End Hip End It Brings Art to Life

By Grant Morris
Music Journalist

Beautiful art is something that can bring joy to all who see it. Art transcends the hate, fear and negativity that seems to plague every one of us as we go about living the human experience. An added dimension to its beauty is the truly amazing creative process involved with summoning art from the corridors of the mind out into the physical world. To see this process, the closest thing in this journalist’s opinion to actual magic, live and in real time is a treat unlike any other. I was able to see this process in person, using the unlikely tools of spray paint and corrugated metal.

As part of End It Hip End It psychedelic music festival, two of Houston’s finest cutting edge artists, Bao Pham (Baoist) and Sylvia Blanco (Blanco) were enlisted to create unique and original pieces while the finest doom, psych, and other assorted third-eye-stimulating genres floated through the air. The live paintings by these two artists were able to transcend art of the still frame and become truly moving pieces, becoming more filled out with time. Sylvia Blanco and Pham are friends, as well as collaborators, and heard about the festival via word of mouth. Blanco sees her art as something deeply personal, to the point that it “is hard to explain what (she) paints because (she) paints what she can’t explain”. With gravitas, Blanco lets her work do the talking, finishing a spur of the moment mural of an octopus holding an anatomical human heart in the span of a few hours.

Her friend and fellow Houstonian, Mr. Bao Pham is an artist with a pure vision. He has helped to create several mini-festivals featuring art, music and comedy in the Houston area known as the Generators Playground. In a few short sentences, Pham, who creates art both under his own name and as Baoist, was kind enough to share with me a spoken word piece, entitled Meaning of Life, about the titular subject that seems to perplexes us all so much. For a few brief moments, in such a cohesive, creative environment as a music festival, the answer seems to be apparent.

“The meaning of life isn’t what you want, why you want it and how to get what you want,” Pham said. “But if you don’t understand the most important lesson in life, which is to love everyone you meet regardless of age, occupation, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or religion, then you miss the point and meaning entirely. Because I can tell you that through quantum physics, we are all connected on a molecular level through entanglement. Just like psychology teaches you that love is the root of all emotions. Now if love is the root of all emotions, we use our words to divide these emotions. Words are inert and in actuality, love is what connects us all on a molecular level. Therefore, love is my religion.”

Featured image by Grant Morris.