Colossal Media Group

Bling the Sky High way. #alwayshandpaint

We recently worked with Art Production Fund and New Museum to complete a series of hand painted roll down gates on the Bowery in NYC’s Lower Manhattan. The gates caught the attention of The Man Repeller, Refinery29, Sotheby’s & more. For more info, check out the NY Times article: http://nyti.ms/12bPEwp & our past collaboration: http://colossalmedia.com/project/bowery-gates/ 

p.s. see the full album, here: http://on.fb.me/16cobQB 

ATTN ALL ARTISTS!!

Colossal Media is kicking off our 2013 Sky High Arts Program with our first national campaign!

If you are currently residing in NYC, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Miami, Boston, Austin, or Denver then we want to see your work!

The details:
You will be working with yours truly and a major national alcohol brand to execute a nation wide art project. If chosen, Sky High will be responsible for hand painting a replication of your artwork in your city. You will receive credit, press, and compensation + general awesomeness.

What to do next:
Email us! Send your contact information along with a link to your portfolio or a scanned image of your best original work to erin@colossalmediagroup.com
Submissions due ASAP (no later than 3/21).  

Timeline
3/21 Submissions due
4/15 Winners will be notified
4/25 Final artwork due

The fine print:

• You must be currently residing in one of the markets listed above.
• Must be your original artwork, does not have to be related to alcohol but must be alcohol friendly— no children or religious images.
• You must be able to provide us with a digital file, and be ok with at least one revision to the work.
• Final art will be replicated by the Sky High production team, no artist will be permitted to paint locations.
• Artist must be comfortable with collaborating with a national alcohol brand.
• Must be able to meet tight deadlines.
• All forms of 2D art accepted.

 Learn more about us:
colossalmedia.com   @colossalmedia 

This week we’ve been sprucing up the floor at our Sky High Murals shop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn- because here, even the floor is painted #AlwaysHandpaint

Jason Jarosz, 41
Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Tell me a little bit about the crazy Fall you had this year. Where did the madness start?
We were in Austin around September painting and it was 107 degrees and sunny every day. It was so hot that the guys inside the building we were painting on started betting on which one of us would pass out first.

We went then from Austin to San Antonio. We get to the hotel there and the door had been kicked open! Justin’s bed had no box springs so when he sat on his mattress he basically fell to the floor, my bed had all these blood stains… it was all pretty gnarly.

What happened after your Texas trip?
By then I’d been working 3 jobs straight and I was sick, but I just thought I had the flu. I just kept working thinking I’d get over it. I knew the Kansas City trip was coming up- I was thinking, oh I’ll get some rest there because I was going alone.

How was Kansas City?
Well, when I got o Kansas City I was surprised to see they had this crazy cold front! and the first morning I was there it was 34 degrees. After two days I had to go to the ER I was still feeling so sick- it was like 6pm when I went, and I was there through most of the night. I thought I went to the nicest ER I could find, but people were actually dealing drugs and doing them in the ER!! They’d go in the bathroom normal and come out like coocoo bird, speaking gibberish. Anyway, after a night in the ER I left with medicine for pneumonia. I didn’t see the sun the whole time in Kansas City until the last couple hours that I was packing up to come home.

This job is just really intense physically and mentally, especially if you’re up on a rig on a wall. You never take a break, you know? You’re painting from a piece of artwork and you have to be on point every second- you don’t take a break. It’ll snap you out of anything, really. It’s kinda what drew me to painting in the first place- it kinda takes you out into your own world. Then you’re done and you come back into reality and you’re like Oh! IM SICK!!  Wow.

Hurricane Sandy really cut off transportation for a while- were you affected by that at all?
Yeah well, right after I came back from Kansas City- Hurricane Sandy came. I had to fly out of White Plains, LaGaurdia and JFK were just decimated, and I had to get out for two jobs for Newcastle- one in Atlanta and the other in Minneapolis.  It took the entire day but I did finally get in the air- you could see other commercial planes really close to ours- one even flew maybe 200 feet under us- it was all crazy.

I finally got to Atlanta and had to hustle to get that job done- since I’d been delayed getting there. It was great though, the weather was really nice, the people were really cool- People would be like Oh Shit! This is the wall! You’re gettin blown up on Instagram!

Then I went to Minneapolis- and got bumped to first class. I didn’t even do anything! And it was just like this gift- I even had paint clothes on and looked like a scum bag. I did end up having a problem in Minneapolis- I blocked out a wall, painted it out white in order to paint over it the next day. The next morning I showed up and it had just rained and the temperature was just right so that when the paint all rain down the side of the wall. That’s pretty much this job, you know? Just crazy stuff that you can’t control- one right another after another.  Every job has its little problems, so it’s like a constant battle just to do your job.

Wow! So how do you seem to keep such a good attitude?
Because you’re painting, and this is pretty much the only job you can paint pretty much every day of the year. You know, you’re painting so fast and just go and go and go. And you learn so much on every wall- this is an education, for sure. Every time you’re gonna learn something no matter what. I see it as a privilege to be able to paint.

What is it like to train the apprentices?
This is a great job, there’s not a whole lot of people that can do it. It’s definitely a tough process being an apprentice. You kind of have to prove yourself and its hard for a reason, you have to really see what someone’s made of and it has to be in pretty tough situations because you’re trusting them with your life sometimes when they’re tying off your safety or rigging for you.

