Street roots., May 08, 2015, Page 6, Image 6

Street Roots • May 8-14, 2015
Vendors
W
Nestor
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Answers to puzzles on page 15
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BY LEONORA KO
C O N T R IB U T IN G W R IT E R
or Nestor, life is art and art is life, and
he has the voice, poems and tattoos
to prove it.
“I’m an artist, but not in any one
particular form of art,” Nestor says. “I
started writing when I was 14. When I was
15,1 sang in a punk band and really got into
graffiti art.”
Nestor got a GED at 17 and graduated
from a community college with an associate
degree in journalism and a taste for Ernest
Hemingway and T.S. Eliot. He has published
poems, short stories and website articles
under a pen
name.
“Writing was
always what I
was best at,” he
says. “Writing
was everything
to me.”
In his 20s,
Nestor taught
himself to paint
and tattoo.
“I’m a
biomechanical artist. If
you bring up Facebook, I could
show you printouts; they’re
H
He has worked for a tattoo shop and has
sold graffiti paintings and one full-scale
painting, which he worked on for a year and
a half, for $1,500.
“Lately, I haven’t had time to just sit
down and write,” Nestor says. “I m a
spoken-word poet I freestyle really good.
Freestyle is rhyming off the top of your
head. I can always rhyme off the top of my
head, anytime that I want to. You basically
stop worrying about messing up and let it
g°-”
|
As for painting, it’s hard for him to buy
paints and canvases while homeless. But he
has sharpies in his backpack if the drawing
urge hits.
Nestor came to
Portland four months
ago, in part to
reunite with an old
girlfriend. When
■Si
that didn’t work out, he stayed in motels for
a few days and then was out on the street
“When I first came, I was going to write •
an article about being in Portland, he says.
“I used to sleep outside at the dim sum
place. I left my phone in my shoe, and
someone grabbed i t It had everything - my
music, all my notes; everything was gone.
Devastating.”
Nestor says selling Street Roots has been
good. “You talk to everybody. They can look
homeless, they can look gosh darn rich
you talk to everybody, and I do.
“It’s getting better. Everything is getting
better,” Nestor adds. “I make more money
now. Fve got friends here now. I know
where to go to sleep, where I’m safe. It’s
right by a lot of semis that come hauling
ass. I’m kind of jumpy at night like
they’re going to hit me. But I don’t
worry about getting stolen from.”
Nestor says: “I take it day by day. If
something happens for me that’s good
for me, then I’ll take it, I’ll jump on it.
If somebody offers me a job, I’ll
take it.
“I’ve met some of the most
weird and beautiful people
here in this city. I can
picture myself, if I had
life a pad and a pen what
,
would I be writing ...
'
y°u ga*n knowledge
from everything
IV1 that you
C I A
exPerience.”
pretty wild. I also do 3-D graffiti
art, but a lot more elaborate because
I’ve mastered my style inore. The
11
original biomechanical artist was H.R.
Giger. His stuff is crazy. Have you ever seen
the ‘Alien’ movies? He designed all those
aliens.”
Nestor points to tattoos on his arms.
“These are my designs here. That’s one of
my names.”
1111
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