Claw Money: The Q&A

I’m pretty sure the first Claw piece I ever really focused on was on a wall in Los Angeles, in 2003. Somebody was driving me around, showing me Shepard Fairey pieces, and there was this big claw symbol next to all of them. The guy I was with didn’t know what the story was. The symbol looked familiar, but I didn’t know the story either, until a little bit later.

The story is that the claw was/is the mark of Claw Money, about whom I kept hearing more and more from various people in the years that followed. Have made a name/mark in NY graffiti, she was doing the same in clothing and products (including, memorably, pillows), in the “streetwear” scene, or the “downtown” scene, or whatever you prefer to call it. She built an underground brand. The recent publication of her book Bombshell, which is about all of the above, and none of the above, seemed like a good excuse to see if she would answer a few Q’s. She said: Okay.

A few things are not covered in the Q&A that follows. One is that according to her recent interview on The Weekly Drop, she’s now making some art on canvas. Another is that her dog, Peepers Marie Saint (that’s PMS, she points out), turns 12 this year. But a lot is covered — graffiti, fashion, the book, her appearance in the documentary Infamy, being the first female artist ever to do a Nike artist series/”Tier 0″ sneaker, and what you might have said to her 15 years ago that would have inspired her to spit in your face.

Here goes.

Q: You’re a well-known graffiti writer, who also has a clothing line. Once upon a time that would’ve sounded strange, but not so much now. I think the essay by DAZE in Bombshell suggests you were into fashion before writing. The way the book is done, the fashion and the graffiti work all run together. Is that how you always thought about it?

I had a passion for fashion long before I got my hands on a can of Rustoleum. I’m an FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology) dropout, and it was at that point that I picked up my graffiti habit. It wasn’t the other way around. I started in my 20s, which is late for a graff writer.

To me, graffiti and fashion come from two totally different places, but I’m lucky enough to have eventually merged them. And really, so many graff writers have clothing lines! West FC, one of the graffiti greats, is actually one of the founding fathers of streetwear. The company he started with his high school homeboys Sung Choi, Zulu, Bluster and Brue, is of course the one and only PNB. (Unfortunately this line been recently resurrected without any of the original members and in my opinion is destined to be terrible.)

I don’t consider my collection “graffiti clothing.” My logo is the “throw up” that I painted on walls illegally, but other than that, it’s not meant to evoke graffiti associations. I did it a a joke. Who knew it would be a hit? And as far as my book is concerned, it is not a graffiti book, or a fashion book– it’s the real story of Claw Money: artist, designer, family girl, dog lover and all!

WEST is in the book, too. He remarks on how the claw is “more of a symbol than a throwup.” But you weren’t thinking the claw could have a life beyond walls?

I never realized that I was painting my future logo all over town. I knew it was visually powerful when my girlfriends started becoming mothers in the early 90s, and their toddlers could pick out the claw on a graffiti-covered wall. That’s when I knew I had something that letters and words just couldn’t express. The CLAW is recognizable and distinct. I never thought that I’d parlay graffiti into anything lucrative; it was a completely separate world to me. I had a work life and a graffiti life, and they didn’t mix … until 2002.

When did the claw actually start to move into garments? And what kind of stores are you in and/or where do you want to be? Where do you want to take that? Have you taken on, I don’t know, a financial backer/investor/biz-parnter type, or are you running it all yourself?

I put my first Claw on a T-shirt at the behest of friends right after 9/11. About 5 people in one week either told me or asked me to make a “claw” T-shirt — either make one for their companies, or start up my own. My boyfriend at the time said: “You are an idiot if you don’t do it.” So I did it. At the time I was a high-end vintage dealer, both clothes and accessories, and I was curating vintage eyewear for both Prohibit and Alife, so of course they both took the T-shirts, being my friends and clients. They pumped those babies out! I made about 700 of the first T-shirt design, the biggest run of all my stuff ever.

But I did it as a goof, just to do it. And the demand grew. The stores couldn’t keep them in stock and I thought: “I could really make a go of this.” There’s just no other brand with a point of view like mine, and I began to realize that people were interested in my vantage point.

Now Claw Money is growing faster than we can keep up with. It’s getting to be impossible for me to afford my own production. We are starting to look for backers with a manufacturing, distribution and warehousing infrastructure, to alleviate both the costs and some of the work!

