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Alright so thanks for taking the time out to do this interview, can you give us a brief introduction to who you are, what your history is in the graffiti game and what crew do you rep?

Im Atoms, hm well I created an instagram account and called myself Adamfu since my last name is Fujita, and now that’s what I’m known as. So its sort of interesting how your Instagram identity can take over. I started writing in 92 in San Francisco, the crews I rep include OHB which is a crew I rep from Chicago, RF crew in LA, and I’ve been B.A crew forever. There are a bunch of other crews I used to rep that don’t exist anymore like KCW and A2M was my train painting crew in Texas, before then I was in a bunch of SF bus hopper crews.

Do you make your full time living from graffiti? If not what is it that you do? I imagine by looking at some of your pieces that you have a graphic design background.

Yes I do and I feel real blessed that I get to do this for a living, I do have an MFA in product design but not graphic design. Before i went back to graduate school all the design experience I had was from the streets and when it comes to traditional graphic design layout I’m actually terrible. I have my own way off working with type, space, and shape but in grad school I really struggled with graphic design so I wouldn’t say I have a strong background in it actually.

One of the things I really liked about your instagram feed is that it shows that you put your creativity everywhere and I think thats really cool and something that most graffiti artists I’ve talked to don’t do a lot of or at least not to the extent that you do. You seem to put your art on everything from shoes, to fragrance bottles to canvases, I was wondering if you could touch on how these projects came along. Are these your original ideas or are people coming to you with projects? How important is this aspect of what you do for your overall business?

Well you know this past year in 2018 was crazy as far as work goes, i was painting walls for free in Brooklyn and using Instagram as a tool to get the word out and then for one reason or another the neon look struck a note with a lot of people so I’ve been approached by a lot of different people and corporations for work. Its a challenge to make my style mesh with their branding. The sneakers is a good example because those are real easy, sneakers are all about lines so its more about highlighting those lines. The fragrance bottle was a little trickier so we went with traditional script. Sometimes it takes months of negotiation before we can lock down a creative brief so if you ask if its me or other people coming to me with projects, really to be honest its a mix but there is only so much I can bend backward for a brand.

Where do you see your business growing into over the next 5 years? Or do you just do what you want to do at that time and figure it out as you go?

I hope it just keeps scaling up, that’s the plan. I’m definitely just figuring out as we go, most of my friends who are artists are doing the same thing so there is risk involved, there is no guarantees. It can be scary but i do have plans, I have a wife and two kids so together we have 10, 20, 30 year plans to get our kids where we want them to be so its real grown up out here and you know it took longer than it should to have to get to that point. I got caught up in the game and for a long time I lived like my choices in life didn’t affect other people but I’m past that now. its a real grown up thing out here,What do I hope to have in the next few years? Well I would like to have retail where i can sell all my products, i want to scale up globally, i hope more festivals come and more international clients come and I’m already starting to see that happen so I’m glad to see that’s finally taking place. Its a blessing. Im blessed.

One of the other cool projects I saw you posted online was a piece you did for AM New York at the Brooklyn school. Can you talk a little bit about how you came across this project and what you were hoping to bring to it? How often do you do charity events like this?

AM New York is actually just the paper that showed the piece but the project came from a guy who I don’t remember the name of, but yea it was cool to paint the front of a Brooklyn school. When they approached me they said I can paint whatever I want wherever i want. So I said I wanted to paint “Learn” on the front of the school and we did it. Its a trip to think that everyday I’m inspiring kids when they go to school. There are a lot of awesome artists involved in that project by the way. i wouldn’t call it charity i did do it for free so I guess you could call it charity. When someone has a project that is about social impact I’m all about it, I just have to make sure all the associated parties are cool before I can sign on. For example there was a project that Robert Kraft the owner of the New England Patriots was involved in that I had to turn down just because I had heard so many bad things about him before the whole massage parlor thing. So I try to be careful with who I associate my brand with when I’m doing these kind of events, I can’t have my brand associated with some CEO that made homophobic or racist remarks.

What kind of music do you listen to when you paint? what is inspiring you right now that isn’t in the graffiti world?

All music really but usually edm or hip hop from the 90s or 2000s.

All of your pieces look like the kind of writing one would see for a strip club, have you ever done a mural for one?

hahah no i haven’t, but I would if the fee was right.

Any crazy travel stories you can share? Where all have you been in the world and where do you currently reside?

Haha I don’t even know man there is too many to talk about. I live in Brooklyn so I’ve been lucky to paint all over New York but this summer I’ll be painting in Europe and then Canada for the Rust Magic festival. I’m very fortunate that I get to paint all over the world and country. Shoutout to Monster Energy because I’ll be doing quite a few events with them as a sponsor all over the country so that’s cool.

Any shout outs or words of advice you would like to give? where can people follow you?

Advice i would give is to engage its so easy to disengage today, we disengage from the news and the world and I see a lot of younger people not taking part in civic engagement. Even if you’re anti establishment you can use your anti establishment and vote believe it or not. I just think its better to get out and be heard instead of grumbling at the bar that you don’t want to be apart of it all. I know I’m only one person but I think collectively if people speak up we can all push back. So I hope i can inspire people to engage. You can follow me on Instagram , below is a link to my website and podcast. Thanks!