Arts IC | ArtiFactory

Michael Stenerson | The Art Of Saying No

This collection of artworks from artist Michael Stenerson, also known by his pen name WOLF1200, is part of a continuing body of work. “The Art Of Saying No” is the umbrella for Michael’s art practice, which consists of paintings and drawings in the genre of Style Writing. This art movement was birthed on the NYC subways in the late 1960s and pioneered in the 1970s and 80s. The art focuses on letterforms and the abstraction of a letter’s architecture. Color, movement, and form are central to the exploration and research of these themes.

Michael grew up skateboarding, doing graffiti, photography, and music. He has continued to refine his craft and consistently stay creative throughout the years. Along with painting and music, he has worked as a professional photographer for most of his career.

Interview with Michael Stenerson

Opening Reception – August 8 | 6-8 pm

Arts IC | ArtiFactory Gallery
120 N. Dubuque St.
Iowa City, IA 52240

Free Admission

Our Gallery is open:

• Wednesdays from 4-6 pm
• Fridays from 4-6 pm
• Saturdays from 1-3 pm
• This exhibit is on display through the end of August

Can’t visit these days? Please make an appointment.

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Interview with Michael Stenerson

ArtiFactory: How do you define graffiti? 
  I don’t think there’s one single answer to that, it really depends on how you approach it. At its simplest, graffiti is just markings on walls. But at its most complex, it’s an entire culture, a visual language, and a form of personal expression that spans styles, cities, and decades.
  What’s always drawn me to graffiti is its energy–the raw, expressive quality of it, and especially the way artists interpret and manipulate letters. I love the architecture of letterforms and the genre of style writing, where the focus is on creating intricate, dynamic compositions using letters as the core structure. There’s so much variation in how artists approach it, and that diversity of style is what keeps it compelling to me.

ArtiFactory: How did you become interested in letters as visual “architecture.” 
  I grew up in Duluth, Minnesota, and started skateboarding at an early age. Through skateboarding, I was introduced to art, music, and culture from all over the country. That eventually led me to graffiti, which I discovered through magazines and books–this was the ’90s, before the internet, so printed media and whatever you saw on the walls were our main sources. My friends and I learned to paint simply by doing it: we bought some spray paint and started writing our names wherever we could.
  What drew me in was the style of these aerosol pieces I was seeing–beyond meaning, I was in awe of the styles and letter forms, and keen to figure out how to do it myself. 
In many ways, graffiti and stylewriting have a lot in common with sign painting, which I’m also a big fan of. Duluth, being an old port city, still has a lot of those old original hand-painted signs on its brick buildings. There’s a craftsmanship to that kind of work, a trade that requires precision, patience, and skill, much like aerosol art.

ArtiFactory: How did you make the transition from wall to canvas. 
  Back in college, I earned my BFA from the University of Minnesota. While I was there, I had a great teacher who really helped me think about what it means to try and create something on canvas that you usually do in the street. That was a big shift. It’s funny, your first instinct is to take what you’ve done on the street and just move it onto a canvas, but it doesn’t always work that way. What looks alive in a back alley can fall flat in a living room, and vice versa. Generally when I paint a wall, it spans 15 feet or more, large canvases are usually 2-4 feet, it’s a very different medium.
  I started reimagining my work, thinking about what a small section of a larger piece might look like on its own. That’s when I stopped trying to paint a whole word on canvas and focused more on form and abstraction. I still work quickly, though. A lot of my paintings come together in a single day, it’s like they’re bursts of captured energy.
Back when I used to paint the tops of my skateboards, I felt like the board absorbed some of that energy. Like it actually made me skate with more power. That’s the feeling and energy I try to bring into my paintings—something charged, something alive.

ArtiFactory: Are there any artists who have influenced your work? 
  In graffiti culture, originality is everything. The goal is to develop a style that’s distinctly your own. You never want your work to feel like a copy of someone else’s. That said, there are foundational figures who shaped the language of the art form. One of them was Phase 2, a true pioneer. He recently passed away, and that hit me hard; his influence runs deep in the culture, and his legacy of innovation still resonates to this day.
  When I paint, I see myself in conversation with those who came before me, all the pioneers who have contributed to the growth of this culture. I’m constantly thinking about color theory, the architecture of letters, movement, flow and technique. It’s about pushing the form while staying rooted in the tradition, developing a voice that feels honest and original. My work doesn’t always carry literal meaning, but I hope it sparks an emotional reaction. It’s less about reading the piece and more about feeling it.

ArtiFactory: How did your website, The Art of Saying No, (www.theartofsayingno.com) come about?  
  The concept is twofold. First, the art I create inherently pushes back against convention. It uses nontraditional tools, an esoteric visual language, and comes from a form (graffiti) that society has spent decades rejecting. Even as it gains some mainstream recognition, it still exists largely at the margins. So in that sense, the work itself is a kind of rebellion, a quiet but persistent “no” to traditional norms of art making and validation.
  The second layer is more personal. I realized that I was saying “yes” to projects that didn’t serve my creative vision. I’d take them out of obligation or fear–the fear that, as a freelance artist, the next opportunity might not come. But those projects drained my time and energy, and worse, they began to dilute the identity I was trying to build through my work.
  The Art of Saying No is, ultimately, about saying yes to yourself. It’s about protecting your time, your focus, and your purpose. For artists, and really for anyone, learning to say no isn’t just a boundary; it’s a form of self-respect. And we could all probably use a bit more of that.

ArtiFactory: How has Iowa City nurtured you as an artist?  
  I’ve been fortunate to meet and work with a lot of great people here over the years. The projects I’ve taken on in Iowa City have pushed me creatively and helped me grow in ways I never expected. Some challenged me to rethink what a “graffiti-style” piece even means, how it translates when you’re painting inside a space like Merge Iowa City versus out in the beer garden at Gabe’s.
  What’s made the biggest difference is the community. So many people have supported my work, whether through commissions, collections, or simply offering opportunities to create. While Iowa City may not have the population to sustain a traditional gallery scene, it’s consistently found ways to support local artists. The downtown mural initiatives funded by the city are a perfect example–they’ve created space for artists to get paid and be visible.
  The energy from the university also adds something unique to the city. There’s a creative pulse here that keeps things interesting. I’ve truly enjoyed my time in Iowa City, and I’m looking forward to continuing to be part of its evolving art landscape.