with angel wings and piercing blue eyes peers out at the crowd of people watching. From another railcar, the words “reduce,” “reuse” and “recycle” jump out in large graffiti-style lettering and, toward the end of the row of railcars, another car sports the scrawled motto, “Keep Austin Green” beside a huge longhorn cow, its nose pointed upward and its tongue lolling down over its teeth.

 

For the past five hours, 12 artists lined up along six railcars have been spray painting the sides of the rolling stock to compete in a unique urban art competition. They are battling it out in an event run by Balcones Recycling in Austin that was created to raise awareness of recycling, the environment and sustainability as well as the profile of urban art and to raise money for the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.

 

From the moment the gates to the vast warehouse on the city’s east side opened at about midday, the crowds flooded in, peering at the paintings from behind barriers, snapping photos, watching breakdancers perform, listening to sounds pouring from the DJ stage and eating and drinking in the sunshine. The Balcones Burner Bash is certainly the first event of its kind in Texas, and the artists taking part believe it is only the third time in history that graffiti artists have legally been allowed to paint railcars.

 

 

Balcones Recycling CEO Kerry Getter says a combination of factors conspired to make this inaugural competition possible. “We’re in a unique situation where we have a fleet of approximately 100 railcars dedicated to us. They are owned by friends, family and shareholders of the company. We ship in excess of 100 rail-car-loads per month of material, primarily to Mexico, and we had all these railcars at our disposal. We were able to launch the Burner Bash because of our relationship with the owners of those railcars.”

           

Kerry says that in Austin particularly there is a strong awareness and appreciation of urban and public art that you don’t see everywhere. “Also, Austin has adopted a zero-waste plan and a very aggressive recycling and sustainability program, and we thought by having an urban art competition with an environmental theme, it would not only create awareness of art in public places and of urban art but also of recycling and sustainability.” 

 

As a recycler based in Austin, Balcones Recycling has been onboard with the city’s initiatives since day one. The company currently recycles about 80 percent of Austin’s downtown office buildings and provides document destruction for numerous companies throughout the city.

 

Balcones Recycling was established in 1994. The company recycles all types of paper, a variety of post-consumer and post-industrial plastics and UBCs (used beverage cans), plus it manufactures alternative fuel and is in the document destruction business. The company describes itself as the largest independent processor in the Southwest and the largest independent high-grade exporter to Mexico. “We have contracts in Mexico that require us to ship material there via rail on a regular basis,” Kerry says.

 

He says the idea for the Balcones Burner Bash came to him one day when he was walking around the warehouse. “I thought this could be something Austin would embrace and could get on board the Balcones Recycling Train.”

 

 

Kerry approached Richie Getter, materials marketing manager for Balcones, to help organize and promote the event. Richie’s first phone call was to a local graffiti artist named Nathan Nordstrom, known as “Sloke One.” Nathan began “piecing”—the name given to his style of graffiti art—in the early 1990s. Well known in Texas urban art circles, he has taught “graffiti as art” through the city of Austin and has exhibited at Austin City Hall, the Austin Museum of Art and Gallery Lombardi.

 

“I knew there were some other guys like him in town getting paid to do murals and things of that nature,” Ritchie says. “I talked to Nathan on the phone to see what he thought about us holding a contest. It kind of blew his mind at first because nothing had ever been sanctioned like this here before, and was an opportunity to bring a lot of attention to their trade.”

 

Nathan says the Balcones Burner Bash was only the third time he could think of that graffiti artists had legally been allowed to paint railcars.“In 1986 there was the Detroit Art Train—an event commissioned by the city of Detroit to have some subway cars painted. And then in Paris last year they had a competition for the opening of the new subway system.”

 

He continues, “Trying to get local graffiti artists onboard for the Balcones Burner Bash was not a hard sell. I said, ‘You get to paint a train legally, you get free paint and you have a chance to win money.’ They were doing back flips. What more can you ask for?

 

“The art work had to have an environmental theme, and all were competing for cash prizes. Keeping it local was cool—you should see how much mail I got from people all over the country wanting to take part in this. It spread nationwide. People have been blown away by it,” Nathan says.

Nathan says he began painting graffiti as a way of rebelling against the system, but eventually found a way to work within the system. “Today in Austin if you go paint something on a wall, the graffiti task force will paint over it in a couple of days. But the commissions and permission walls that I do are still up. So my stuff is staying up, while the other kids’ work is getting buffed.”

 

After the first wave of hip hop left New York and became popular, Nathan says art dealers started realizing its marketable potential. “One moment we were a bunch of punk kids hanging out in subway tunnels and the next we were in galleries. But it was a five minute spotlight; it was very fleeting. It was the first worldwide exposure of hip hop and then it went back underground. But the artists never quit doing it.”

 

 

According to Kerry, the Burner Bash was a chance to do something unique and representative of Austin’s aggressive sustainability platform. The railcars were bound for Mexico shortly after the event, and this traveling element would allow the cars to be seen on an international level.

 

“We load these railcars every 30 days, and they’re traveling back and forth all the time,” he says. The cars have become a traveling canvas, and their message is far reaching. This message includes a nod to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, chosen to benefit from the event because of its mission to increase the sustainable use and conservation of native wildflowers, plants and landscapes.

 

Now a research unit of the University of Texas, the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center was founded in 1982 by Ladybird Johnson, wife of President Lyndon Baines Johnson, and actress Helen Hayes to help preserve and restore beauty and the biological richness of North America. Since its founding, the center has become one of the country’s most credible research institutions and effective advocates for native plants.

 

The Balcones Bash raised $10,000 dollars for the center, and Kerry says it is something he wants to see happen very year. “The Wildflower Center is completely on-board with this going forward. We hope to bring on more sponsors in the coming years, which will translate to a greater gift to the Wildflower Center and more attention to the message of the city and the company as a whole.”

 

During the six hours that the Balcones Burner Bash lasted, Kerry estimates approximately 2,000 people showed up to watch the artists in action. “Given the short lead time up to the event and limited marketing budget, it far exceeded our expectations,” he says. “We didn’t really know what to expect but we were very pleased with the reception it got in the community—people are still buzzing about it. We gave away $5,000 in prize money as an incentive for these artists to do something creative.”

 

 

The first-place prize of $2,500 went to Justin Prince, a local artist who entered the competition under the pseudonym “Gene Parmesan.” The judges loved his vast mural featuring a huge rainbow, pots of paint and a towering tree, with pollution featured in the shadow of a railcar.

 

In second place, winning a check for $1,500, was Cody Seigmund, whose work titled “Save our Springs” had as its theme Austin’s natural spring-fed swimming hole Barton Springs and the high-profile public campaign to protect the springs and the Edwards Aquifer that feeds it.

 

The third-place prize of $1,000 went to Daniel Spain, who painted a striking picture of an oak tree with a recycling symbol circling its trunk.

 

“The railcars are just arriving in Mexico now,” Kerry says. “The people we sell to at Kimberly Clark Mexico and Grupo Durango are very excited to see them.”

 

Nathan says he hopes the art on the Balcones railcars stays there at least until the competition takes place again next year. But he’s not holding his breath. “That’s the name of the game. You can’t take it personally,” he says. “It’s funny; now graffiti is becoming legitimized, companies have been contacting Balcones to get their own railcars painted. And we’ll gladly paint them for them. It boils down to permission. I wouldn’t want someone tagging my wall without giving me the go-ahead. I’d want something nice painted on it!”

 

Nice is just what Balcones got: six unique railcars creatively promoting the Balcones Recycling environmental message throughout Texas and Mexico.