Andrew Poneros, aka Pork had us over to his West Side Highway studio one night where we sat, drank beers, and talked about the usual stuff: ghosts, 9-11, sea serpents, and the East River moat around Manhattan.

Chief Magazine: Let’s just start at the beginning... when did you start off as Pork?

Andrew Poneros: Pork started off as just an absurdist’s commentary in the beginning, like late high school.  It was my tag.  Everyone else's were like ‘Drastic’ and ‘Killer.’

Uh huh? Dead serious? [Laughs] Deadly serious?

Yeah, just like ‘rough and tough’, ‘fear this’ type shit.  So, I decided to introduce a bit of irony to the graffiti game... something funny, something ridiculous and absurd. So, I just came up with Pork.  And it sort of took on its own meaning over the years and developed into something bigger.  I started getting wiser and began considering social issues that affect me.  Namely, greed, insatiability, bureaucratic bullshit and then it kinda, sort of became about that.  So, then the pig became my symbol.  It’s double-headed because it got so greedy it devoured itself… It’s just a commentary on my own insatiability, as well as other people around me, basically the American way.

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So is that satisfying then?  Is that, you know, making the pig and then having the pig who devoured itself… If it’s a comment on insatiability…

You mean, am I satisfied? 

Sure… [Laughs]

I don't know.

I think it helps.  It just seems like all I see is sick capitalism everywhere.  So, that’s kinda what my work became about; all the money that governs decisions.  You see all this real estate going up and you see beautiful buildings being torn down, and you see everyone screwing their neighbor over oil, and it’s crazy.  It’s wild.  So, kinda the only thing I can do about it is recognize it. 

Right.  Well, when did you move from that to the work you’re doing now?

What do you mean?

When did your work move from the work you were doing as a late teen?

You mean, when did it start to take on meaning?

Yeah.  Well, I mean, when did it start to taking on meaning?  I mean, you weren’t running around as a teenager, writing Pork on walls, thinking of yourself as an artist.

Hell no!  No, no, no…  I was just doing what any other graffiti writer does... Just trying to tell the world that I'm here.

Sure.  But was there a point when, like…

Um, there was a time when I was doing stencils and people were taking it as communist propaganda.  I think that’s what people thought it was. 

Yeah?

I suppose because the "P" was backwards and there was a star in the "O" and it was before people where used to seeing stencils on the street, they assumed it was some "commie" shit.  But that was just part of the transitional period.  I think… it made me realize I could use the power of the street to make a social statement.  Sometimes you’re doing things, you don’t know why, and suddenly they just start to take on meaning.

Hmm… Ok, and you studied art in school?

Yes.  I studied design. That's why all my shit is pretty graphic.  And that’s why I decided on a logo for myself and that’s why branding is so immersed in my psyche. 

For sure.

Just years and years of breaking down meaning to a simple shape.

Well, that’s sort of like, in a lot of ways, ties into capitalism, you know?  The branding of something…

Absolutely.  100%.  Fighting evil with evil.

So, are you making money?

Slowly. [Laughs] Yeah, yeah, the momentum is gathering.  It’s starting to happen.