Now for some fun stuff… do you listen to music while you paint?
Yeah - anything from the Deaftones, Tom Waits, and I also have a lot of classical music in there- like dark classical- Bella Bartok…

Favorite Brooklyn bar?
The shop! Everyday after work this summer we’d stop, get beer, go to the shop—- we have a lot of toys to play with there. We started playing igloo frisbe- which just means we’d take the top off of a cooler and throw it around. Actually we’d end up hurting ourselves pretty bad, but you can’t really do that anywhere else. I also like the Turkey’s Nest on Bedford and N12. I live Dive bars—the Alligator on Metropolitan is good too.

Here at Colossal we run an apprenticeship program that takes artists and trains them in the craft and skill of hand paint. We take what we do seriously, and we train our muralists right. The 2-year program is intensive and demands grueling hours, heavy lifting, and is extremely fast paced. This past Fall we added 3 new apprentices to our crew, and we wanted to give you a little introduction to each of them: 

Michael, 25 years old
Apprentice since: September 2012

Where did you grow up, and where do you live now?
I’m from Pleasanton, CA. A place that is exactly as it sounds. Now I live in the Navy Yard.

Who’s your favorite artist?
Syd Mead- you look at his work and you’re just like… what THE!

Favorite paint brush?
Red sable cat’s tongue- it’s used for super fine details that turn into big strokes. 

What’s your favorite thing about working for a hand paint company?
It’s a trade and one you don’t see very often. And when you do, it really sticks with you.    

What’s been your most difficult experience as an apprentice so far?
Learning the block and tackle- which is how we’re able to hang off the sides of buildings way up in the air and paint. It is really physically demanding, and you essentially have someone’s life in your hands so there’s a lot of pressure.

Scariest experience?
Almost dying!! I was in SoHo putting car covers on our lifts, which were over 10 ft in the air, and suddenly felt this funny sensation- I was falling and couldn’t grab onto anything. Luckily, I ended up getting wedged between some stuff and was just kind of dangling there… close call. You could say I understand why we have to be trained to do this.

And your best experience so far?
Actually getting to paint on a wall we did for Disney in Dumbo instead of just filling in. It was the first wall I wasn’t lettering.
 
What’s your favorite spot in Brooklyn?
My favorite bar is Project Parlor in BedStuy. I also like 3rd Ward in Bushwick- they have something called Drink N’ Draw on Wednesdays so you can go do some figure drawing & get drunk at the same time.

What would I find in your fridge? 
HA. Nothing. I literally just got one.

What’s your favorite beer?
Weihenstephaner

Last book you read?
Art and Artist by Otto Rank. Its basically art therapy and philosophy.
 

Here at Colossal we run an apprenticeship program that takes artists and trains them in the craft and skill of hand paint. We take what we do seriously, and we train our muralists right. The 2-year program is intensive and demands grueling hours, heavy lifting, and is extremely fast paced. This past Fall we added 3 new apprentices to our crew, and we wanted to give you a little introduction to each of them:

First up:   

David, 24 years old
Apprentice since September 2012

Where did you grow up, and where do you live now?
I grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee and now I live in Lefferts Garden, Brooklyn.

What kind of art do you like to do outside of work & who’s your favorite artist?
Mostly oil paints—I also do cartoons. Neo Rauch would be my favorite artist- he does big oil paintings. My favorite of his I believe is called “The Coronation.”

Favorite paint brush?
Badger hair.

What’s your favorite thing about working for a hand paint company?
I desperately wanted to work for Colossal. The process looked so interesting and matched my skill set, and I knew this program would help me grow and develop as a painter.

This apprenticeship is like boot camp. I can make a living with my craft while getting a classical training- albeit, a very intense classical training. That being said, I’ve picked up skills like heavy drinking and tight rope walking.

What’s been your most difficult experience as an apprentice so far?
Painting at the Twist/Barry McGee project for Vanity Fair in Ft. Greene. It was my first time painting on the job and there was a lot to consider and a lot I didn’t know. Vanity Fair was there filming the process and I was getting lots of shit from the guys- and I hadn’t even spoken to most of them yet! That can be a little intimidating.

Another time I was a ground guy for a job in SoHo, and out of nowhere a guy darts into our workspace and just starts peeing on it. The painters on the rig were yelling at me this was a work site and dangerous to have someone right there so I had to risk getting peed on or shanked to get the guy out of there.

And your best experience so far?
Painting a wall on the Lower East Side for Sonos. We were on the block and tackle and I got to paint some wood grain- luckily, everything went smoothly.

Which painter has been the toughest on you?
Ray! I was once on the job as a ground guy for a wall we were doing for PBR in Brooklyn. It was snowing and really cold, and I had worked myself into a rhythm- pacing back and forth and got myself in a good zone. Once I reached this meditative state snowballs flew from up high where the guys were painting and hit my face, completely ruining the Zen I’d achieved— and all I heard was Ray’s cackling laugh from above.

What’s your favorite spot in Brooklyn?
For drinking? The Levee. Book Thug Nation is also a cool place- it’s small but with a good selection.      

What would I find in your fridge?  
Mushrooms, eggs, milk… I like omelets?

What’s your beer of choice?
Brooklyn Lager

Last book you read?
The Map and the Territory by Michel Houellebecq

If you could speak to one animal, what would it be?
A monkey or a dolphin- or a combo of the two- a monkphin. 

Here’s some latest in progress shots on a wall we’re doing for Newcastle in Brooklyn. If you ever see the Colossal crew hard at work- either painting on the ground or hanging off the side of a building tweet us a pic: @colossalmedia