I love a good exhibition about stickers. VNA caught up with MadOne (Founder and curator of Sticker Phiends) as the next exhibition gets closer and found out a bit more about these fairly annual exhibitions which attract big name artists such as Anthony Lister and Shepard Fairey to get involved.

How long have you been involved in street art/sticker art/urban art? 

I have actively been involved with this art form for almost 16 years now.

How did ‘Sticker Phiends’ come about?

Well I started traveling over to LosAngeles quit a bit at least a couple times a month viewing shows, hanging artwork and being apart of the LA arts community as much as possible due to the fact that Phoenix was lacking in it at the time. So shortly after coming back from a recent trip I was at my friends boutique/gallery downtown Phoenix one day and we just got to talking about more in depth about phoenix vs LA art scene and the amount of quality shows and artists LA has. So he said to me why don’t you put together a show here and we will open it on a first friday. So that I did, it all manifested in April of 2007. I started hitting up some of my friends and other artists I’ve shown with throughout the U.S. and a few beyond inviting them to take part in the show I was putting together featuring stickers,adhesive art and posters. So my homie Sike’/One Son and I came up with the name one night as to what it should be called originally it was spelled “Sticker Fiends”, but I had to mix it up and throw a “PH” on it to somewhat represent Phoenix. Five years later the show has opened in Portland,Oregon in April and now will be traveling down to it’s home base in Phoenix,AZ for the 5.2 edition. No regrets!!!!

How do you pick which artists are involved in the shows you put on?

Well the first year was somewhat invites and partially open call only through specific people/posters on the web. Over the years the show has had such a great success on numerous levels I have had to do invites only and really get the artists people love to see on the streets and in the galleries as well, making it a win-win mix. Just to name a few artists involved in the past few shows are Obey, BigFoot1, Anthony Lister, Cope2, Slick, London Police, and MANY OTHERS!! Thanks to everyone who has ever been involved with this show. 

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