I know you’ve also worked as a stylist, and that you’re the fashion editor for Swindle. What’s the main way you’re paying the bills now, and what do you want it to be in the future?

I have about 10 different jobs, some bring in money and some bring in none. I’m a clothing/housewares/accessories business, a brand consultant, a fashion editor, a costume designer, a stylist, a guest artist for fancy co-brands, and a plain old starving artist all at once. All of my jobs support one another and I wouldn’t change a thing; often the less financially profitable gigs are the most fulfilling ones. They play off one another and are all pieces of the puzzle.

I think you’re the first woman Nike has included in its famous artist series? If that’s right, it’s kind of shocking, given that it’s 2007 and all. Or maybe it’s not shocking? Probably you get asked about this endlessly, but does the “streetwear” (or whatever) world seem so male-dominated because there aren’t that many female creators/consumers, or because it’s just an old-school boys’ club?

I have the honorable distinction of being the first female ever to do a Nike artist release, as well as the first to do a “Tier 0” release strictly for the ladies! Nike’s swoosh was designed by a woman, and I think that is a work of branding genius. Yes, it’s surprising that it’s 2007 and this is the first one… and yes it is a boy’s club and all that, but it’s changing very quickly. Women have always been apart of this culture (think Camella Ehlke from Triple Five Soul and Mary Ann from Union) but now it is time to really make our mark and literally step it up.

Another thing that’s changed is corporate interest in general. You’ve done a few collaborations and artist-series type projects — Ecko Red, Boost, and (if I’m not mistaken) My Little Pony. How do you decide about stuff like that, what’s worth doing and what isn’t, etc.?

Well, I’d say I have a knack for determining what’s cool and worth doing and what isn’t. I’m super picky about the projects I take on. I understand the power of my brand and the cache of my name. I only want to do projects that are creatively fulfilling and push my brand. Since I have my own T-shirt company, I don’t feel the need to do co-branded T-shirts, though I have done them before and would do them with my friends.

Good collaborations are a way to really get loose and do things a small brand normally can’t do, due to expense, minimums, limited manufacturing capabilities, etc…. The ideal co-brand is to make stuff I wouldn’t be able to on my own, like a sneaker, a toy, or something else that’s not already under the Claw Money umbrella, like ummm, umbrellas!

Umbrellas, that’s actually a good idea. Seriously, though, why My Little Pony?

The Pony Project was the first corporate cobranded art show that featured women artists only. I was too old (and cool) for My Little Pony when they were at their height of popularity in the 1980s, but my sister was a fan. It was fun and nostalgic project.

I gather that there was a bit of trouble for some of (or maybe just one) the writers in the documentary Infamy, which you’re in. But you’re extremely public in Bombshell (cover below). You’re not worried?

Sometimes I feel like I’m walking a tightrope — let’s hope I don’t fall! And of course I’m a little worried, but I’m lawyered up and ready for whatever. Besides I think they love the underdog in me. At least that’s my fantasy — that the authorities have a soft spot for me because I’m a girl.

Any advice you would give to someone who is trying to make a living off creative enterprises of one kind or another? Any advice you wish someone had given you?

Do what you love and let the rest follow. Do it to do it and not to make money. When you are doing something just for financial gain (particularly in street art right now) it smacks of fraudulence. If someone had told me 15 years ago that I would make a living off graffiti I would have spit in their face. My attitude was like: “I do this because that’s what I do.” Now the world is a different place. When I started there was a small female voice — in both graff and streetwear, that voice is getting louder and I am continuing to carry that torch.

Okay, one last thing: In the DAZE piece in the book, he says you were a bartender at Babyland and No Tell Motel back in the early 1990s. I’m probably one of the people y’all were laughing at, you know.

Probably, Rob! I was a smart-mouthed, beer-swilling gangsta! In 1992 it was all about asserting my downright snotty bitch persona and ruling Downtown NYC with my crew… and I guess not much has changed. Except now, 15 years later, I’m trying to rule the world.

Murketing humbly thanks Claw for her time (and all the pix). Check out her site, and her book. Find the Claw collection in New York at Reed Space, I Heart NYC, The Good the Bad and the Ugly (eyewear), Union NYC, and Everything Must Go; and in CA a Turntable lab, Commissary, Selima et Benjamin (eyewear), or check her site.