Keeling Group

Those of you living in Minneapolis surely must have come across the larger-than-larger-than-life stencil paintings of giraffes, lions, babies, porcupines, and sharks from the Broken Crow. Those of you living in Austin TX are currently being treated to a brand new slew of paintings put up by the duo just last week and might be wondering what? who? how? huh? Rest easy, we're here to answer your questions and help get everybody familiar with Broken Crow in preparation for brand new art print diptych we'll be screenprinting and publishing! We will be debuting the print set at our booth at Flatstock 24. Drive around Austin and see if you can find all of their new murals, then take the prints home with you.   So just who is Broken Crow? Introduce yourselves! Broken Crow is John and Mike. We cut holes in things and paint through the holes. We like to do this as large as time will allow.   Why stencils? There's really nothing more bad-ass than playing with knives for a living. Cutting stencils is the exact opposite of making artwork in public, and we need balance in our lives.    Can you briefly explain your process? How do you go from the initial idea in your head all the way up to a gigantic painting on the side of a building? We have lots of conversations. Then, we make lots of drawings. Throw in some coffee, some whiskey, some sleep deprivation. We pick the drawings we like the best, spend 20 hours turning them into large-scale stencils, and find a wall to paint it on.  How did the mural project in Austin come out? What is the connection with the art print? Austin came out better than we could have anticipated. We ended up doing 10 walls in 6 days, it's been a total whirlwind. Billy Bishop of Obsolete Industries has been our cultural ambassador down here, and went above and beyond anything we could have expected.  When we were coming up with concepts for what we were going to paint in Austin, we got really excited about the new drawings we were working on. At that point we got ahold of Ben, he was into it, and the rest was history. Broken Crow Stencil Mural - 1 Day Time lapse - Lion Man from The BFC on Vimeo.   What other artists' work have you been enjoying lately? Carrie Thompson, C-215, MF Doom, M-City, Eelus, Logan Hicks, Erik Burke, Doomtree, Blu, Maria Juranic, Elbow Toe, Sten & Lex, The Chicharones, Four Tet, MOP, The Weakerthans, El Mac and Retna, Meggs, Drew Peterson. We could go on and on...