The Daily Toreador - Student Newspaper of Texas Tech

Issue date: 9/29/06 Section: La Vida

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[Click to enlarge]

It takes Joe Watson and his partner Lindsay Watson, or "Lefty" as she is known by fans, about three minutes to turn a postcard-sized piece of cardboard into a hazy, starry night over the open water.

Onlookers Thursday afternoon had to stay behind an orange-coned perimeter outside the Student Union Building as Watson and Lefty used spray paint to create their mini-works of art.

"I once saw a guy doing it in Times Square and I thought, 'God, I wish I could do that,'" Watson said.

It's been a little less than 10 years since he joined up with his partner and wife, Lefty, and began touring universities providing free art for anyone walking by.

Thursday, the two sat behind a table outside the Student Union as they worked to the beats of their own soundtrack, which featured everything from traditional Spanish guitar songs to tracks from popular rap artists of today.

Robert Shouse, a freshman electrical engineering and computer sciences major from Houston, said he'd stood watching Watson and Lefty work for three and a half hours.

"It's a skill I've never seen before," he said. "It's all free-form."

Watson and Lefty used tools such as knives and crumbled pieces of typing paper to perfect their art.

"They don't use professional supplies, but it's professional results," Shouse said. "You don't see something like this often."

After three and a half hours of watching the pair work, Watson said the young man should know how to do it himself by now.

Watson, who does not have any kind of background in art, said he taught himself after seeing someone doing it on a street corner. A few days after he saw the man in Times Square creating the art for the passing pedestrians, Watson said he had a near-death experience that made him re-evaluate his life as a breakfast servant.

"About five days after that, I went to the park and sat down and made my first piece," he said.

He still owns that piece.

Watson's second piece sold, and once he began making $40 an hour doing spray paint art, he quit his job serving breakfast. Since then, he and Lefty have been traveling the country doing exhibitions in spray paint art for universities and other random events.

"I think it's a fascinating art form," Watson said.

It's that fascination that drew Watson to the art. He said it took him a while to learn how to create a picture from only spray paint, but after he practiced every day, the process soon became natural.

Watson had enough time to paint after he was struck by lightning on the rooftop of his apartment, according to his Web site, http://www.joeandlefty.com.

He first started his profession in Central Park and Times Square, and after a period of drawing in only a modest crowd, he soon found himself surrounded by a mob every day, according to the site.

"A lot of our techniques we had to learn the hard way," Watson said. "It's like learning how to write your name."

The techniques of the spray paint art form are skills that took Watson and Lefty years to master, but Watson said he does not think everyone should wait that long. The two are now working on a how-to video that they will sell through their Web site.

Tom Clark, a junior accounting major from Odessa, said he'd lost track of the amount of time he'd spent watching Watson and Lefty work Thursday afternoon, but he said it had to be more than an hour.

"It's pretty crazy," he said. "I wish I could do that."

Clark said he was impressed that Watson and Lefty were doing their art for free for anyone who passed by to enjoy. As the time whittled down in the afternoon, Watson and Lefty had to pass out their last few postcards to a cluster of outstretched arms.

Whoever did not get a picture Thursday can order prints from the couple's Web site, Watson said.

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