By Rodney Simpson
Photography by Chilly O
Good day so if you read Part one in the magazine that's available now via Magcloud.com this is Part two the conclusion to a very long and in-depth conversation that I had with him.
RS: Have you done any major collaborations with your art in the past?
MB: What do you mean when you say major like for me stuff don’t be major to me, you know what I am saying.
RS: Like coke or just with a major brand
MB: Yeah, I did stuff like that growing up my whole life
RS: Can you elaborate further?
MB: Like who?
RS: Like Coke or Samsung etc ?
MB: I mean they ain’t paying me now
RS: Not like that
MB: I mean they aren’t paying me to say or advertise the stuff I did for them. Once it’s paid like a mercenary job, I got paid thank you for this check. Ok thank you Viacom, thank you VH1, thank you those shows but I don’t own them, so I don’t care about them. So, I mean like I don’t want to get in trouble, and I want them to keep getting me paid. But it’s not a big deal to me because I don’t own those companies it’s not owned by black people it’s not owned by my brother it’s not owned by somebody I know personally just a bunch of people that sit in an office behind a desk and then they say hey we want to use you to reach this demographic of people, so we are going to pay you this much money. So, to me it’s not a big deal. I know we are using each other. I am using them for the money, and they are using me to reach a demographic which is cool, and I love to do that more often. BUT I DONT NAME DROP UNTIL THEY PAY ME to name drop them. It’s good consulting work for example a company like coke will come in and say hey Miya Bailey look at these products and give us your opinion of them we are going to pay you per hour to sit there and give them your opinion. Nike did the same thing, Adidas did the same thing all the major companies you can probably think of, I have probably worked with them in some way, and they pay me to give my opinion to them, so it’s like that’s cool.
RS: How are you involved with CITY OF INK?
MB: I am the owner
RS: I never knew that
MB: I founded it I started it
RS: So, tell me more about city of ink
MB: Well city of ink started as a collective of artist just a whole bunch of us friends from college a few of them were homeless and I was the one that could acquire a building so I got the building and we built it up that was the first location and that’s how you got CITY OF INK it’s about to be 18 years old in February.
RS: Is that the only location you got
MB: for CITY OF INK, I only got one city of ink location
RS: Just that one
MB: Yeah, that one then we got private city of ink studios.
RS: So, tell me more about city of ink studios
MB: It’s just like a private place or co workspace for artists to come in and work together to coop and bounce ideas off each other, but it’s not just focused on tattoo artists, its tattoo artist, illustrators, painters, photographers and musicians. Just a bunch of people bouncing concepts to create new the focus of the private studio is to create new styles of art and tattooing is the foundation since the city of ink, but the foundation is really to create new styles of tattooing. So, you’re breaking kind of all the stereotypical stuff.
RS: So, you said you have a family
MB: Yeah, Yeah I got a large family well I mean it’s large enough.
RS: I mean as far as your immediate family like wife and children
MB: Yeah, Yeah I got some kids!
RS: Some kids!
MB: I got 5 children I mean they aren’t kids I have one child; the rest are adults. My oldest is 32 years old
RS: Are they here in Atlanta?
MB: No, I got the three in Asheville and the two younger ones are here.
RS: And you said you’re a grandfather
MB: Yeah, I got six of them
RS: WOW that’s Major
MB: That’s why I work like this man. Yeah, Monday is a busy day for me but it’s like having grandchildren is one of the great inspirations for me to keep it going you know what I am saying! My kids didn’t turn out to be artist they didn’t like the hours, they don’t want to work all day
RS: And all night sometimes!
MB: ah yeah, I want to see people and have fun but that’s the thing that turnt them away from ART is the hours and getting the solitude.
RS: But are they still creative?
MB: I don’t know like they haven’t tapped into that you know what I am saying, now my son is creative and my youngest one she seems like she’s pretty creative, but I don’t really push it onto them like you can tell when somebody is obsessed with something, and they are not. They can draw sometimes cool and all, but you can see if they are obsessed with it. I haven’t seen that with my children like I don’t think they are obsessed with anything so it’s like yeah you got to see if somebody got a little obsession with something ok this is what they are supposed to do. Like I can see like when a young artist if this kid is obsessed with being great in a field. They want to be better than everybody else that’s when I can tell that’s a natural artist if you got to push it on them and make them do it and ask if they are into it , they aren’t really into it like that I mean they could be good at it but it’s not their passion and I haven’t seen that in my children. They maybe, good at it but if they aren’t just doing it just to do it and I don’t want to push that on them.
RS: So, what do you have coming up next?
MB: Business wise shit man I want to retire but business wise I want to acquire more buildings and be a landlord, yeah rent the spots out to artist. That’s what my goal is to really kind of like to create passive income sit back chilling rent out the spaces I got and get people to run them. And make sure they get paid that leaves me more time to create artwork and live life a little bit.
RS: Have you shown your work outside of the states if so what countries have you been to with your art work.
MB: Yeah, London, Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels I think those are the 4 main ones.
RS: So, you smoke weed?
MB: Yeah, I smoke weed a lot, nothing wrong with that!
RS: You ever think about developing your own strain?
MB: Yeah, working on it but the farmers I got are divorcing so I got to see who is going to be my farmer now. Who is going to get the farm but yeah I been working on a strain for the last two years. Three different ones a HYBRID, INDICA and SATIVA really focused on a weed that artist can smoke and work with and that’s what the demographics is but like I said my farmers going through their little thing so whoever gets the farm who’s going to be my farmer. It’s in Oregon
RS: So, after all of this is done what do you want the legacy of MYIA BAILEY to be?
MB: I helped as many people as I possibly could that’s basically it, try to help as many artists as I could you know what I am saying. Like open as many doors as I possibly can. Knockum down and also teach artist OWNERSHIP artist be so caught up and amazed by who you work with and I was in this gallery but you don’t own them shits man that shit is not impressive, but I guess it’s a big deal to people who aren’t thinking past that so I try not to knock it but if I am speaking for myself. Like I am more impressed by, remember we were talking about GREG MIKE a minute ago right you were talking about the ART I was talking about the real estate. The real estate the ownership anybody can paint pretty pictures anybody can do that that’s not a hard job we all can create beautiful artwork. But what do you do with the beautiful artwork you created? That’s the real question we should be answering. What do you do with what you created and make money from it? What is the next evolution of it. You just make pretty paintings and that’s it or do you use the money to create bigger pieces of art, which is buildings. I mean look across the street somebody designed that architecture; somebody designed the inside and outside of it that’s impressive then you got to put artwork inside the building. To me art is like when artist buy a place run it and get 100% of their profit man to me that’s impressive. THATS THE WIN FOR ME I hope artist take that from me like look man it’s good to try and get in these galleries and do these things but it’s even better when you work hard sell it and then use that money to purchase a building to create your own gallery. Now you can employ your own people who put other people on be your own boss, be independent and you’re still outside working at other galleries all you want but now you have leverage because you don’t need them. You can say hey I don’t want to do a 50-50 deal I can put it in my own gallery and keep a bigger percentage can we talk the deal now you can really do the numbers really talk because we don’t need a gallery you can do it on your own you really got more leeway to say how about if I just rent the gallery out put my work in it for a month somebody might fall for that or go for it so it’s like that’s what it’s about OWNERSHIP of the spaces.
RS: 100% ownership?
MB: Yeah, control your DESTINY!
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