As you may know, there is graffiti of a three-eyed fish on the outside of the Korean Bell. It has a unique art style, and it has been there for longer than any current student at Dana has. For a long time, there was a blank block of concrete nearby the three-eyed fish, one artist decided to fill up the empty space with graffiti, a one-eyed octopus. I decided to interview the artist of the unusual cephalopod. Starting with asking if the painting was a planned or spontaneous decision.

“It was pretty planned. I thought about the spot of blank concrete sticking out and wanted to paint something there. I was doodling during a lecture in art school and decided that the octopus could be a cool design.”

 The next question I asked was,” It’s an interesting choice choosing to paint a one-eyed octopus, why did you choose that design?” 

“My thought was that the three-eyed fish was obviously mutated, so I wanted to do something similar. I decided to go in the opposite direction using less eyes instead of more. Technically it is a hexapus because it has four legs instead of 8. In the original sketch, it had 8 but I didn’t bother painting those. I think that it compliments the three-eyed fish very well.”

The last question I asked the artist was, “How does it feel to have something you didn’t have permission to graffiti turn into an iconic image to San Pedro locals?” 

“I was hoping it would be adopted by the community like they did with the three-eyed fish. The first time I did it the city patched it up with gray paint to blend in with the concrete, but I re-did it in a different pose. After that, I touched up a few times, but I mainly decided to leave it up to the community whether it would stay or not. And it’s been there since 2001-2002.”