We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kevin “mr.soul” Harp. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kevin “mr.soul” below.
Kevin “mr.soul”, appreciate you joining us today. The first dollar you earn is always exciting – it’s like the start of a new chapter and so we’d love to hear about the first time you sold or generated revenue from your creative work?
My first dollar earned as a visual artist was around the 7th or 8th grade. I began doing graffiti on jeans for some of my fellow students. It started out as just something to do because at that time, Hip-Hop Culture was big and brewing, and airbrushed jeans, jackets and hats with graffiti-based art was the inspiration for me. This was pre-airbrush for me though. I hadn’t earned the right to grasp one of those in my hands yet! But my process at the time was this:
1. Bleach the jeans
2. After drying, draw the design on the jeans
3. Use an iron to heat the area of the design I”m coloring
4. Color the design using Crayons, and the wax would melt into the jeans.
I had a good friend Vindal Ogletree who used to be my product placement. I’d do jeans for him and he’d bring back customers. I believe I was charging $5 per leg when I first started! Now it would be something like $500 per leg!
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Art grasped my attention at a very early age. I had a cousin who was into comic books and kung fu, and this was the subject of most of his drawings. I would trace or try to re-draw the things in his sketchbook in addition to copying my favorite cartoon characters. Fat Albert, Spiderman and Marvin The Martian were some of my go to characters. This would be around 1st – 3rd grade. Around 4th grade, Hip-Hop Culture began making a space for itself in society, and the visual arts element to the culture was the graffiti artist. The movie “Beat Street”, and documentary “Style Wars” along with books Subway Art and Spraycan Art, would change my entire thought process and willingness to participate with art.
After a few summer classes and further artistic indoctrination through graffiti, I would continue to draw and perfect my craft on into high school. It was here that I met and became a student of SANO, the city’s claimed and proclaimed graffiti king. SANO and the Doin’ Everything Funky (D.E.F.) crew provided the landscape for artistic motivation for many young Black artists in the city. It was under this mentoring that I was introduced to the concept, purpose of and tools used to be an artist.
I would take this knowledge and experienced gained from being mentored by SANO throughout my artistic journey to The Art Institute of Pittsburgh, back home to Cleveland and eventually to Atlanta, GA for 20 years. While in Atlanta, I worked primarily in the music and entertainment industry doing graphic design, brand identity and music package design for people such as August Alsina, Pimp C of the legendary rap group UGK, Patchwerk Recording Studios, Organized Noize (who discovered and produced Outkast) and many more. During this time in Atlanta, one of the owners of Patchwerk Recording Studios introduced me to fellow artist Miya Bailey who then introduced me to his business partner Tuki Carter. Approximately 4-5 years after this meeting, Miya Bailey and Tuki Carter would go on to establish #CityOfInk, a now 16 year old tattoo shop and art gallery in Atlanta’s Castleberry Hill Arts District. Through City Of Ink, I was able to rekindled the environment, business mission and creative camaraderie with a community of artists ranging from tattooists, poets, painters, illustrators, builders, fashion designers, photographers and documentarians.
I returned back to Cleveland in October, 2016 after suddenly losing my father. The nature of creative work I survived doing in Atlanta didn’t have the same economic support, so I had to reinvent my artistic approach and that led me to public art. To date, I have serviced 9 murals throughout Cleveland, with 5-6 more going into fall of 2023. I have been able to find a greater purpose in communicating directly to my community through art. I’ve established a project entitled #InspireYourCity which is currently using public art as a vehicle to motivate and inspire the parts of Cleveland that are often neglected when it comes to servicing public art. The Inspire Your City Project is funded by the St. Lukes Foundation and will enable me to not only curate 5 murals in the foundation’s footprint, but to also build relationships, conversations and new ideas centered around public art.
Have you ever had to pivot?
I spoke briefly about a pivot in my previous statement, but October 6, 2016 was that moment for me. It was two days after my father’s 69th birthday. We spoke that Tuesday for a couple of hours, then Thursday morning I received a call that my father had passed away. At the time, I already had a ticket booked to fly home on the 9th to assist my dad around the house because my mother was having an important surgery on the 13th.
My world changed drastically. I made the immediate, spontaneous and not-too-thought-out decision to move back to Cleveland. I compiled 20 years of living in Atlanta into 2-3 weeks, and came back to where I first started. Because I hadn’t thought out a real plan and moved based on emotion, I really didn’t know what the hell I was going to do in Cleveland. My first 2 1/2 years back was my mother being in and out of the hospital, multiple random emergency visits and no clear vision on what I would be doing in Cleveland professionally or even to maintain my sanity. I received an opportunity to work on a mural in one of Cleveland’s neighborhoods and that became my catalyst in finding my way. That mural in 2018 led to my opportunity to install and/or facilitate 9 murals to date, with an additional 6 going into 2023.
Can you share your view on NFTs? (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)
I’m a big supporter of NFTs and the concept in which that represent. I have been an active participant in the crypto space since December of 2017. But in January of 2021 is when my friend and fellow artist Goldi Gold sent me an article talking about NFTs. I spent the next two months avoiding all of my real responsibilities to dig deep as I could into how NFTs worked. I compiled this research under an email entitled “NFTs & Crypto Shxt!!” that I sent to all of my creative friends in order to bring them up to speed with the information I discovered.
Since then, I have sold 3 NFTs, two on the Foundation marketplace, and one with Mint Gold Dust. The latter was a company I met while on a trip to ETH Denver in February of 2022. After a brief encounter and conversation on an elevator ride, it led to a meeting with the marketplace’s founder who was so impressed with my work that she invited me back to be a part of their public auction which was a part of the closing for ETH Denver. The NFT that was auctioned was a Procreate Timelapse of a piece entitled “Afro Puffs” that sold for 1 ETH (valued at about $2550 at the time).
I am getting back into the NFT mix and am working to partner with Mint Gold Dust for an NFT project centered around some of the murals I’ve installed around Cleveland. I think that NFTs are the answer and the future for creatives who want to take back control of the ownership and placement of their work. While NFT technology is still in its infancy, I do strongly believe it will continue to impact how we view ownership, above and beyond just art and images.
AS part of my NFT journey, I started a podcast called “NFTs & Crypto Shxt!!” with a fellow artist from Cleveland to provide raw, unfiltered conversations about our experiences in the NFT and crypto space. That podcast can be heard on Apple Podcasts!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.mistersoul216.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mistersoul216
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mistersoul216
- Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/mr_soul216
- Other: https://www.instagram.com/mr.soul216 https://www.instagram.com/nftsandcryptoshxt https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/nfts-and-crypto-shxt/