Drawing was a childhood obsession; with an old briefcase full of pencils, paper and pens a creative state of mind stoked hours of entertainment spent in an imaginative land, far from the worries of the outside world. The appropriate subject for the frame of mind of a 70’s era child focused on souped up cars, tanks, guns and go-carts.
In 1978 skateboarding was discovered and to this day the influence of this exciting and diverse culture bent on fun, creative self expression continues to excite Mr. Element. His first graphic design gig was in high school in 1986, creating a logo for a local skateboard shop, the payment was a skateboard deck and $30. Since that time he’s been blessed with opportunities to be the founding art director of a groundbreaking original skateboard magazine, SLAP and to create a graffiti character that has influenced generations of artists worldwide for over 3 plus decades.
It was 1988 in San Francisco when he first spray painted the character under the name F.O.S.M (Fraternal Order of Skate Meisters), then after seeking a name that fit the tone of the fun and mischievous character, Mr. Element was coined after finding a character in a Green Lantern comic book. From that point on there was a prolific sequence of art on the walls, post office boxes, and anywhere else possible. He found unique and hard to reach locations and painted in the early morning hours on days when he wasn't responsible for parenting his first intelligent and talented daughter. Mr. Element slowly created a buzz on the streets. Not painting with a crew for the first few years, solo missions were the name of the game. Painting quickly and making sure to not get caught was the objective so many different iterations were used: Mister Element, Mr. E, ET and for the sake of expedience just the letter E, sometimes upper then mostly lower case. Primarily painted in the form of "street art" but way before that term was coined, in aerosol spray paint, pen & ink and stickers on the walls, poles and post office boxes of the San Francisco Bay Area. The frequency of new paintings as well as the creative, hard to access locations of these fun characters captured peoples attention. The character is a simple version of a stick figure…but with style. His eyes and massive, enigmatic smile break through a circular head to create a unique and stylistic icon. His hands, body and feet flow together and with a simplicity that are hard to match. Similar to a “smiley face” but just different enough to stand out. In street art, hip-hop and graffiti cultures the Mr. Element graffiti figure can be witnessed as a symbol in individuals tags or sometimes outright copied on the streets and sketchbooks throughout Europe and North America. He’s found in peoples art; influencing everyone from children to CEO’s. When hearing that when people first saw Mr. Element, from a broad range of social strati, ages, and cultures, were inspired to draw, paint or create only adds to the sense of joy evoked by Mr. Element’s creative process.
Mr. Element was selected to be the first art director at SLAP skateboard magazine in early 1992, around this same time he did graphics for Rick Ibaseta’s professional skateboard model for New Deal. The graphics for that skateboard are signed with a simple under case lettering as "element". This influenced Rick and his business partners to use the name Element within the board company they were starting…Underworld Element. Despite a verbal agreement where Mr. Element and Rick agreed that the company would NEVER use the name Element alone, additionally that they would give Mr. Element graphic design work (to allow him to have some part in the vision and artistic tone of the company), to flow skateboard products his way and give props for the inspiration of the name of the company. NONE of that was honored. The first stickers of the company that Mr. Element saw (working at SLAP skateboard magazine) said ELEMENT alone…thats it. A very vexed Mr. Element called A. Howell, art director and partner at Underworld Element, whom acted like there was never a contract to not use the name Element alone. It’s recalled with sadness that he venomously responded, “Its JUST a name”.
Mr. Element has designed graphics for t-shirts and snowboards, independently publishing his own 'zines (a type of DIY, self published, Xeroxed, low run magazine) under the name Mr. Element. This has been recently shortened to the name MR. LMNT to prevent any confusion with any other brand or comic book characters.
Mr. Element was first published Internationally in 1988/89 in Thrasher Skateboard Magazine (High Speed Publishing) when his art for the “Mail Drop” heading was selected and purchased. He was art director of SLAP Skateboard Magazine where the character Mr. Element was used for cartoons and his graphic design for companies such as Think and Venture was published and used commercially on an International scale.
