March 16, 2005

By TIM SHISLER
ARGUS-COURIER INTERN

Twenty-four-year-old Ricky Watts is a soft-spoken guy. His quiet ways, short answers, and easy-going demeanor belie his vibrant works of art that go on exhibit this Saturday at Boomerang, 12 Kentucky St. in Petaluma.

What began as childhood doodling, then morphed into winning coloring contests and receiving high grades in handwriting, has become a career path, producing a talented style-writer who has moved from the world of vandalism (leaving his mark on public property), into the realm of painting on canvas.

Style-writing, or graffiti art as some call it, is making its mark in the art world as more and more artists leave the subway cars, undersides of bridges and tunnel interiors to paint on canvases. In New York City the art form has been accepted for years; now the west coast is making its push.

Watts's love of art began when his mother wrote his name in bubble letters and allowed him to color them. As he grew older he adapted those initial bubble letters into his own quick, flashy style. By high school he was style-writing classmates' names for them in return for lunch money.

Then one evening, he was brought home in a squad car.

"Two friends and I were under a bridge where we painted," Watts recalled. "A guy walking by must have smelled the paint, because there was no way he could see us; and he called the cops." By the time Watts realized what was happening, an officer was there yelling, "Freeze!"

"It scared the daylights out of me," Watts remembered.

The boys were taken to the police station. His friends' angry parents picked them up, but Watts's folks were taking a walk. "A cop brought me home, walked me to the door and told my mom and dad, 'We found your son under a bridge, vandalizing'."

Watts said his parents were more understanding than those of his friends. "They weren't thrilled, but they didn't scold. I had to do some community service and find new places to paint, but it wasn't that bad."

One of his early pieces of public art was created while he was in high school, as a catharsis for grief. Following the death in a car accident of Watts's good friend, Adam Westcott, Watts went to school authorities and received permission to create a mural for Westcott. Watts and a fellow style-writer transformed a drab green fence at Casa into a bright and colorful wall of remembrance for their friend, who was a star Casa Grande athlete.

Watts also has contributed his work to the skate park and the Phoenix Theater. Before it was painted out, he was a major player on the ever-changing style-writing mural along Hopper Street. "We painted there continuously for five years. People came from all over the place to paint it: it was a rarity, and unique in the Bay Area."

He said he'd love to start the wall up again, and that no one knows who ordered the colorful stretch of lettering to be blotted out.

After a series of dead-end jobs -- mail boy, grocery bagger, pizza deliveryman, video store clerk -- he applied to, and was accepted, at an art college in Southern California, now the Art Institute of California. Now Watts focuses primarily on canvas and has began to establish himself as an artist.

Last summer he displayed several dozen broken skateboards that he had painted at Petaluma's Board Asylum. The skateboards were a free canvas, and he could get all he wanted. When the store started having art shows, he thought, "It would be cool to do an entire show of broken boards with the ones that came from the shop. The kids could see their boards painted and on the wall. Graffiti and skateboarding go hand in hand. A lot of kids that paint also skate."

He met Boomerang co-owner Jack Haye through local photographer Scott Hess, who was documenting the Hopper Street wall and wanted to know who was painting there. "Jack has taken me under his wing and given me the confidence for doing shows and I am forever grateful."

Currently Watts is not pricing his art out of the range of an average art collector, hoping to sell multiple works to the same person. "People ask me why I sell my art so cheap, and I tell them it's because I would rather have one person own three pieces of my work than one piece that costs so much they can't get more than one. Maybe someday I'll be able to ask that much for a painting, but that's when the demand sets in."

Currently working on a number of new pieces for the Boomerang show, which he's calling "Spontaneous Combus-tion," Watts continues to push the boundaries of his art.

"I like finding ways to make my art unique, to make it stand out. For example, I'll paint the frame that goes with the piece I'm framing, or paint the matte board, or mount the piece so it's above the frame." He's even practiced a form of pentimento: purchasing a framed picture and painting the Plexiglas that covers the art.

"I really don't think when I create my art," Watts said. "I just start at one point and work my way until I'm finished. It feels like I'm painting a journey."

(For a look at Watts' art, go to www.rickywatts.com)

SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION

What: One-man show by Ricky Watts

Where: The Gallery Up the Stairs at Boomerang, 12 Kentucky St.

When: March 19 through April 9.

Reception: 6-8 p.m., March 19

Details: Call Boomerang, 773-3222 or go to www.rickywatts.com

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