Oakland
In Search Of The Sage Serpent
by | Dec 20, 2023 10:44 am
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Posted to: Visual Art
Agustín Maes Photo
"Sage Serpent" on Maybelle Avenue
“Sage Serpent“
Maybelle Avenue & MacArthur Boulevard
Laurel District, Oakland
www.last1s.com
www.fistofflour.com
No names, no faces. That’s what I promised one of the co-founders of Last Ones, the artists’ collective that painted “Sage Serpent” (circa 2021), a gorgeous mural on the outside wall of Fist of Flour Doughjo, a take-out pizzeria I visit regularly for their superb culinary creations (especially their “Shroomin’ Rooster” and “Blueberry Hill” pies).
The mural is beautiful: an enormous quetzalcoatl ribboning the length of the wall on Maybelle Avenue and MacArthur Boulevard in Oakland’s Laurel District. Rendered with a blockiness complimented by the cinderblocks of the wall, the feathered serpent is ridden by a peaceful-looking figure over depictions of the Oakland cityscape and rows of corn and tomatoes, its tail wrapped around an Aztec temple. Day and night are both represented. Although it’s dazzlingly present, it’s also somehow unobtrusive – a part of the neighborhood. Its conspicuousness is also its hiddenness. But my own eye is arrested by the mural every time I see it.
Agustín Maes
Detail, "Sage Serpent"
My first attempt at contact with the artists was weeks earlier: a brief email through the Last Ones collective’s website. There was but one sanguine response.
So I went to their storefront, my persistent knocking at their studio’s door riling a beautiful gray pit bull, her barking and frantic “who-are-you?” body language rousing the collective’s occupants. No names were offered.
But the pair who stood warily in the doorway — a young man and a young woman — gave me stickers they’d made after I explained my intentions (namely, to write a short piece on the mural for this publication).
The co-founder and I met at the collective’s studio a week later. It was raining, so I showed up with my hoodie cowl up. A man walked over to me on the sidewalk, his hoodie also up, the same pretty gray dog on a leash.
“Can I help you?”
explained who I was, that I’d contacted him. He introduced himself (using his real name), and we shook hands.
When we walked into the space, I saw that the storefront is a bare studio with a larger space in the back, a smatter of works-in-progress on white, over-painted walls similar to a gallery preparing for its next show. It is a place, I was told, where graffiti artists collaborate on murals and other projects not only in Oakland, but also in southern California, New York City, and internationally in Mexico, Brazil, and elsewhere.
We sat down at a tiny table and — I’ll call him “Sage,” after the mural — spoke lovingly and with acute sadness about the other co-founder, William Kavner. A prolific graffiti artist and muralist originally from Reno, Kavner died in June of 2022. Sage told me that Kavner left behind an 8‑year-old daughter. It seemed Kavner’s memory and ethic are a large part what drives how Sage described Last Ones: “It’s about the collective more than the individual.”
Agustín Maes
"Sage Serpent" on Maybelle Avenue & MacArthur Boulevard; Fist of Flour Doughjo
Sage also told me that Kavner made “monumental contributions” to mural art. “Muralism,” he went on, “is ever-expanding because graffiti is part of the urban landscape. It never goes away. You can’t silence it; it needs an outlet.” An important aspect of the Last Ones collective, he said, is that the main objective is to provide professional representation to graffiti artists transitioning into muralism: “A purposeful trajectory moving forward.”
I wanted to go to the mural and have Sage talk about it. But because of the rain we agreed to meet the following Sunday.
When I arrived, the mural was dappled by sunshine and the shadows of a sycamore tree’s reddened leaves.
Without showing the co-founder’s face, I filmed the mural and let him talk about it. Here’s what he had to say.
Agustín Maes
Painting by Last Ones, interior of Fist of Flour Doughjo
After I turned off my phone’s camera, Sage asked, “What’s your favorite part?”
“The figure,” I said without hesitation.
When we parted ways, I went inside Fist of Flour right as it opened to snap a few photos of the wall painting inside the pizzeria. Sage had told me it contained William Kavner’s tag. May he rest in peace.
Agustín Maes
William Kavner's tag
Previous Independent Review Crew coverage of murals:
• Mural: The Cosmic Dance of Thiccfoot and the Gayliens
